I still find it mind-boggling how some people can be so surprised by the fact that people in general act in their own interest. A normal, healthy human being is exclusively concerned by its own well-being and that of its immediate family. To the extent that we witness altruistic behavior, it is executed for signalling purposes (this is the reason why there's virtually no completely anonymous charity, see "The elephant in the brain").

There is a part of the brain that is responsible for integrating events into a continuous narrative. That part of the brain is why we perceive ourselves as an integral being and not a set of parts, but that part is also severely biased in healthy humans, biased to paint ourselves as kinder, more altruistic, more intelligent, while also rewriting the motivation we cite for our past actions, so as to put ourselves in the best possible light.

But no, there's nothing special about those Exxon researches, that's just normal human behavior.

And to go further, acting against ones own interest requires going over a strong emotion. The body let's you know that you shouldn't be doing something through a gut feeling. Repeatedly ignoring or repressing those emotions is not healthy for the nervous system, and much has been written on this subject.

LE: And regarding claims that stopping global warming was in their own interest back in the 1980s, there's the hyperbolic discounting effect (among other things).