There is a particular kind of moral quiet that follows the discovery of a betrayal. It is not loud. It is not theatrical. It settles like dust on a bookshelf and then gets catalogued as an inconvenient chapter in history. The climate story has such a chapter and it is not anonymous. The primary keyword they knew and kept going belongs in the title because that is the accusation that refuses to be polite.
The names were never a mystery to those paying attention
For years the popular argument drifted in two directions. One side said nobody knew. The other side said the science was unsettled. Both narratives helped delay policy. They are attractive stories because they absolve us collectively. But the record shows something more precise and more damning. Internal memos and decades of research reveal that scientists working inside major fossil fuel corporations understood the trajectory of greenhouse gases decades ago. They modeled it. They projected temperatures. They warned their bosses. A decision was made to protect markets instead of people.
An industry that funded doubt while its labs modeled the future
The most important name in this unraveling is not a single person so much as a cluster of institutions and corporate actors. Big Oil and major utilities commissioned and paid for sophisticated climate work. Their scientists built models that matched reality with striking accuracy. Then those same institutions funded campaigns to obscure the implications of that science.
“This paper is the first ever systematic assessment of a fossil fuel company’s climate projections, the first time we’ve been able to put a number on what they knew.” Geoffrey Supran Lead author former research fellow in the History of Science at Harvard University
Geoffrey Supran was not the first to suspect this pattern but his paper and public statements crystallized an ugly logic. It is one thing to be cautious about uncertain futures. It is another to run both the prediction and the denial simultaneously. That is not a scientific contradiction. It is a political choice.
James Hansen spoke plainly in public long before accountability followed
In the summer of 1988 a NASA scientist named James Hansen testified to Congress in words that read like a moral ledger. He said plainly that the greenhouse effect had been detected and that human activities were driving it. He did not couch his language in metaphors. He said what he saw.
“Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and the observed warming.” James E Hansen Chief of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Hansen’s testimony was a public alarm bell. It did not change boardroom strategies. It activated public relations operations. That mismatch is the central crime here. The scientists in corporate labs and the scientists in government labs often agreed about the mechanisms. What differed was the route chosen by corporate leadership.
Names and tactics that shaped a generation
When you ask who the culprits are you should name institutions as well as people. Exxon Mobil Shell Chevron BP large utilities and a shadow network of trade groups and think tanks constructed a two track approach. In private they modeled climate risk. In public they funded doubt. The tools were familiar from other industries. They seeded confusion in media outlets commissioned sympathetic research and underwrote advocacy groups that argued for delay. The effect was not instantaneous. It was cumulative and it bought time for extraction to continue uninterrupted.
This is not equal blame across all actors. Some energy companies quietly shifted investment toward lower carbon technologies earlier than others. Some executives were more cautious. But the dominant pattern from the mid twentieth century through much of the twenty first century favored business as usual. That pattern cost us decades of action.
Why this matters beyond courtroom theater
Accountability is not only legal. It is epistemic. When institutions amplify manufactured uncertainty they shape what counts as common sense. Houses built on coasts were insured and then rebuilt. Governments subsidized infrastructure that assumed stable climates. Policy windows closed because the public could be persuaded the problem was unsettled. The question now is less about pointing fingers and more about understanding how markets and norms conspired to extend harm.
Beyond naming to fixing the incentives
I do not pretend a neat moral tidy up will follow naming. Companies respond to incentives not to moral shame. Laws and investor pressure can alter those incentives. Public pressure can change brand calculus. However the structural reality remains messy. Capital accumulation thrives on predictability of profit not on the predictability of planetary boundaries. That friction is the heart of the story.
There are multiple ways this plays out in the near term. Lawsuits can extract settlements and force disclosure. Shareholders can press for transition plans. Regulators can tighten rules. Those are necessary. They are not sufficient. The deeper work is cultural and political. It is about shifting what markets reward and what societies value.
What most coverage misses
Journalism has done heroic work in assembling the documents that show the industry knew. But many pieces stop at outrage and legal minutiae. They treat discovery as conclusion. It is not. We should look for patterns that explain why the choice to deceive was rational within a given industrial frame even if morally bankrupt. Understanding that rationality helps prevent repetition.
For example corporate secrecy ecologies and short term executive compensation align to reward risk postponement. That is an ugly insight because it dilutes individual villainy and spreads responsibility into a system that still exists. That is also useful because systems can be redesigned.
Where truth and strategy diverge
There is also an emotional dimension worth naming. A lot of people who work inside these institutions believed they were doing something good. They could imagine energy access limitations as moral harms in themselves. That does not excuse deception but it complicates the narrative in a way that matters for how we rebuild trust. If we want a different future we need to build institutions that allow employees to raise alarms without career death sentences.
Final thought an unfinished ledger
Call this article partisan if you must. I prefer accuracy. There are scientific truths that were visible decades ago. There were choices to continue with business as usual. The culprits are not ghouls in the dark. They are corporate boards marketing teams trade associations and yes the political systems that enabled them. Naming them does not end the story. It ought to sharpen the tasks ahead.
The record is public enough to demand reckoning. It is incomplete enough to keep historians busy. That is where we are. The point of saying who knew and kept going is not simply to assign blame. It is to make a decision hard to repeat.
Summary table
| Key idea | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Corporate scientists predicted warming | Shows knowledge existed inside fossil fuel companies and undermines claims of ignorance |
| Simultaneous funding of denial | Reveals a deliberate strategy to delay public action |
| Institutional incentives | Explains why deception was chosen and where reform must focus |
| Legal and cultural accountability | Highlights tools available now to change behavior beyond courtroom victories |
FAQ
Who exactly were the culprits behind global warming?
The culprits are best described as an ecosystem of actors rather than single individuals. Major fossil fuel companies their trade associations and a network of supportive think tanks and media allies made decisions that prioritized profit continuity over timely public warning. Key publicly named companies include Exxon Mobil Shell Chevron and BP. Academic and investigative work shows their internal researchers modeled warming even while public communications cast doubt on the science. Understanding the ecosystem helps explain how choices were normalized and how accountability might be enforced.
Did scientists inside these companies actually know the planet would warm?
Yes internal reports and peer reviewed analyses indicate that company researchers produced projections that align closely with observed temperature trends. Independent researchers have assessed those internal models and found them to be skillful and prescient. This is why the phrase they knew and kept going carries weight. The knowledge was technical and actionable even if it was not always shared publicly.
Are all energy companies equally responsible?
No. Responsibility differs across firms and across time. Some companies funded denial more aggressively than others. Some shifted earlier toward lower carbon investments. The ecosystem as a whole bears a collective responsibility, but precise legal and moral culpability varies by institution based on what they knew and how they acted.
Will naming these culprits help slow warming?
Naming matters for transparency deterrence and reparation. It can accelerate policy changes investor shifts and public pressure that alter incentives. That said naming alone will not be enough. It must be paired with regulation disclosure requirements and new institutional designs that reward long term stewardship rather than short term extraction.
Is this mainly a legal fight now?
Legal fights are a big part of the story because they uncover documents and create remedies. But the broader struggle is political cultural and economic. Courts can impose fines and compel disclosures. Governance changes can alter futures. Neither path negates the other. Both are needed to change the incentives that once made they knew and kept going a viable corporate strategy.
