There's an interesting phrase that is supposedly thrown around at hedge funds and major financial institutions when bonus time rolls around: IBGYBG - I'll be gone, you'll be gone.

For wealthy, older folks it makes more sense in terms of personal wealth to optimize for short term profits rather than go through the pain of pivoting and retooling the business in order to set it up for success down the road. So when the board and major investors ran the cost/benefit analysis of investing billions and undertaking the risk of shifting towards the renewables market vs. funding a few studies and paying off some scientists, they rationally chose the latter.

And they (whoever was making these decisions in the 1970's and 80's) were successful. They retired wealthy and those who are still around will not be held accountable today.

Edit: Also, shareholders would say this was and continues to be the right move. The company has a $350bn market cap today.

We do not have any semblance of an effective credit/tax system for pollution, global warming, and other such negative externalities. Until we (who? the UN? the WTO?) put a serious, economic price on pollution that shows up in the 10Ks, we can expect boards/investors to keep making the same choices.