The Disinformation Department
How API, Edelman & Co. manufactured consent for petro—and what courts say about it now.
1) The playbook wasn’t “PR.” It was astroturf.
In summer 2009, while Congress weighed climate legislation, an internal American Petroleum Institute (API) memo laid out “Energy Citizens” rallies. Company-organized “grassroots” events with employees bussed in to look like public opposition. Greenpeace obtained the memo; reporters confirmed the plan. In plain English: fake crowds to kill a bill. The Guardian
Why it matters: if you can rent the crowd, you can bend the news cycle. That’s not debate—it’s stagecraft.
2) When election season hit, they went overt.
Ahead of 2012, API launched Vote 4 Energy—a national ad + voter-targeting operation. API’s own case study brags that the goal was to “bring energy to the forefront of the 2012 election,” with a dedicated site, state filters, polling place lookups, and swing-state media buys. NPR and trade press tracked the blitz as it rolled through Colorado, Florida, NC, Ohio, and Virginia. API
Translation: not “issue education.” A polished electoral influence machine.
3) Edelman’s “divide & neutralize” pipeline war room (leaked).
In 2014, documents leaked from Edelman—then the world’s largest PR firm—detailed a “battle plan” for TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline: manufacture 35,000 “activists,” map and “pressure” opponents, run opposition research, and seed front groups. After the leak, TransCanada and Edelman parted ways. (Same Edelman that had just promised to avoid climate-denial campaigns.)
Important precision: this leak was Energy East (Canada), not Keystone. The tactics are the point: astroturf recruitment, target dossiers, message warfare—then mainstream ads to varnish it.
4) Inside the advertising: tell the public one thing, tell investors another.
A peer-reviewed Harvard content analysis compared ExxonMobil’s internal research and investor disclosures with its public advertorials (1977–2014). Finding: internally the company accepted climate risk; publicly it sowed doubt. That’s not my adjective—that’s the study’s conclusion. Biotech Law+1
Bottom line: the disinformation wasn’t an accident of the 1980s; it was a managed communications strategy lasting decades.
Oil in a Green Mask
Green on the Outside. Black on the Inside.
COP21: Climate Summit or Oil’s Trojan Horse?
In December 2015, the world celebrated the Paris Agreement (COP21). Headlines declared a new era of climate action. Leaders posed for photos, pledging to keep global warming “well below 2°C.” It looked like humanity had finally found consensus.
But behind the banners and speeches, the very companies responsible for the crisis were paying for the party. Big Oil wasn’t on the sidelines — it was footing the bill, shaping the agenda, and ensuring the final text left petrochemicals safe from scrutiny.
Act I: Who Paid for Paris?
COP21 was underwritten by corporate sponsorships — including Engie, EDF, BNP Paribas, and yes, fossil fuel interests (DeSmog). Oil and gas companies used sponsorship to:
Plaster their logos on summit materials.
Host private dinners and side sessions with policymakers.
Position themselves as “partners in climate progress.”
Translation: polluters branded themselves as saviors.
Courts are now treating this as deception, not “speech.”
This isn’t living on blogs anymore. State AGs and cities are suing—explicitly naming API as a co-architect of deception.
California (2023–24): The state sued Exxon, Shell, Chevron, BP, Conoco, and API for “decades of deception,” and is seeking disgorgement of profits under California law. Governor of California
Minnesota (2020→): AG Ellison’s complaint against Exxon, Koch, and API alleges a coordinated “campaign of deception,” supported by internal documents; SCOTUS let the case proceed in state court. Climate Change Litigation
District of Columbia (2020→): DC’s consumer-protection suit details greenwashing as actionable deception; recent orders have allowed claims to move forward. DC Attorney General's Office
Legal meaning: Once you cross into materially misleading commercial speech, First Amendment shields thin out. That’s why these cases aren’t getting tossed on “free speech” grounds.
Act II: The Pledge with a Loophole
The Paris Agreement text made sweeping promises: net-zero by 2050, 1.5°C ambition. But it carefully avoided:
Naming fossil fuels explicitly.
Calling out petrochemicals or plastics.
Binding enforcement mechanisms.
That wasn’t an accident. Internal accounts show corporate sponsors lobbied heavily to water down direct language on fossil phaseouts (Corporate Accountability Int’l).
Act III: The Greenwash Goldmine
For oil companies, COP21 wasn’t a threat. It was a gift. With the Paris Agreement in hand, they could:
Rebrand themselves as “net-zero leaders” while expanding petrochemical plastics.
Flood ESG reports with climate pledges backed by offsets, not actual cuts.
Invest billions in “solutions” like carbon capture that extended oil’s shelf life.
By 2018, Exxon, Shell, and BP were all marketing themselves as part of the climate solution — while simultaneously planning for oil and gas demand growth through 2040 (IEA).
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Act IV: The Mirage Becomes Policy
Consumers saw Paris as progress. Corporations saw it as cover. The same way Nixon’s EPA gave petro an excuse to offshore, COP21 gave oil an excuse to greenwash expansion.
The public thought: We finally got a deal.
Oil executives thought: We just bought ourselves decades.
COP21 wasn’t the beginning of the end for fossil fuels. It was the end of the beginning for greenwashing.
Paris gave oil companies their best ad campaign yet: legitimacy.
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Reports documented over 500 fossil fuel lobbyists at the summit — more than the combined delegations of the 8 most climate-vulnerable nations (BBC).
Oil majors showcased flashy “net zero” booths, while behind the scenes they lobbied to strip out language about phasing out oil and gas.
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Held in Sharm el-Sheikh, sponsored by Coca-Cola (largest plastic polluter on Earth).
Fossil companies and petrochemical producers dominated side events.
NGOs blasted it as the “corporate COP.”
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Presided over by Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company).
Leaked documents showed UAE planned to use COP28 to broker oil and gas deals.
This wasn’t just greenwash — it was direct capture of the summit chair by petro interests (BBC / Centre for Climate Reporting).
What the receipts prove:
Astroturf exists (API memo → Energy Citizens rallies). The Guardian
Electioneering exists (API’s own V4E case study + swing-state buys). API
Coordinated persuasion ops exist (Edelman/TransCanada leak—fronts, pressure maps, manufactured support). The Guardian
Two-track messaging exists (Harvard analysis of Exxon: internal acceptance vs public doubt). Biotech Law
Accountability is arriving (CA, MN, DC complaints naming API; remedies include profits). Reuters Climate Change Litigation
the “Oh Shit” paragraph:
For fifteen years we’ve had the memos and the ad buys: fake crowds when needed, swing-state messaging when useful, and glossy “we care” ads when lawsuits loomed. The point was never conversation. It was control of headlines, of ballots, of time. And now, AGs are calling it what it is: deception for profit—naming API right alongside the majors. The Guardian
Evidence pack
API “Energy Citizens” memo (2009) – scan/clip of the directive to bus employees to rallies. The Guardian
API “Vote 4 Energy” case study (2012) – their own deck; highlight the election-year objective. API
Edelman–TransCanada leak (2014) – the page showing 35,000 “activists” target and pressure-map tactics. The Guardian
Harvard ERL paper (2017) – figure/table comparing internal vs advertorial messaging. Biotech Law
CA First Amended Complaint (2024) – the page listing API as a defendant and describing “decades of deception.” California DOJ
MN AG complaint (2020) – the exhibit with the “Proprietary” Exxon engineering doc acknowledging fossil-fuel causation. Minnesota Attorney General
The Disinformation Dept.
When a trade group can rent the crowd, script the ad, and ghost the news, backed by the world’s largest PR firm? You don’t have a “debate.” You have a product launch. And now the subpoenas are out.
Read the full story in the book.
Evolution Mine: The Industrial Evolution—the blueprint for breaking the petrochemical playbook and building a regenerative economy.
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