More than 50 years after the automakers learned about climate change, the transportation sector is the leading source of planet-warming pollution in the United States.
"We also know that certainly by the 1980s and 1990s, the auto industry was involved in efforts to undermine climate science and stop progress to address climate change," Muffett said.
Today the companies acknowledge that climate change is a problem and in statements to E&E News outlined their plans to increase production of clean cars.
Reck, too, was asked to present her findings on climate change to James "Jimmy" Johnston, GM's vice president of government relations.
More than two decades after GM and Ford privately confirmed the dangers of climate change, NASA scientist James Hansen publicly sounded the alarm.
Brulle said GM and Ford "chose to support a campaign to delay or obstruct action on climate change by supporting these conservative think tanks that promulgated scientific misinformation.
"We had it in the very far future that these things might start to happen from climate change. »
