The fossil fuel industry didn’t just sell us gas—they sold us doubt, distraction, and delay.
For decades, Big Oil has known exactly what its products are doing to the planet. Internal memos from the 1970s show that oil companies understood the science of climate change long before most people had even heard the term. But instead of acting, they got strategic. They invested in PR campaigns, front groups, and think tanks—all designed to sow confusion, delay regulation, and shift the blame away from corporations and onto individuals.
This wasn’t ignorance. It was manipulation. The goal wasn’t just to keep drilling—it was to keep us distracted. While the planet burned, they pushed myths that still shape how people talk about climate change today. Some of these lies sound harmless. Others sound like common sense. But all of them serve the same purpose: protecting profits while sabotaging progress. Here are 11 of the most dangerous myths they sold us.
1. “The science keeps changing, so we can’t act yet.”
This line has bought Big Oil decades of delay. It sounds cautious, even responsible—but it’s designed to stall. The science hasn’t been changing. Tzeporah Berman wrote in The Guardian that by the late 1980s, climate scientists had already reached consensus that fossil fuel emissions were driving global warming. The details have evolved, sure, but the conclusion hasn’t budged.
Oil companies knew this. They had the data before the public did. Instead of acting, they poured millions into campaigns that mimicked scientific debate—funding think tanks, fake experts, and misinformation designed to keep the public second-guessing the facts. It was never about uncertainty. It was about running out the clock while profits rolled in. The science is settled. The delay was strategic.
2. “Your personal choices fix the climate crisis.”
Big Oil loves this one. It turns a global, systemic issue into your personal shame spiral about using plastic wrap. Pam Reynolds of the Conservation Law Foundation explains that oil companies promoted personal carbon footprint campaigns to shift the blame away from their own emissions. The truth? You can’t compost your way out of a climate crisis fueled by corporate emissions. Individual choices matter, but they were never meant to carry the entire weight.
This myth thrives because it sounds empowering—but it isolates people, overwhelms them, and lets fossil fuel giants keep drilling while you agonize over grocery bags. It’s time to scale the conversation back up. One person didn’t cause this mess. One person won’t fix it. And Big Oil knows that.
3. “Natural gas cleans up our dirty energy problem.”
Slapping “natural” on something doesn’t make it clean. Natural gas—mostly methane—is a potent greenhouse gas, and its extraction (especially through fracking) leaves wrecked water supplies, leaking pipelines, and air pollution in its wake.
The fossil fuel industry framed natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to justify continued investment, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Fossil fuel companies pitched gas as a “bridge fuel” between coal and renewables, locking in billions in infrastructure under the guise of progress. Meanwhile, methane leaks continued to heat the planet faster than CO₂.
Clean? Not even close. The rebrand gave politicians cover and slowed real investment in renewables. While we argued about solar tax credits, gas companies cemented their place in the grid—and the climate crisis.
4. “China causes climate change, not us.”
Whenever the U.S. tries to pass climate policy, this talking point shows up fast. Why should we reduce emissions when China pollutes more? But this myth conveniently ignores who built the demand. Western countries offshored production, then blamed the countries doing the work.
The U.S. still leads in per-capita emissions. Historically, it’s contributed more carbon to the atmosphere than any other nation. Big Oil pushes this myth to deflect responsibility and kill cooperation. Climate change doesn’t care about borders. And the longer countries point fingers, the more time oil giants have to keep extracting. This isn’t about who started it. It’s about who’s still fanning the flames.
5. “Electric cars wreck the planet with toxic mining.”
Yes, EV batteries require mining—and yes, that comes with real environmental consequences. But this myth glosses over the scale and devastation of oil extraction: spills, pipeline explosions, refinery emissions, and the countless communities left polluted or displaced.
Big Oil wants you to believe it’s a toss-up. That driving gas or electric is just choosing your poison. But life-cycle studies show EVs have a far lower carbon footprint over time—even on dirty grids. The industry pushing this narrative is the same one that’s spent decades wrecking land, air, and water in the name of fuel. EVs aren’t perfect. But using their flaws to excuse oil’s track record is classic misdirection.
6. “Earth just runs hot and cold—this is normal.”
It’s true the planet has gone through natural climate shifts. But what’s happening now isn’t just another cycle. It’s faster, more extreme, and directly tied to human activity—especially burning fossil fuels.
Big Oil leaned on this myth hard, dressing it up in just enough science to sound plausible. But the evidence is overwhelming: carbon spikes that match industrial growth, glacier melt rates we’ve never seen before, ocean acidification off the charts.
Earth doesn’t just happen to warm rapidly right after 150 years of mass emissions. This story only survives because it lets people shrug and carry on. But nature isn’t driving this. We are—and oil companies knew it the whole time.
7. “Carbon offsets erase emissions instantly.”
Offsets create the illusion of balance—pollute here, plant a tree there, and the math looks clean. But the timing doesn’t line up. Many offset projects take decades to sequester emissions already released. Others never materialize at all.
Big Oil leaned into offsets hard. They offer a convenient way to appear climate-conscious without actually cutting emissions. Instead of changing operations, companies slap “net zero” on a plan built on speculative forest growth. The public sees progress. Investors see green branding. Meanwhile, emissions keep climbing. Offsets weren’t designed to fix the crisis. They were designed to buy time—for the polluters, not the planet.
8. “Carbon footprints track who’s really to blame.”
The carbon footprint campaign didn’t emerge from the climate movement—it was pushed by BP. Turning environmental destruction into a math problem for individuals shifted the focus from corporate pollution to personal behavior. This strategy reframed climate responsibility as a lifestyle audit. If consumers obsess over grocery bags and flight miles, there’s less scrutiny on the companies fueling mass emissions.
The campaign worked. It turned outrage into guilt. It minimized collective power and made people feel ashamed instead of organized. Carbon footprint calculators aren’t useless, but they were designed to distract. They served the oil industry better than they served the planet.
9. “Renewables destroy the environment too.”
Fossil fuel defenders love pointing out the flaws in clean energy. Wind farms disrupt bird flight. Solar panels use rare materials. These facts are often true—but wildly out of proportion to the damage done by oil and gas extraction.
This myth creates a false equivalency. It’s not a choice between pristine perfection and destruction—it’s a choice between catastrophic harm and sustainable systems with room for improvement. Big Oil exploits this narrative to make inaction seem reasonable. If everything’s bad, why change? But the reality is simple: fossil fuels leave behind toxic air, poisoned water, and a destabilized climate. The renewable transition isn’t perfect, but it’s not the enemy here.
10. “Climate policies kill jobs and tank the economy.”
This line gets hauled out every time someone proposes real action. It paints climate policy as a job-killer, an economic drag, a disaster in disguise. But renewable industries already employ millions—and those numbers are growing fast.
Investing in clean infrastructure doesn’t drain the economy. It builds it. Wind techs, solar installers, grid engineers, and energy auditors are some of the fastest-growing roles in the country. Meanwhile, fossil fuel jobs are declining due to automation and market shifts.
Big Oil knows this, but fear sells. Framing climate action as an economic threat protects their margins. The truth is, doing nothing costs more. The jobs lost to climate disasters don’t get the same airtime—but they’re real.
11. “The market will fix climate change on its own.”
This myth promises salvation without regulation. Let capitalism innovate its way out of the crisis. But markets follow profit—not justice, not equity, not planetary survival. Without guardrails, they chase the fastest returns, even if it burns everything else.
Fossil fuel companies have received billions in subsidies while blocking innovation that could threaten their dominance. The market didn’t cut emissions voluntarily. It didn’t build public transit or pass clean air laws out of goodwill. Every meaningful shift came from pressure—laws, protests, policies, and people who refused to wait. Trusting the free market to fix what it broke is a bet Big Oil loves. It guarantees more delay, more damage, and no accountability.