previously on drilled.

Among that set of dedicated research centers that are really influential in technology

research and training, you know, future people working in climate, also influencing the

IPCC that a majority of funding in those centers comes from fossil fuel groups.

Most of what we know about oil company social influence campaigns has been dug up

over the past five years by journalists, particularly Nila Banerjee and David Hasmeyer

at Inside Climate News, Suzanne Russ, who led the investigation at Columbia School of Journalism

that was printed in the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian.

Independent investigators like Kurt Davies and Scott Peterson have also contributed

to that knowledge. New Yorker reporter Dean Mayer's incredible investigative work

into the Koch brothers published in the book Dark Money has provided key insights to.

But long before any of these investigations kicked off, lawyers were digging up this stuff too.

They did such a good job that the public is more skeptical of climate change now than the oil companies are.

As it means to change the public's perspective on things, I think it may be very valuable.

That's my opinion. It's just like, if you could get the public to say, yeah, you know what?

There really was a lot of damage done. And yeah, we're part of it.

But we certainly weren't in a position to make these educated decisions the way that people at Exxon

and other oil companies were fully aware.

Not unlike Big Tobacco, the oil companies here, their internal documents, make the case of their knowledge and their cover-up.

We recognize that global warming is a serious issue.

But this kind of lawsuit is counterproductive and it's just legally flawed.

More than a decade ago, an environmental lawyer named Matt Paoa

...