Oil and gas company executives believe that they're doing right by the world. Most people disagree.

In a survey conducted by the consulting firm EY, 75 percent of oil and gas executives rated themselves as good corporate citizens. But only 37 percent of the general public said the oil industry can be trusted to do the right thing.

The average people surveyed viewed renewable energy far more positively than oil, with natural gas falling somewhere in the middle. Only 14 percent of them thought oil and gas should be our primary source of energy, while 29 percent thought it shouldn't be. The rest were willing to tolerate it until alternatives are available.

That's nothing energy companies don't already know. Of the 109 executives surveyed by EY, just one in four said their industry had the public's trust.

That dim view is starting to matter now, EY says, because so much energy production happens on American soil. Negative perceptions of fossil fuels - fed by movies such as "Deepwater Horizon," widespread coverage of Exxon Mobil's efforts to discount climate science, and painful layoffs during the oil bust while CEOs of bankrupt companies made off with millions - are starting to influence both public policy and industry recruiting efforts.

Many young people would rather work for tech companies that they believe are operating in the public interest.

It's something the EY consultants like to call an industry's "social license to operate." Come off as too evil, and eventually the walls cave in. "This is a call to action," Deborah Byers, EY's U.S. energy leader, said at an event unveiling the research.

So, is there anything the oil industry can do to solve the problem?

The EY consultants suggest the oil industry's problem is one of perception. If only people knew what executives knew, they wouldn't be so eager for a quick transition to wind and solar.

"They don't have as many of the facts," said John Hartung, a U.S. strategy principal with the firm who spent 11 years at Mobil before it combined with Exxon. "The executives have run the numbers, and the younger generations have not."

But consumer perceptions seem based on facts, too. It's a fact that the Earth is warming fairly quickly now and scientists attribute most of the blame to carbon emissions from fossil fuels. It's a fact that oil spills have caused enormous damage to coastal environments. It's a fact that air quality regulations and more efficient cars, which the oil industry hasn't exactly championed, have meaningfully improved life in cities around the world.

Rather than a perception problem, the oil industry would seem to have a behavior problem. Some companies, like BP and the French company Total, have taken actions that conform with popular desires for cleaner power, shifting their portfolios away from oil and toward lower-carbon sources of energy, including natural gas.

It's a lot easier to fix your message when you have something real to talk about.