"Back in 1979, #Exxon had privately studied options for avoiding #GlobalWarming. It found that with immediate action, if the industry moved away from #FossilFuels and instead focused on #renewable energy, fossil fuel pollution could start to decline in the 1990s and a major #ClimateCrisis could be avoided.
"But the industry didn't pursue that path. Instead, colleagues and I recently found that in the late 1980s, Exxon and other oil companies coordinated a global effort to dispute #ClimateScience, block fossil fuel controls and keep their products flowing.
"We know about it through internal documents and the words of industry insiders, who are now beginning to share what they saw with the public. We also know that in 1989, the fossil fuel industry created something called the Global Climate Coalition—but it wasn't an environmental group like the name suggests; instead, it worked to sow doubt about climate change and lobbied lawmakers to block clean energy legislation and climate treaties throughout the 1990s.
"For example, in 1997, the Global Climate Coalition's chairman, William O'Keefe, who was also an executive vice president for the American Petroleum Institute, wrote in the Washington Post that 'Climate scientists don't say that burning oil, gas and coal is steadily warming the earth,' contradicting what the industry had known for decades. The fossil fuel industry also funded think tanks and biased studies that helped slow progress to a crawl."
⚠️Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed. #ClimateCrisis
So, it's okay to destroy #Indigenous heritage sites, pollute the planet, and appoint corporate lackeys to advisory boards -- but if you protest and cause disruption, you could face arrest?
"In May, after several #ExtinctionRebellion protests, the South Australia government introduced a A$50,000 maximum fine and three months jail for anyone 'recklessly' obstructing public spaces, while laws passed in New South Wales last year created a two-year maximum prison sentence for acts disrupting major roads or facilities.
"#England, #Wales and parts of #Canada and the #USA have also adopted similar laws aimed at blocking disruptive climate activism.
"In Western Australia, climate protesters say they have been 'disabled' by intimidating raids, strict bail conditions and orders which give authorities access to their devices and ban them from communicating with peers.
"According to Ms Grix, these tools were originally intended to deal with gangs and drug dealers.
"'To apply [that]... to climate defenders, who are protesting about environmental concerns, seems to be a massive overreach,' she says."
#ExxonMobil CEO, enjoying record profits, says you and I are not pulling our weight when it comes to addressing the #climatecrisis. I swear I am not making this up.
If capitalism were a driver of innovation, fossil fuel companies like #Exxon would have developed clean alternatives decades ago, instead of lying to the public and paying for junk science to refute the truth.
Hmmmm.... So #MethaneLeaks are a substantial source of #ClimateChange. Well then, #BigOilAndGas needs to take care of that ASAP! And so do any responsible nations!
"A coalition of oil and car manufacturing interests in 1954 funded Keeling’s earliest work in measuring CO2 levels across the western US, the documents reveal.
Experts say the documents show the fossil fuel industry had intimate involvement in the inception of modern climate science, along with its warnings of the severe harm #ClimateChange will wreak, only to then publicly deny this science for decades and fund ongoing efforts to delay action on the climate crisis."
We know that #ExxonKnew, and #ShellKnew about climate change at a very early stage, but now it transpires that car manufacturers and banks also knew.
"A total of 18 automotive companies, including Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, gave money to the foundation. Other entities, including banks and retailers, also contributed funding."
The case for prosecuting fossil fuel companies for homicide
"In today’s thinking, tort law—the law of civil wrongs—seeks economically efficient outcomes: The question is about whether one party should give another some money. Criminal law, by contrast, is concerned with society’s fundamental values—with morality. It answers whether conduct is permissible or forbidden. Where tort law prices misconduct, criminal law prohibits it.
" If someone substantially contributes to or accelerates a death, that counts as “causing” it. If they did so intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly, that counts as “culpable mental state.” "
Well, #ExxonKnew. #ShellKnew. They all knew, very early on and with astonishing accuracy, what the burning of their product will do. They not only kept on selling the product at great profit, they lied about it.
Small point: although #ExxonKnew and promoted 'unreasonable psychology', of course they weren't the first to understand the greenhouse effect: see eg #JohnTyndall and #EuniceFoote in the 1850s and Svante #Arrhenius's public talks in the 1890s.
Agree we can collectively #StopBurningStuff. It requires not just technical solutions, eg #electrification and #heatpumps, but making sure human institutions do not undermine true sustainability.
The city of Chicago sues American Petroleum Institute, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil & Shell for “tobacco-industry-style campaigns to deceive and mislead the public about the damaging nature of their fossil fuel products.”
#BigOilAndGas can afford to fix the problem they created!
Largest oil and gas producers made close to $100bn in first quarter of 2022
Shell made $9.1bn in profit, almost three times what it made in the same period last year, while Exxon raked in $8.8bn
Oliver Milman, Fri 13 May 2022
"#Shell made $9.1bn in profit from January to March, almost three times what it made in the same period last year, while #Exxon raked in $8.8bn, also a near threefold increase on 2021.
"#Chevron upped its profits to $6.5bn and #BP reveled in its highest first-quarter profits in a decade, making $6.2bn. #CoterraEnergy, a Texas-based firm, had the largest relative windfall of the 28 companies, with a 449% increase in profits on last year, to $818m."
After finding out about how #ExxonKnew and hid information, do we really trust big #corporations and government agencies beholden to them to look out for #MotherEarth? I think not!
Residents worry ahead of #Fukushima water release [video]
AP, July 24, 2023
The #FukushimaDaiichi#nuclear power plant is expected to start releasing treated #radioactive#wastewater into the #sea within weeks. It's unclear whether, or how, damaging that would be, but residents say they feel helpless. (July 24) (AP video/Ayaka McGill)
This song has been bringing tears to my eyes. It WAS a wonderful world -- but we f*cked it up!
"I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed days
The dark sacred nights
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Saying, 'How do you do?'
They're really saying
I love you
I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They'll learn much more
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Ooh, yes"
This is Darren Woods, the current CEO of Exxon. He doesn't want you to think of him as a villain.
He wants you to "consider all options, even those that don't align with your ideology," while ruling out options that don't align with his free market ideology.
He wants "market-based solutions," but he also wants taxpayer investments in technologies that would keep Exxon in business--like carbon capture.
He says we need to "get real," while proposing that no slowdown of international trade is permissible.
"Oil and gas companies reliably provide affordable products essential to modern life. Making them into villains is easy. But it does nothing – absolutely nothing – to accomplish the goal of reducing emissions," he says, without presenting any evidence that recognizing the evil of Exxon and its human agents hurts the goal of reducing emissions.
Exxon CEO Darren Woods says the quiet part out loud: The problem with renewable energy sources is that they “don't generate above-average returns for Exxon's shareholders.” — @pluralistichttps://pluralistic.net/2024/03/06/exxonknew/
The sun generates virtually limitless and free energy, with much of it available in the form of wind and tides. And we’re already well underway to harnessing that energy.
Former Exxon top DC lobbyist Keith McCoy “confessed to everything: funding fake grassroots groups and falsifying the science – he even names the senators who took his bribes. McCoy singled out Manchin for special praise, calling him "a kingmaker" and boasting about the "standing weekly calls" Exxon had with Manchin's office.”