The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a report entitled The Climate Deception Dossiers.
For nearly three decades, many of the world's largest fossil fuel companies have knowingly worked to deceive the public about the realities and risks of climate change.
Their deceptive tactics are now highlighted in this set of seven "deception dossiers"—collections of internal company and trade association documents that have either been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests.
So now we have some idea of "What fossil fuel companies knew and when they knew it". Full report available here [pdf].
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday July 11 2015, @12:56AM
Naturally it was post-facto. You can't fairly judge someone's behavior before they do it!
It is not an example of historian's fallacy, there is good reason to believe that they knew or should have known about the danger. Perhaps not right at the beginning, but certainly after a few years.
Meanwhile, the lead issue is far from remediated. We're not putting more into the environment but there's an awful lot of contaminated soil.