Big Oil knew monster storms were coming. We have the receipts.
Internal documents over the last 45 years reveal the fossil fuel industry has long known their products would supercharge extreme weather.
For the second time in as many weeks, Florida residents are picking up the pieces from a major hurricane supercharged by the climate crisis. While not as severe as meteorologists feared, Milton has killed at least 11 people, left 3 million without electricity, flooded coastal towns, spawned tornadoes, and caused what will likely be billions in damage.
But even as forecasters were left speechless as Milton became one of the fastest-growing hurricanes in history, there was one group of people that shouldn’t have been surprised—fossil fuel executives.
For at least 45 years, oil company scientists have been privately warning executives that burning fossil fuels would lead to catastrophic storms. Their startlingly accurate warnings are detailed in internal documents and publicly-released films obtained by the Center for Climate Integrity and Dutch news site De Correspondent.
Here’s some of what Big Oil knew about the connection between fossil fuels and catastrophic weather, and when they knew it:
