Early 1998: ExxonMobil Helps Form ‘Global Climate Science Team’

ExxonMobil helps create the Global Climate Science Team (GCST), a small task force that is charged with discrediting the scientific consensus opinion that greenhouse gases are warming the planet. Members of the task force include ExxonMobil’s senior environmental lobbyist, Randy Randol; the American Petroleum Institute’s public relations representative, Joe Walker; and Steven Milloy, who heads a nonprofit organization called the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition. [American Petroleum Institute, 4/1998; Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, pp. 11 ] Milloy’s organization had been secretly formed in 1993 by tobacco giant Philip Morris with the goal of creating uncertainty about the health hazards posed by secondhand smoke. [Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, pp. 11 ]