What's stunning to me is that Exxon management knew by 1977 that CO2 was the likely reason for it, chose to fund great resources for studying it, then flipped to the misinformation campaign after confirming the link. This is quite possibly the most immoral decision made by a business. (VW and Phillip Morris execs are probably happy they are off the hook here )

There was knowledge of global warming before 1977, but it seems the direct tie to CO2 was still being researched and consensus hadn't been reached. Exxon for a time did help to bring more of the scientific community to agreement on the issue while they were studying it in the early 80s.

With the knowledge they had from their research, they could have easily pivoted to still be the most valuable company this planet has while also working to keep it habitable by humanity. Instead they used that knowledge only for their own future extraction efforts.

The effectiveness of the misinformation, including the link to it being caused by human activity can be seen in the 2008 world wide polling. Even though at the time 97% of Americans were aware of global warming, 51% didn't believe humans had anything to do with it. Exxon had it within their power to swing that to levels seen in South Korea, where only 8% denied the link.