Report details how ExxonMobil and fossil fuel firms sowed seeds of doubt on climate change

Two days before ExxonMobil goes to court Wednesday, facing New York state accusations the oil company misled investors about climate change, a team of researchers released a report Monday outlining the company and the broader fossil fuel industry’s decades-long campaign of deception, and its success at confusing the American public.

ExxonMobil misled the public for decades.

The report, which was published by scientists at Harvard, George Mason and Bristol universities, draws parallels between the campaigns launched by tobacco companies and oil industries to mislead the public about their products, both with a goal of delaying government policies and regulations that could cut into their profits.

Revelations about ExxonMobil’s campaign came from 2015 news reports in the Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News, and studies previous to the one Monday have documented its efforts to manipulate public opinion.

Read the story from The Los Angeles Times by Susanne Rust - “Report details how ExxonMobil and fossil fuel firms sowed seeds of doubt on climate change.”

Nectar swaps BP for Esso amid criticism by climate campaigners

A major UK consumer loyalty programme has been criticised by environmental campaigners for making Esso – whose parent company ExxonMobil has been under fire for its track record on climate change – its new fuel partner.

A Greenpeace protest outside a BP petrol station in Camden, north London.

In the biggest single shake-up yet of petrol station loyalty schemes that reflects the turmoil and environmental pressures on the sector, Esso has terminated its partnership with Tesco Clubcard to set up the Esso Nectar scheme.

Petrol company BP has axed its 16-year partnership with the Nectar loyalty card, which means that from Saturday the 20 million holders of the card – owned by Sainsbury’s – will no longer be able to earn points with BP and will instead pick up Nectar points at Esso-branded sites when filling up their tank.

Read the story from The Guardian by Rebecca Smithers - “Nectar swaps BP for Esso amid criticism by climate campaigners."

This could be the next big strategy for suing over climate change

Two California coastal counties and one beach-side city touched off a possible new legal front in the climate change battle this week, suing dozens of major oil, coal, and other fossil fuel companies for the damages they say they will incur due to rising seas.

A Delta plane lands as a U.S. Airways plane
 waits to take off at San Francisco airport. 

The three cases, which target firms such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell, assert that the fossil fuel producers are collectively responsible for about 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions between 1965 and 2015. They claim that industry “knew or should have known” decades ago about the threat of climate change, and want companies to pay the costs of communities forced to adapt to rising seas.

“We’re already living the impact of sea level rise,” said Marin County Supervisor Kate Sears. She said a county vulnerability study found hundreds of county businesses and other assets could be at risk in coming years.

Read The Washington Post story - “This could be the next big strategy for suing over climate change.”

US Republicans attempt to derail Exxon climate investigations

Once upon a time, climate science and politics were separate things. Then came several decades of scientific denial, distortion, and gaslighting. One of the companies responsible for politicizing climate change is ExxonMobil, which for years funded climate change denial groups despite its own research confirming that greenhouse gases cause global warming. Now, the battle to hold them accountable has become a proxy war between a lead denier in the US House of Representatives and groups that are working to make Exxon legally responsible for its actions.

Some of this is political theater. Yesterday, Texas Republican Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Science Committee, heard arguments from a panel of experts—two of whom work for Exxon-funded think tanks—on why his committee has the authority to intervene in the investigations into Exxon’s denialism. But if this is theater, it is not over once the curtain closes. Displays like this further confuse the public about how science is done. And it drags out the spurious narrative that science isn’t in consensus about climate change, its causes, and effects. That affects everyone living on this warming planet.

Read Neil Stockton’s story on Wired - “House Republicans Are Trying to Blackball the Climate Investigation into Exxon.”

The Age believes clean energy will bring exponential returns

Wind is just one alternative
 to fossil fuel energy

America's great family dynasties were, for the most part, founded on the industries that powered Western economic growth. Oil, railways, car manufacturing, chemicals, banking and property development dominate the landscape of generational wealth in the United States.

One of those dynasties, the Rockefeller family, derived its vast riches from ownership of Standard Oil, now known as ExxonMobil. But one of the philanthropic funds controlled by the Rockefellers has declared it will no longer invest in fossil fuels because of its profound concerns about climate change.

The Rockefeller Family Fund says the clear evidence on climate change leads it to believe that reserves of oil, coal and tar-sands must remain in the ground "if there is any hope for human and natural ecosystems to survive and thrive". It says "there is no sane rationale for companies to continue to explore for new sources of hydrocarbons" and it makes "little sense, financially or ethically" to invest in companies that exploit fossil fuels

Read the Editorial in today’s Melbourne Age - “Climate change: Clean energy will bring exponential returns.”

Rockefeller brothers divest from fossil fuels in moral move

On a perfect summer day in June 2014, on the grounds of a stately home overlooking the Hudson River, a handful of the descendants of America’s most enduring business dynasty made a fateful decision: they would cut their ties to fossil fuels in order to fight climate change.

The ironies were inescapable. About half of those gathered for the board meeting were direct descendants of John D Rockefeller – founder of the oil empire that eventually became ExxonMobil – and here they were, gathered in the estate he built at Pocantico Hills, New York, surrounded by a collection of antique gas guzzlers and limousines, preparing to take a highly symbolic stand against fossil fuels.

As descendants, they had an extra burden to fight climate change, said Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, a former middle-school special education teacher and chair of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF).

Read The Guardian story - “Rockefeller Brothers Fund: it is our moral duty to divest from fossil fuels.”

Global demand for coal to peak in 2025 - ExxonMobil

United States oil giant ExxonMobil has predicted that global demand for coal will peak in about 2025 and then fall into terminal decline as natural gas gains the ascendancy amid increased efforts to clamp down on greenhouse gas emissions.

The decline of coal, currently the world's second-largest fuel, will be driven by moves by the industrial and power generation sectors to improve energy efficiency and switch to lower-emitting fuels, the energy major said in its 2016 outlook for energy, released overnight Australian time.

Read Angela Macdonald-Smith’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Coal demand to peak in 2025, ExxonMobil says.”

Polluted corporate culture must change - The Guardian

A look back at 2015 reveals some shocking corporate scandals, notably in September, when two of the world’s most powerful companies were spectacularly caught with their pants down.

On 16 September, Inside Climate News revealed that ExxonMobil, the world’s fourth largest oil company, was aware of the environmental effects of burning fossil fuels as far back as the early 1980s. Instead of acting, however, it had chosen to spearhead climate denial.

Just a few days later, car giant Volkswagen admitted to installing emissions test cheating software in up to 11m of its diesel cars. A study by scientists at West Virginia University had shown that Volkswagen’s diesel cars’ on-road NOx emissions were several times the legal limit.

While these two revelations may be unrelated, they reveal common threads that have created a business environment conducive to such repeated wrongdoings. Brought together, these threads – I would argue – can be viewed as four behavioural traits that have come to define today’s corporation:

Read The Guardian Sustainable Business story - “VW and Exxon: indicative of a polluted corporate culture that must change.”

Former chief scientist blasts ExxonMobil for opposing climate science

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The U.S. Government's former
chief scientist for
 global warming research,
Michael MacCracken.

s he wrapped up nine years as the federal government's chief scientist for global warming research, Michael MacCracken lashed out at ExxonMobil for opposing the advance of climate science.

His own great-grandfather, he told the Exxon board, had been John D. Rockefeller's legal counsel a century earlier. "What I rather imagine he would say is that you are on the wrong side of history, and you need to find a way to change your position," he wrote.

Addressed to chairman Lee Raymond on the letterhead of the United States Global Change Research Program, his September 2002 letter was not just forceful, but unusually personal.

No wonder: in the opening days of the oil-friendly Bush-Cheney administration, Exxon's chief lobbyist had written the new head of the White House environmental council demanding that MacCracken be fired for "political and scientific bias."

Read the Inside Climate News story - “Exxon Sowed Doubt About Climate Science for Decades by Stressing Uncertainty.”

ExxonMobil may face renewed legal climate challenges

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xxonMobil may face renewed legal challenges from plaintiffs claiming that it should have acted to address the risks of climate change, based on new evidence that its own researchers warned management about the emerging threat decades ago.

In an online petition drive, in public statements and behind the scenes, environmental advocates and their political allies are pressing federal and state authorities to launch investigations, subpoenas or prosecutions to pin down what Exxon knew and when. The oil giant's critics say Exxon might be held liable either for failing to disclose the risks to shareholders and financial regulators, or for manufacturing doubt to deceive people about the science of climate change.

Read the Inside Climate News story - “ExxonMobil Faces Heightened Risk of Climate Litigation, Its Critics Say.”

 

(Any conversation aimed at preserving the global weather conditions which have allowed humanity to thrive is destined to become a little dirty. The “business-as-usual brigade” appears blinded by its sumptuous life-style and will not let go of it without a significant struggle.

Sadly, good sense and reason appears to have little relevance and so it seems that troupe will only respond to actions integral to the machinations of their world, suggesting that legal action aimed at protecting the earth’s “Goldilocks-like conditions” might be the only venue open to those of us worried about humanity’s savaging of the earth – Robert McLean).