Geoff Dembicki has devoted his entire career to studying and reporting on the effects of climate change on the Earth and humanity at large. The Petroleum Papers is Dembicki's response to the oil industry, who have claimed for many years that oil and gas have not contributed to global warming. From the start of his book, it is clear that Dembicki is against the oil industry and against oil itself, which he sees as unsustainable and broken.
Throughout his book, Dembicki exposes how cruel and evil the oil companies are. For instance, Dembicki reveals that as far back as 1959 oil companies knew (because of a warning by famed physicist Edward Teller, the so-called "father of the Hydrogen Bomb") that the burning of fossil fuels has, and will continue to, negatively affect the Earth. Temperatures will rise; humans will grow weaker and sicker; the Earth will be destroyed.
More significantly, however, Dembicki exposes a study that Exxon commissioned in the 1970s to study the effects of oil on climate. Those study results, which were never before discussed, showed that there was a clear connection between the use of fossil fuels and rising temperatures of the Earth, the concentration of CO2, and the melting of ice around the world—among many other effects. Dembicki argues that the commission of that study and the subsequent obscuring of the study are emblematic of the larger problem in the oil industry: they value profits over people and the health of people. The oil industry, in other words, is incredibly unethical and run in a dishonest way.
In an effort to make more profit for longer, Dembicki argues that oil companies knowingly obscured the facts surrounding the connection between oil and climate change. Oil companies received so many warnings about the destructive effects of their product, yet they ignored the warnings. Instead, they focused on profit.
In fact, Dembicki shows how oil companies bought politicians, other companies, and scientists to convince the general public that climate change wasn't real and that the oil companies are not contributing to Earth's warming climate. And it works. For the most part at least. Although many people don't believe in climate change as a result of the oil industry's lobbying, many still do believe in climate change. And those people, including lawyers and activists, start to fight back against the oil industry, their lobbying campaign, and oil itself.
The Petroleum Papers is both a hard-hitting piece of journalism and a piece of activism. It is a compelling book which is both informative and entertaining. Thematically, it explores themes of rivalry, the power and importance of whistleblowers, cover-ups, and how far a company will go to stay in business and continue to make money.
