A few things. First I must say that in my view your criticism of GIGO is both inappropriate and incorrect. He does offer substantial views of his own, but always provides citations to back them up, a process that takes a lot of work and that many, including myself, often don’t bother with.
I’m also finding it hard to follow the logic of the quoted paragraph. I, for one, was certainly very much aware the Exxon and other oil companies were making conciliatory-sounding statements on their websites; I believe in the case of Exxon it coincided with Rex Tillerson succeeding Lee Raymond in 2006, the latter being as I mentioned a notoriously myopic denialist. (Tillerson was probably also reacting to the Senators’ letter and the Royal Society, both of which criticisms coincided with the start of his tenure.) It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter what they “really believe”, whatever that might mean – what matters is that they continue to support organizations that deceive the public and promote denialist politicians to promote and preserve their self-serving interests which are so strongly at odds with the public interest.
As already noted, what they say on their websites is rather moot compared to what they’re actually doing, specifically in terms of politics and undermining public faith in science, almost all of it behind the scenes. In my view, this makes their efforts to represent themselves as good citizens all the more reprehensible. It’s also my personal subjective opinion that different industries have different codes of ethics reflecting different cultures, and that the culture of the oil industry reeks of inveterate corruption from top to bottom, from the Middle Eastern potentates that they have to deal with down the whole refining and distribution chain to the last individual gas station owner. The scandal some years ago when an illegal cabal of some of the majors were conspiring to drive small independent refineries out of business, or when they were sued for illegal price-fixing, is just routine business in that sordid industry. And the biggest victim in all this is our climate and our health.