Smoke and Fumes: A Hidden History of Oil and Tobacco

The Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) recently debuted an amazing database of documents pulled from the files of Big Oil as well as our Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive (TTID). The Smoke and Fumes website is a culmination of their investigation into climate misinformation campaigns which in turn led to a dive into our tobacco documents to look for industry intersections. And find them they did!

The Oil industry's efforts to mislead the public about climate science are well documented. Amidst the ongoing investigations and recent wave of climate litigation, comparisons to Big Tobacco have been obvious yet Exxon and its associates have rejected these parallels. CIEL's research into TTID reveals compelling evidence that the relationship between these two industries is "neither coincidental nor casual." The connections between oil and tobacco date back nearly a century and our tobacco documents show these industries have a long history of shared marketing and advertising strategies, research interests, PR firms, and scientists. For instance, in the 1970s, the Chair of BAT also served on the Board of Directors of Exxon and RJ Reynolds once owned and operated an oil company, American Independent Oil, which engaged in industry-wide projects. In the late 1950s the oil industry lent their expertise in mass spectrometry to tobacco companies looking to test cigarette smoke for toxins and both industries attempted to engage in joint research on filters.

These are just a few examples CIEL pulled from the tobacco documents. If you head over to our search box and type in "Shell Oil", "Exxon", or even "Esso", you'll be amazed at the thousands of documents that are retrieved.

Smoke and Fumes: A Hidden History of Oil and Tobacco from CIEL on Vimeo.