industrydocuments-blog

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Archiving the Anthropocene: Introducing UCSF’s Fossil Fuel Industry Documents

Guest Post By Yogi Hale Hendlin & Naomi Oreskes

On every front, academics, journalists, and policymakers compare the fossil fuel industry to the tobacco industry. The strategies of delay, exculpating blame by making the consumer responsible, denying scientific consensus, conducting important science purposefully buried while publishing industry-promoting and -funded science, and fostering public confusion over the real impacts of their products, are common in the histories of both tobacco and fossil fuel companies. A major difference between the two industries, however, is the timescale and scope of the harms caused. While public health professionals are well underway in coordinated efforts for a “tobacco endgame” – reducing smoking and tobacco prevalence to five percent of the population or less, with the possibility of ending the tobacco epidemic in certain areas within a couple decades – even if all fossil fuel production and consumption ended today, the fallout from the fifty years of delay caused by industry obfuscation will have ramifications for humans and other species for centuries or even millenia. If disruptive climate change continues unabated, the impacts on the planet may be essentially irreversible, at least as far as any humanly relevant scale.   The Fossil Fuel Industry Documents at the University of California’s Industry Documents Library provides an essential complement to the already nearly 15 million and growing internal industry documents from the tobacco, food, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. This new set of documents provides key evidence regarding what the fossil fuel industry knew regarding the catastrophic impacts climate change and its predicted time horizon, when they knew, and how these companies used every means possible to protect themselves and their shareholders at the expense of everyone else. These documents come from diverse sources, including the Climate Investigations Center, discovery processes in litigation, and documents published on Climate Files, largely derived from Freedom of Information Requests and lawsuits. While some of this collection’s documents overlap with other online databases, when examined in the context of the other archives in UCSF’s Industry Documents Library, a more nuanced picture emerges amongst the mosaic of shared lobbyists, consulting shared, public relations groups, between the fossil fuel, chemical, pharmaceutical, food, and tobacco industries. Inter-industry analysis can help make sense of the larger patterns across and within industries that have caused irremediable harms to public health, biodiversity, and the natural environment. UCSF’s collection of Fossil Fuel Industry documents highlight the mechanisms that have been used to thwart concerted action. A key aspect of this was the early knowledge the fossil fuels industry had about the ramifying consequences of unabated anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and the contrast between this and their public stance. For example, Exxon and other fossil fuel companies’ own research showed in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s that a doubling of anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 would likely cause “major shifts in rainfall/agriculture,” polar ice melt, coupled with “3°C global average temperature rise and 10°C at poles.” Yet they doubled-down on business-as-usual policies of continued and even intensified fossil fuel extraction of oil, gas, and coal, and spent significant amounts of money to create the impression in public that the science was highly uncertain. It is not that these companies were not aware of the opportunities to work towards mitigating the runaway global warming they were precipitating and shifting the direction of their energy companies towards less greenhouse gas polluting sources; they just time and again refused to do so. Why is this collection being housed at UCSF? One reason has already been suggested, and is discussed further below: the parallels between the misrepresentation and denial of climate science and the misrepresentation and denial of the harms of tobacco use. This parallel is not just analogical: documents show that many of the same individuals, PR and advertising companies, and think-tanks have been involved in both. The other reason is that climate change is a major global health threat. From the Lancet Countdown to the World Health Organization’s Climate Health Country Profile Project, the public health and medical communities worldwide are in agreement that climate change affects every aspect of health, often disproportionately harming those with the least resources for resilience. The World Health Organization estimates that children 5 years or younger bear 88% of the health burdens of climate change. Anthropogenic climate change will define the future of health for humans and life on this planet. It has already fundamentally shifted the geography of disease and increase in prevalence of both chronic and infectious disease. Fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change. Documents like those in this collection will be crucial in helping the public come to terms with the implications of these harms. Consider the current open constitutional climate lawsuit Juliana v. United States, filed by 21 youth plaintiffs against the United States Government on behalf of youth and future generations for actions that jeopardize the constitutional rights of children to life, liberty, and property threatened by climate change. The fossil fuel industry initially intervened in a failed attempt to dismiss the case; now they face numerous lawsuits themselves, both in the United States and across the globe. Over 80 prominent scientists and physicians as well as health organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics have submitted amicus briefs. As U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken wrote in her 2016 decision denying motions to dismiss the Juliana v. United States case, “Exercising my ‘reasoned judgment,’ I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.”1 The Tobacco-Climate Change Connection Historians and public health professionals working with documents from various industries have documented the parallels and links between tobacco and climate change. In some cases the parallels are virtually exact, as sentences such as “emphasize the uncertainty in scientific conclusions,” as one internal Exxon memo from 1988 concluded, echo the famous tobacco industry document “Doubt is our Product.”2  Cross-referencing the different collections are revealing. For example, the American Petroleum Institute (API) attempted to recruit the president and affiliates of the Tobacco Institute in 1997 for its own president and CEO position. Just as the tobacco industry promoted smoking not as a threat to public health but rather a “personal choice,” this same refrain is now being used by the fossil fuel industry urging people to make lifestyle choices as the solution to climate change. Such industry-sponsored “solutions” shift the blame from the industry to consumers. In the health literature, this public relations move is called “responsibilization,” as it deliberately aims to exculpate the industry from responsibility and delays effective supply-side interventions. These documents also highlight the relationships between industry and government and the conflicts of interest that develop when government and industry are intertwined. One notices, for example, a persistent revolving door between government and the fossil fuel industry, of which ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson’s brief tenure as the US Secretary of State is but one instance. These documents provide insight into how and why industry decisions get made not because of but despite science. While the documents are US focused, the patterns revealed are often applicable globally, because most large oil and gas companies operate internationally. The documents offered here are the raw materials of history. Publishing them, interpreting them, and learning about their implications is the basic task of historians, essential for understanding how we came to our present state of affairs. However, these documents can also serve a political, scientific, and moral purpose: helping to make people aware of the long and complex history of industry disinformation and malfeasance, and, at least in part, innoculate the public against further disinformation. As we increasingly face the costs of climate change, they can also provide documentary evidence for legal action. The Fossil Fuel Industry documents have been made possible by seed funding from the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, and the Samuel Lawrence Foundation. Donors either of documents or funds to make the history of the Anthropocene available to the public are invited to make contact here. References 1 Juliana v. United States, 217 F. Supp. 3d 1224, 1250 (2016). 2 Oreskes, N., Conway, E.M., 2011. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Reprint edition. ed. Bloomsbury Press; Michaels, D., 2008. Doubt is their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. Oxford University Press, New York; Proctor, R.N., 2012. Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition, University of California Press, Berkeley; Brandt, A., 2009. The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America, Basic Books: New York.

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“Submission Battelle or Griffith developments to Surgeon General undesirable...disturbed at its implications re: cardiovascular disorders...”

The top 1963 memo from Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company demonstrates the tobacco industry knew their product had health risks decades ago.   Mr. Yeaman of B&W informs Mr McCormick of British American Tobacco Co that the TIRC (Tobacco Industry Research Committee) has agreed to withhold Battelle research reports and the Griffith studies until TIRC can reassess and reevaluate their policy around health.   The second 1963 memo shows that originally, the Battelle research was undertaken by BAT to show beneficial effects of nicotine on the smoker.  These reports were passed along prematurely to the TIRC and had to quickly be withheld until a strategy could be formulated.

https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/qplw0142

https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/jfgh0097

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"We believe it is reasonable to conclude, from an epidemiological perspective, that smoking is a major cause of lung cancer." - BAT, 1998

1998 document from Richard Baker, Head of Corporate Research at British American Tobacco (BAT) to Professor R Peto, University of Oxford, regarding a seminar and BAT's view of smoking and lung cancer.  This letter surprisingly admits that “epidemiology has consistently shown a significantly higher incidence of lung cancer in groups of people who smoke compared to groups of people who do not smoke, that the incidence increases with duration of smoking, numbers of cigarettes smoked and with higher tar deliveries, and reduces in groups of people who quit smoking.“    

Read the entire letter at:

Letter from Richard Baker to Professor R.Peto

Author : BAKER, R.R. Document Date : 1998 September 04 Canadian Tobacco Industry Collection UCSF Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library

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Four decades of doubt and counting...The beginnings of the TIRC and their ‘Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers’

In the early 1950s, the tobacco companies needed to respond to the emerging scientific research and resultant public concern that showed there was a link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. The 1953 document “PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CIGARETTE MANUFACTURERS” (above) lays out the beginnings of what became the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) and eventually the Center for Tobacco Research (CTR).  The TIRC was conceived as an organization firmly grounded in the manipulation of science and creation of doubt about the health harms of cigarette smoking.  Although the committee was promoted as a scientific endeavor, it was run by PR firm Hill & Knowlton on behalf of the tobacco industry and even had offices in the same building.  In January 1954, one of the Committee’s first acts was to publish the “Frank Statement" (above) in over 400 newspapers throughout the United States as well as radio and TV reports.  The Frank Statement claimed among other things that 1) there is no proof that cigarette smoking is one of the causes of lung cancer and that 2) there is no agreement among authorities about the actual cause of lung cancer.

With this statement, TIRC pledged to provide millions in monetary aid and assistance to the research effort utilizing unbiased ‘distinguished men of medicine, science and education’ to serve on the TIRC Board.  Thus began the over 40 years of public promotional efforts and distortion of science to demonstrate there was no conclusive evidence of a link between smoking and cancer.   

In late 2017, as a result of the 2006 federal court ruling under the RICO Act,  cigarette manufacturers were ordered to place corrective statement ads through  newspapers and broadcast television.  These court-ordered corrective statements provided a bookend to the 1954 Frank Statement and announced what the industry actually knew about nicotine addiction and tobacco related disease for many years, despite its public denials. For the first time, millions of Americans were told the truth about the harmful effects of tobacco products, and this information was paid for by tobacco companies themselves. 

Read the full documents at the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library: 

https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/knyk0135

https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/hgwg0117

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Tobacco Industry Sponsorship of the Olympics: A Dive into the UCSF Truth Tobacco Industry Documents

Could a sporting event like the Olympics ever equate with smoking? The games summon images of stamina, health, fortitude and strength, and for decades, the tobacco industry worked diligently to affiliate themselves with this major sporting event. Olympic games draw millions of eyes and the promotion and marketing opportunities were gold for the tobacco companies.

In 1936, RJ Reynolds’ Camel brand used Olympic speed skater Kit Klein to advertise the purported health effects of smoking on digestion:

Since 1988, each Olympic Games has adopted a tobacco-free policy but the tobacco industry has continued to effect indirect associations in an effort to be connected with not only Olympic ideals but the worldwide platform the Games provide.

The Olympics as a powerful promotional tool: A 1980s memo in our British American Tobacco (BAT) records indicates executives considered the Olympics second only to Formula One motor racing as an effective sports-based “marketing platform.”  Into the 1990s, BAT affiliate UZBAT proudly proclaimed BAT sponsorship of Lina Cheryazova, 1994 Olympic Gold Medalist in freestyle skiing; and a 1992 memo between BAT and Singapore Tobacco Company, Korea, notes proposed Olympic team sponsorship in Thailand is illegal but ‘primary’ sponsors have been used as cover in the past.

The tobacco companies were so heavily invested in advertising and marketing around sporting events they could not risk censure from athletes. In a 1988 statement by Greg Louganis regarding tobacco sponsorship, the Olympian confessed, "I had become a slave to a tobacco company...Philip Morris representatives made it very clear that if I continued to speak out nationally [about tobacco and health], my career at, and association, with Mission Viejo [Realty Group, a PM subsidiary] would be over":

The 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, Atlanta, Georgia: Documents in our Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds collections demonstrate that despite the almost decade long tobacco-free policy of the Olympic Games, the companies were still planning promotions and marketing events. A 1996 Philip Morris memo shows the tobacco giant crafted a contract to place a Benson & Hedges ad on the back cover of the Ultimate Games Guide, a souvenir program of the 1996 Olympic Basketball games in Atlanta. Similarly, a 1995 RJ Reynolds email discusses a new tobacco company whose products could be introduced at the Games with catchy brands like Torch and Gold Medal, even going so far as to posit an “official cigarette of the 1996 Olympics.”

The “accommodation” of Olympic visitors who smoke was a hot topic in 1996 and one that allowed the companies to roll in promotional and marketing activities.  “Accommodation programs” were the tobacco industry’s way of holding off smoking bans by partnering with hospitality agencies (hotels and restaurants) to promote “choice”, “preference” and often the "solution" of improved ventilation in order to accommodate both smokers and non-smokers in public areas.

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Flame retardants & Big #Tobacco:  Keep the pressure on and “focus on the fuels rather than ignition sources.” 

By refocusing attention on flammable furniture, Big Tobacco helped fuel the widespread use of toxic flame retardants in upholstered furniture.

In the latter half of the 20th Century, the tobacco industry was forced to face the problem of house fires and deaths caused by smoldering cigarettes.  One obvious solution would have been to manufacture cigarettes that were “self-extinguishing”.  The industry insisted it could not make self-extinguishing cigarettes that would appeal to smokers and instead promoted the idea of flame retardant furniture, shifting the blame to the couches, chairs and beds that were going up in flames.  Thus began a long and intricate campaign to collaborate with firefighters and fire marshals in an attempt to hold off any regulations or measures affecting cigarette design and instead focus efforts on pumping toxic chemicals into household furniture.

More documents to come on this topic...

Read the entire document at UCSF Truth Tobacco Industry Documents: https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/txjv0011

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“It is therefore critical that you immediately put in gear an action programme to lobby the government with the objective of influencing the outcome of the proposed legislation or indeed stymieing it altogether...”

Memo from BAT employee Shabanji Opukah to Irene Ubah of the Nigerian Tobacco Company calling for NTC to block upcoming tobacco regulations in Nigeria

Read the memo on the UCSF Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library  at: https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/rjvl0208

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“A cigarette this low in nicotine was considered a healthier cigarette...This, even by those who had no ‘clue’ as to what nicotine was.”

In an effort to win customers in a highly competitive market for "healthier" tobacco products, the tobacco industry make repeated efforts over the years to develop low nicotine cigarettes.  As demonstrated in this 1987 Philip Morris focus group analysis, the tobacco companies used consumer misunderstandings about nicotine's health effects to their advantage in product development and marketing campaigns.

Read the entire document on the UCSF Truth Tobacco Industry Documents:

https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/rtxh0143

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Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) “continues to be a drug in search of a disease...” 

Medical communication organizations such as DesignWrite were contracted by pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth to write manuscripts and “white papers” on products such as Prempro.  White papers were used to plot marketing strategies with ‘ghostwritten’ manuscripts placed in medical journals with attributions to physician authors.  

Read the entire document at the UCSF Drug Industry Documents Archive: 

1997 - Strategic Competitive Intelligence on the HRT Market: A Source Document https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/drug/docs/zmbw0217

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Camel marketing team builds campaign around peer pressure - “Aspiration to be perceived as cool... is one of the strongest influences affecting the behavior of younger adult smokers”

This 1986 memo details a new Camel campaign to attract and keep less educated, younger, male smokers (18-24) by leveraging peer pressure and the desire to appear masculine and self-confident. 

Read the entire document on the UCSF Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library: https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/ffjh0045

See more documents from the Library’s Joe Camel Collection, a set of 5000+ RJ Reynolds documents produced during lawsuits regarding the company’s marketing to children and use of the cartoon character, Joe Camel . 

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The Tobacco Industry - the O.G.s of ‘Alternative Truth’...

This document, authored by Helmut Wakeham, exec at Philip Morris, discusses how best to frame the purpose and scope of the Center for Tobacco Research (CTR).   Wakeham gives a few options including the perspective that CTR is the industry’s program to recruit and train a stable of expert scientific witnesses for use in public relations, legislative and litigation matters.  

Read the entire document at:

BEST PROGRAM FOR C.T.R. URL : https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/ymkp0124 Author : WAKEHAM,H

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If...results with nicotine are similar to those...with morphine and caffeine... we will want to bury it.

These two documents are from the Philip Morris Records collection on the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents. The top document is a January 1977 proposal for a study on rats and nicotine withdrawal.  The bottom document is a memo approving this study but acknowledging results will be buried if they are negative for the industry.

Read the two documents on TTID:

PROSPECTUS FOR A STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NICOTINE IN BLOCKING POST-STRESS LEARNING DEFICIENCIES IN RATS https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/lnkc0131

PROPOSED STUDY BY LEVY - https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/ysbv0125

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Peer-reviewed articles as marketing - ‘Medical Communication Companies’ as ghostwriters for Big Pharma 

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the pharmaceutical company, Wyeth, maker of hormone replacement therapies (HRTs) among other drugs, was facing competition as well as an increasing skepticism of HRTs benefits. Wyeth turned to "medical communication companies” like DesignWrite to create a series of articles and conference presentations that would expand the HRT market and provide reassurance to women and their doctors. Over almost a decade, DesignWrite produced over 50 peer-reviewed publications, scientific abstracts and posters, journal supplements, and symposia for Wyeth, all supposedly authored and led by physicians in the field.  This document and over a thousand more were produced during the lawsuit PREMPRO PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION, MDL DOCKET NO. 4:03CV1507 WRW (W.D. Arkansas) and made available to the public by a United States Federal judge in response to a request by PloS Medicine and The New York Times in 2009. 

Read the entire document at: Trimegestone - Publication and Abstract Tracking Report URL : https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/drug/docs/kmww0217 in the Prempro Litigation Documents collection; UCSF Industry Documents Library

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Camel the Movie: The Legend of the Gold Leaf... Have the Anti's finally gone too far? Was it the competition that wanted the secret of Camel's blend?

This 1993 RJ Reynolds brainstorming brief posits a few plot synopses for a future Camel movie.  The Legend of the Gold Leaf begins with Joe kidnapped on the way to his private Caribbean island... will the Camel Executives find him in time? 

The authors promise an exciting one of a kind movie going experience for Camel's target smoker group which brings the brand's “lust for living positioning to life” and convinces smokers that Camel is the most satisfying smoking experience.  

The viewing of the film would be a portion of the consumer experience along with smoke breaks, a party atmosphere, and audience interaction "a la Rocky Horror”.  

Read the entire document at:

Camel the Movie: Project Brief URL : https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/sfcj0045 Document Date : 1993

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"Happily for the tobacco industry, nicotine is both habituating and unique in its variety of physiological actions, hence no other active material or combination of materials provides equivalent satisfaction..."

1972 report, authored by Claude Teague, RJ Reynolds employee, on the crucial role of nicotine, its addictiveness, and they types of research and marketing needed to capture the non-smoker. 

Teague equates the tobacco industry with the drug industry by recognizing that nicotine is a "potent drug with a variety of physiological effects."  "What we should really make and sell would be the proper dosage form of nicotine with as many other built-in attractions and gratifications as possible..."  

In this confidential report, Teague also points out that the tobacco industry has deliberately played down the role of nicotine and done itself a disservice since the non-smoker or "pre-smoker" has no knowledge of the "satisfactions smoking may offer".  He argues the non-smoker should be convinced "with wholly irrational reasons that he should try smoking, in the hope that he will for himself then discover the real 'satisfactions' obtainable."

Read the entire document at the UCSF Truth Tobacco Industry Documents::

RESEARCH PLANNING MEMORANDUM ON THE NATURE OF THE TOBACCO BUSINESS AND THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF NICOTINE THEREIN. URL : https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/jzjc0094 Author : TEAGUE CE JR Document Date : 1972 April 14

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“Marketing cigarettes to minorities was not new, saying so was.” - RJ Reynolds and the failure of Uptown Cigarettes

In December 1989, RJ Reynolds issued a press release in one of Philadelphia’s African American newspapers announcing the launch of Uptown cigarettes.  In this release, RJR specifically announced the brand was designed for the African American smoker.  This led to intense and vocal public pressure generated by what came to be known as the Uptown Coalition. RJR canceled the test marketing and, eventually, all future plans for the Uptown cigarette; one of the first product cancellations forced by a community grassroots organization.   The 1990 Philip Morris memorandum, “Anatomy of a Failure—Uptown Cigarettes,” reported that RJR either miscalculated or underestimated the impact of launching a targeted brand.  In particular, the memo pointed out that ���[m]arketing cigarettes to minorities was not new, saying so was.” 

Read the full documents on the UCSF Truth Tobacco Industry Library site:

Uptown Marketing Plan 1990 https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/xmyl0092

Anatomy of a Failure 1990 https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/npjh0124

Uptown Image  https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/zyjg0026

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Nothing says Happy Saint Patrick’s Day like Cigarette Brand Promotions...

Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds frequently utilized holidays and existing event gatherings to promote their brands and “reach the important young adult male (YAM) audience in large numbers” 

Read the documents at: 

https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/hklc0012 https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/rphk0086