 An investigation is underway into ExxonMobil, the huge oil company buried research about the effects of climate change. Reports suggest more than 30 years ago, Exxon's own scientists were taking climate change projections into account in its operational plans. Exxon was on the cutting edge of science. They wanted to be on the cutting edge of science 40 years ago on climate change. They understood that farther down the road, if the science was accurate, there would be limits placed on emissions from fossil fuels. So their strategy at that time was that we want to have a say in what those limits looked like. When their senior scientists told their senior executives what was coming, Exxon started making sure that all its drilling rigs were climate-proof so that they could withstand the rising sea level. But they did not tell the rest of us, just the opposite. Around 1989, there was a shift in the thinking at the executive level. That was when Exxon joined this group called the Global Climate Coalition, which sounds very green. But in fact, they were put together to fight any policy reaction to climate change. Exxon and others ended up hiring the veterans of the tobacco industry to try and make the same basic argument that the cigarette guys had made. After three decades of investigation, no causal link between smoking and disease has been established. Scientific evidence remains inconclusive as to whether human activities affect the global climate. It was effective and it cost us a generation's worth of time.