Executives privately sought to downplay link between fossil fuels and climate change despite public pronouncements, WSJ reports
ExxonMobil executives privately sought to undermine climate science even after the oil and gas giant publicly acknowledged the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, according to previously unreported documents revealed by the Wall Street Journal.
The new revelations are based on previously unreported documents subpoenaed by New York’s attorney general as part of an investigation into the company announced in 2015. They add to a slew of documents that record a decades-long misinformation campaign waged by Exxon, which are cited in a growing number of state and municipal lawsuits against big oil.
Many of the newly released documents date back to the 2006-16 tenure of former chief executive Rex Tillerson, who oversaw a major shift in the company’s climate messaging. In 2006, Exxon publicly accepted that the climate crisis posed risks, and it went on to support the Paris agreement. Yet behind closed doors, the company behaved differently, the documents show.
These are crimes against humanity
It’s planetary ecocide — ALL recent, present, and future generations of all known life have/will suffer the consequences of these sociopaths/psychopaths. Every person. Every ecosystem. Every plant. Every animal. Even if we magically managed to achieve a 1.5c max and survive without collapse, they have forever impacted the future of all life that originated on Earth, for all time.
There isn’t a chance in hell we stop at 1.5c, though. Not with the 5 decade delay these demons have left us. We’re less than a decade away from 1.5c with no end in sight. We need to cut 100% of this by 2025 to achieve 1.5c. An absolute, unequivocal, fantasy! The most realistic best case scenario now is a 2-3c max (e.g. we’re royally fucked!).
If we didn’t live in capitalist oligarchies masquerading as “democracies” Exxon would be seized, everyone who participated or knew about the lies would get life in prison without parole; stripped of all of their personal assets and wealth — with all proceeds invested in renewables and decarbonisation.
But we do, so these corporate criminals have nothing to worry about and will continue to prosper from the greatest crime in history until the day they die.
Word. For all their bluster, politicians are just too afraid - because their personal wealth depends on this shit - to ever actually rock the boat and do to these companies and importantly their leaders just a fraction of what they do to everyone, even outside of the country in question.
Didn’t we reach this already? Or it’s supposed to be a multi-year average, not impacted by geological heating?
We averaged 1.5C for a single year, which we’ve also done in 2016. This was largely due to naturally-occurring phenomena that pushed our close-to-1.5 average up over the threshold. The global average temperature YOY has not risen to 1.5C yet.
It is likely to before 2030.
I thought that was a headline a week ago or so, but i did not find it quickly.
This article came up from a few months ago, before the summer heat domes that might have skewed things upward.
Taking one year in isolation I’m sure. The overall trend is up, and the frequency of energetic weather is up, but we’ve not hit 1.5c increase over a period longer than a year yet.
Hot years happen, and one year isn’t a trend.
Exactly! That’s why I wrote “less than a decade away”.
If you haven’t noticed, most articles use the entire range stretching out to the late 2030 outliers under the most optimistic and forgiving scenarios, which is disingenuous as the vast majority of modelling indicate we’re extremely likely to hit 1.5c YOY this decade.
“we acknowledge that we are part of the problem, but it’s important to remember that I might be dead before any of these terrible things directly affect me. So in the mean time we need to extract as much money as possible in as short amount of time as possible in order to keep me in more weath than I could ever spend”
Incidentally why I believe that every major decision needs to be undersigned by at least 50% people under the age of 30, that explicitly sign that they are also to be held criminally responsible for anything these decisions result in even after they are no longer part of the compant and that they are only signing this after having reached a mutual agreement with the older people about this situation.
Can’t find enough youngsters to sign that? Well, no major corporate decision it is. And no political lawmaking either, of course.
Lol when did “under 30” become the only people with futures? What the hell dude I’m not that old!
Its ok mate, you had a good run while it lasted.
Old Man Yells At Cloud
Hang them and distribute their funds to climate change. Family should not receive a single penny either.
I agree with portions of this
Which portions? Don’t leave us hanging
I can’t speak for that guy but I personally agree these people should be portioned as well
I don’t believe in hanging people, we should expropriate all but a basic living pensions and exile them to equatorial countries.
Fine fine, get the fuckin guillotine boys. Let’s get some heads rolling.
Big fan of Sean Lock’s Nazi Island reality show concept aren’t you?
Everybody else is saying kill them and I think, somehow, that’s letting them off easy. Let them all go and be the self-made, self sufficient men and ladies they have always wanted to be. They can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and show us once and for all we’re just crap people by not only surviving but thriving under the conditions that they, more than anyone else, have made.
Seems like my proposal has balance and justice about it.
The risk of them making others think like them is pretty great.
The risk of them doing things to prolong their bloodline at the expense of others is also pretty good.
Better to remove the risk.
So they can go and exploit the previous victims of colonialism and current victims of capitalism directly in person? What did the people in equatorial countries do to deserve that?
They already have enough problems without the world illegally dumping yet more hazardous waste on them.
My feeling is that those people will have been forced to move into more temperate areas because of the harshness of climate change and so there’s be a natural space for the ‘wealth creators’ to exploit.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed how warmly people from equatorial countries are currently being received as refugees, but, let’s just say that’s a remarkably optimistic outlook.
It’s a pessimistic outlook really, I am saying that the equatorial zones will be rendered largely uninhabitable. Like all refugees, those people would rather be able to stay in their homes but that’s not going to be possible. The other thing is that once everybody from those regions have to move, out of necessity, they’ll have the numbers to insist on relocation.
I understand what you were getting at, but I still think ‘having the numbers to insist’ is not something that will happen. 7000 people arrived on one of Italy’s islands in the last 2 days seeking refuge. Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya was established in 1992 but today holds 200k people. On the other side of Kenya is Dadaab camp which holds 240k people right now. On average, people spend 10-15 years in those camps.
Sadly, the world will leave them to rot, as it always has. This will only be more true as people in richer countries begin to feel greater cost of living pressures - xenophobia is a typical response when people are angry that they have nothing.
Either way, I’m opposed to dumping billionaires as punishment. Exile is not really feasible like it used to be. I say seize assets and garnish future income, like they’re someone trying to avoid paying child support.
Yeah, if there were proper consequences to them not paying up and not a toothless regulatory entity then I could go along with that, it’s not got as much schadenfreude but it’ll do.
7000 is a lot but we’re talking about multiple countries being displaced here. If you’re old enough to remember, there was that whole Palestinians in Jordan thing where they were actually planning a coup and very possibly had a chance of pulling it off and then the King of Jordan (who turned out to be a CIA asset because of course it was the CIA) expelled them all from the country in Black September and then they ended up in the Lebanon.
Imagine knowingly throwing humanity under the bus to make a quick buck because you know you’ll be dead by the time the consequences come.
I don’t often find myself agreeing with cruel and unusual punishment, but if anyone deserves to suffer Hell on Earth, it’s these people. They deserve to feel the pain they’ve caused through their money-making malice.
This is why jail time for executives, large shareholders, and decision maling employees needs to be more of a thing.
Jail is too easy. Extrajudicial enforcement.
I routinely see people driving dangerously every time I leave the house. What if its not just these executives but our culture as a whole. Like they’re the symptom of a much bigger disease
The rot economy
Talking about climate change to my mother had her replying “I’ll be dead before any of that affects me”.
I never fail to remind her of that when a storm/drought/energy price hike/other climate related trouble does affect her.
Sounds like such a nice lady.
It may be true that they’ll be dead before the worst of it comes, but as you say, it’s already here. Bigger and more frequent storms; more drastic, frequent, and longer heatwaves and droughts; bigger floods; colder and colder winters. They’re all symptoms of climate change, and they aren’t going away.
It’s as though the generations after WWII forgot that they’re supposed to leave a world for the next generation to live in, not sell them out for a buck.
The penalties for these crimes should be higher than fines. They should involve prison time at the very least, destroying our planet is not something people should get off scot-free for.
If you are willing to throw all of human civilization under the bus for profit, you should have no place in it
Perfectly succinct.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that millions, if not billions of people will die because of the actions of ExxonMobil. Those responsible should be prosecuted and imprisoned.
Too easy. Their bloodlines need to be scrubbed from the earth.
Why is this seen as anything less then a death sentence? Killing the earth is literally worse then killing a human.
They should pay to fix this. They should all pay to fix this.
They should pay by having their ability to breath the air they ruined revoked. Permanently.
Its not that simple. There is no fix.
Yes there is.
Really? There is a path back to +0°C temperature increase?
These people are the reason tar and feather needs to make a comeback. Take their wealth and make them walk the streets naked in shame.
Even better, take some of their money and staple it to them as a replacement for taring and feathering.
“But having worked with some of these colleagues earlier in my career, I have the benefit of knowing they are people of good intent,” he said. “None of these old emails and notes matter, though. All that does is that we’re building an entire business dedicated to reducing emissions – both our own and others’ – and spending billions of dollars on solutions that have a real, sustainable impact.”
This person makes a good point, but they fail to realize that it can also be true that these (often former) executives should still be prosecuted for, at minimum, misleading shareholders.
“Why not for fucking up the planet?” you might ask. Because lying about global warming is not illegal. Misleading shareholders on the future viability of your company, despite internal documentation stating the opposite of your external public opinions and business actions, is illegal.
This website is a solid repository of leaker memos, documents and transcriptions from fossil fuel industries attempts to spread doubt and plot to discredit any action that would impact them. There are some bangers in here. Its eye opening to see letters and emails from decades ago where these people flat conspire to undermine any climate initiative’s
We really need to start extra judicial enforcement of international law against ecocide.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
They add to a slew of documents that record a decades-long misinformation campaign waged by Exxon, which are cited in a growing number of state and municipal lawsuits against big oil.
Many of the newly released documents date back to the 2006-16 tenure of former chief executive Rex Tillerson, who oversaw a major shift in the company’s climate messaging.
Tillerson also wanted to engage with the scientists “to influence [the group], in addition to gathering info”, the Exxon researcher told colleagues in a 2012 email about the findings.
After a climate science presentation to Exxon’s board of directors in April 2015, Tillerson called the 2C goal “something magical”, according to a summary of the meeting.
That December, Exxon publicly endorsed the Paris agreement; during his Senate confirmation hearing to become secretary of state in 2017 under President Trump, Tillerson maintained his support for it.
The documents could bolster legal efforts to hold oil companies accountable for their alleged attempts to sow doubt about climate science.
The original article contains 671 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Good bot!
