Exxon Lied About What It KNEW About Effects Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions...
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth
As climate change deniers continue to spread their disinformation and claim scientific data and evidence is unsettled science or not real science at all, public knowledge that the very corporations that stood to lose the most (impact on profit) were behind the campaign of disinformation is steadily growing. Ultimately the result will be to finally do the right thing. Something corporations seem incapable of doing unless forced to do so by public pressure and government representing the best interests of the governed..
As always, Follow The Money.
Continue reading BELOW THE FOLD.
Via: Memeorandum
Purveyor of Truth
As climate change deniers continue to spread their disinformation and claim scientific data and evidence is unsettled science or not real science at all, public knowledge that the very corporations that stood to lose the most (impact on profit) were behind the campaign of disinformation is steadily growing. Ultimately the result will be to finally do the right thing. Something corporations seem incapable of doing unless forced to do so by public pressure and government representing the best interests of the governed..
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — MILLIONS of Americans once wanted to smoke. Then they came to understand how deadly tobacco products were. Tragically, that understanding was long delayed because the tobacco industry worked for decades to hide the truth, promoting a message of scientific uncertainty instead.
The same thing has happened with climate change, as Inside Climate News, a nonprofit news organization, has been reporting in a series of articles based on internal documents from Exxon Mobil dating from the 1970s and interviews with former company scientists and employees.
Had Exxon been upfront at the time about the dangers of the greenhouse gases we were spewing into the atmosphere, we might have begun decades ago to develop a less carbon-intensive energy path to avert the worst impacts of a changing climate. Amazingly, politicians are still debating the reality of this threat, thanks in no small part to industry disinformation.
Government and academic scientists alerted policy makers to the potential threat of human-driven climate change in the 1960s and ’70s, but at that time climate change was still a prediction. By the late 1980s it had become an observed fact.
But Exxon was sending a different message, even though its own evidence contradicted its public claim that the science was highly uncertain and no one really knew whether the climate was changing or, if it was changing, what was causing it.
Exxon (which became Exxon Mobil in 1999) was a leader in these campaigns of confusion. In 1989, the company helped to create the Global Climate Coalition to question the scientific basis for concern about climate change and prevent the United States from signing on to the international Kyoto Protocol to control greenhouse gas emissions. The coalition disbanded in 2002, but the disinformation continued. Journalists and scientists have identified more than 30 different organizations funded by the company that have worked to undermine the scientific message and prevent policy action to control greenhouse gas emissions.
As always, Follow The Money.
Continue reading BELOW THE FOLD.
Via: Memeorandum
Exxon, and now Volkswagon, are both excellent examples of the need to cut back on the regulations so many job creating corporations face when they operate here in the U.S...
ReplyDeleteAt least that is what the Freedom Caucus folks and many establishment Republicans seem to believe with their frequent calls to rollback regulations and rely on the inherent goodness of these multinational corps...
Inherent goodness and inherent profit motive seems at odds more often than not Dave.
DeleteThey are at odds in the short range, but with a long range view of the future, I think they go hand in hand. A rising tide does lift all boats, but it takes "hours", not "minutes" to accomplish.
Delete" Something corporations seem incapable of doing unless forced to do so by public pressure and government representing the best interests of the governed."
ReplyDeleteThat is because they are more interested in money than the best interests of the people.
Profit is important Jerry, but not at the expense of the environment and the planet.
DeleteAgree!
DeleteAccording to a denier (who comments on this blog) believing the scientist who say climate change is real is "faith based". I guess he decided not to weigh in this time, but if he had... Would he claim those internal documents are fakes?
ReplyDeleteWhoever he may be and what he might say is irrelevant. Precisely because he chose not to weigh in and comment.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, who cares? I certainly don't.
It is extremely relevant. Exxon funding of climate change denying "think" tanks and "research" are responsible for the deniers (such as the person I mentioned) believing as they do. Without the misinformation they wouldn't have the ammunition to back up their denialism.
ReplyDeleteExxon is example number 1 of why we need more regulation and overview of corporations rather than less. Corporations' primary job is to make money for their shareholders. In fact the have a fiduciary responsibility (legal responsibility) to do so. Therefore the task of watching out for the public interest falls to the government. That responsibility gets subjugated when large amounts of corporate money also gets funneled to the government officials who are tasks with that regulation and oversight.
Delete