ExxonMobil Chose Poorly
Here’s an article that combines two elements of 20th Century Americana: news and poetry. It’s the Pulitzer Prize winning story of ExxonMobil’s decision to bury the truth about climate change and an allusion to our most beloved poet (Robert Frost), called: Exxon—The Road Not Taken.
The story line, as everyone knows, is that a) ExxonMobil’s own scientists had proved conclusively in the late 1970s that the burning of fossil fuels was on a course that would soon ruin our planet, B) the executives at the time began to deal with the moral implications and recommend alternative business strategies, C) this executive team was succeeded by one that decided that profits were of greater importance than the fate of the human race, D) the company made a decision to hide the truth, and poured tens of millions of dollars into a campaign that would be effective in convincing a sizeable number of Americans that global warming is a hoax, and E) attorneys general from several states are calling for a criminal investigation, based, at a minimum, that the company defrauded investors by covering material facts about the eventual value of the company.
Those living abroad and unfamiliar with the story may assume that the company’s long-time CEO would be headed for prison. Wrongo. He’s been rewarded with the highest cabinet position in the country.
Craig,
Seldom have you claimed such a distorted assembly of opinions as “facts” .
Your claims don’t stand up to even the most casual examination !
Rex Tillersen was a university student in the early 1970’s, the attempt by Eric Schneiderman to attack Exxon has developed into a farce and his claims of support from other Attorneys-general has melted away, leaving not Exxon, but Eric Schniederman being investigated by the DoJ.
A federal Judge admonished attorneys-general Schneiderman and Healey for launching spurious investigations, improperly conducted based on “flimsy” legal theories and undertaken with political motives “to pressure Exxon Mobil on the policy debate over climate change.
Judge Kinceade also criticized “the anticipatory nature of Attorney General Healey’s remarks about the outcome of the Exxon investigation.” He ordered further discovery into whether her probe was being conducted in bad faith.
The subsequent discovery she lied about the amount of funding she has received from anti-Exxon groups, hasn’t helped her cause.
[www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-exxon-case-unraveled-1472598472]
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s investigation of Exxon Mobil (http://quotes.wsj.com/XOM) for climate sins has collapsed due to its own willful dishonesty.
The posse of state AGs he pretended to assemble never really materialized. Now his few allies have melted away ! Massachusetts has suspended its investigation. California apparently never opened one.
The U.S. Virgin Islands has withdrawn its sweeping, widely criticized subpoena of research groups and think tanks. In an email exposed by a private lawsuit, one staffer of the Iowa AG’s office tells another that Mr. Schneiderman himself was “the wild card.”
His initial claim, flounced to the world by outside campaigners under the hashtag “exxonknew,” fell apart under scrutiny. This was the idea that, through its own research in the 1970s, Exxon knew one thing about climate science but told the public something else.
In an Aug. 19 interview with the New York Times Mr. Schneiderman now admits this approach has come unstuck.
Schneiderman now admits he’s no longer focusing on what Exxon knew about AGW, but instead on how it goes about valuing its current oil reserves. In essence, Mr. Schneiderman seeks to hide his retreat behind a recent passing fad in the blogosphere for discussing the likelihood that such reserves will become “stranded assets” under some imaginary future climate regime.
The “Exxon knew” claim, recall, began with investigative reports by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times, both suffering from the characteristic flaw of American journalism—diligently ascertaining and confirming the facts, then shoving them into an off-the-shelf narrative they don’t support.
Curiously, one thing has emerged from all the brouha, is Exxon published estimate in 1977 is now identical to the latest IPCC and U.S. National Research Council estimates.
This information, report and discussion papers have been available in numerous libraries since 1977, which sort of gives lie to the theory of a grand conspiracy by Exxon !
But, I guess for “true believers” these facts, are not relevant.
For you,it’s far preferable to continue repeating what you think “should be true” than face reality and admit you’ve been conned by an overly ambitious, dishonest politician, who told you what you wanted to to hear.