Short Note on Big Oil and Climate Change
This discussion on the culpability of the oil companies in suppressing the truth about climate change is everything I hoped it would be.
Check out the comments of Terry and Gina. Holy cats, that’s really brilliant and expressive writing.
In general, the article on Exxon is a good one, even though there are a few exaggerations. The following is an example:
“As a start, investigations by the Pulitzer-Prize winning Inside Climate News, the Los Angeles Times and Columbia Journalism School revealed in extraordinary detail that Exxon’s top officials had known everything there was to know about climate change back in the 1980s.”
The fact is that we still don’t know everything there is to know about climate change. We do know enough to be aware that it is already occurring and that it is certain to be very serious, but there is still much to learn. Surely that is why climate scientists are continuing to gather and evaluate data related to climate change.
Per Exxon:
“Of course, he immediately went on to say that its impact was uncertain indeed, hard to estimate and in any event entirely manageable. His language was striking. ‘We will adapt to this. Changes to weather patterns that move crop production areas around—we’ll adapt to that. It’s an engineering problem and it has engineering solutions.'”
IT IS NOT ENTIRELY AN ENGINEERING PROBLEM! It is partly a political problem and the political problems may be more difficult to deal with than the engineering problems. There will be large numbers of climate refugees, no doubt far more than our current refugees resulting from warfare in the Middle East, and our political systems cannot even deal adequately with them. That is only the beginning.
Exxon continues to trivialize the problems that will result from climate change thereby manifesting its irresponsible attitudes and behavior.
There is no point in my continuing in this vein since people can read the articles for themselves.
Frank,
The article is hysterical propaganda, as is evidenced by the highly emotive and personalized demonizing of Rex Tillerson in the headline.
Exxon is an oil company. Rex Tillerson is the executive responsible for the US becoming energy self-sufficient and even an oil exporter. His leadership of Exxon has made Exxon the largest US taxpayer, and contribute more to the US economy than any other corporation.
He’s not a politician,his duty is to the shareholders of Exxon and Exxon customers.
I wonder if all those rabid critics of Exxon, nad Rex Tillerson, will agree to pay double their current income tax rate to fund the US retirement and superannuation industry currently funded by the oil industry ?
Would those same self-righteous individuals from principle deny their mother, sibling or child access to medical treatment from oil products, and decline the life-saving services of paramedic and ambulance vehicles, because they used fuel manufactured by Exxon ? If their house or office was on fire, would they form a volunteer bucket brigade, rather than call a fire engine using diesel.
Rex Tillerson is correct, the business of Exxon is oil and oil related products. how those products are used is up to governments and competing forms of energy generation.
Corporations are to a certain extent democratic in that the majority of the invested capital decides policy. In the case of Exxon the minority view taken by shareholders supporting the Rockefeller foundation’s proposal to continue funding Alternate energy projects instead of new oil technology was defeated by an overwhelming majority, as a consequence Rex Tellerson is bound by that vote.
Governments make public policy, not corporations. Corporate lobbying power is often used by losing sides to excuse their failure to persuade a majority to their point of view.
In 2010, Exxon joined Chevron in calling for the abolition of bunker oil use in Shipping. Since this is most environmentally harmful and toxic oil product, you would think it would have elicited great support from those commentators Craig regards “brilliant” in castigating Exxon.
Sadly, the call by Chevron and Exxon, along with all their expensive funded scientific research, fell on apathetic ears. The authors of the article are far more excited by sensationalizing the opinions of a long retired Exxon CEO about the reports of scientist back 35 years ago.