Emails reveal Exxon funded climate change denial

[ivan134]

Some notable excerpts:

 

“The Climate Deception Dossiers” report — released Wednesday by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a U.S.-based nonprofit science advocacy organization — chronicles the deceptions of fossil fuel companies and trade groups through internal documents and memos that were either leaked to the public or disclosed through lawsuits or Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

 

“Exxon first got interested in climate change in 1981, because it was seeking to develop the Natuna gas field off Indonesia,” Bernstein wrote in an email response to an inquiry from Ohio University’s Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics. The email was first published online in October 2014

 

 

“Corporations are interested in environmental impacts only to the extent that they affect profits, either current or future. They may take what appears to be altruistic positions to improve their public image, but the assumption underlying those actions is that they will increase future profits,” Bernstein wrote in 2014.

 

 

Exxon spent over $30 million on think tanks and researchers that promoted climate denial, including Harvard-Smithsonian scientist Willie Soon, according to research carried out by Greenpeace.

 

 

I think it's safe to say that we've all known that energy companies have been engaging in such practices, but now there is hard evidence for it. Hopefully this leads to meaningful policy changes and we start seriously tackling the life and death issue that is climate change. I won't hold my breath though.

 

Source: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/7/9/exxon-knew-of-human-role-in-climate-change-in-1981.html

[Syntaxvgm]

In other news cable companies funded bandwitdh denial 

[Kyuubixchidori]

its called marketing, honestly companies have been doing lobbying and such way worse.

 

 

granted, freedom of speech man. you have to deal with shit like this, but one of the sacrifices you have to make. can't just pick and choose who gets to talk and say what they want. I have the right to say I disagree with you. I dont HAVE to believe the way scientists did something. 

 

I think its wrong and stupid, but legally they have the right to. 

[Deli]

I have the right to believe the earth was created six thousand years ago, even though the scientists say otherwise. :lol:

[Murdoch]

its called marketing, honestly companies have been doing lobbying and such way worse.

 

 

granted, freedom of speech man. you have to deal with shit like this, but one of the sacrifices you have to make. can't just pick and choose who gets to talk and say what they want. I have the right to say I disagree with you. I dont HAVE to believe the way scientists did something. 

 

I think its wrong and stupid, but legally they have the right to. 

 

You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to dismiss the body of research that shows that the current climate change is man made. So funding climate change denial research at this point, is in my mind utterly fruitless, you might convince a few idiots but that's about it. I think large energy companies have come to realise this. I recently heard a rather frank interview with the CEO of Shell, he openly admitted that if we are to keep within the 2 degree warming target, around two thirds of all the oil left, would have to remain untapped, or that carbon capturing would be required. He also seemed to agree with the widely held view among the Scientific community that if we go beyond 2 degrees of warming, we are pretty much fucked. While also clearly stating that we need oil, to transition everything away from oil. That transition needs to be Government lead, lobbying is the real issue, I fear they can probably stall action just about long enough for it to be too late.

[Commander Llama]

Quite literally paying money to increase the possibility of extinction. For us, maybe. For a few million species, definitely. But hey it's cool right? Maybe we can struggle through ourselves and bear witness to a man-made Cambrian Explosion! That would look so sick on my smartphone camera app!

[Jerakl]

>mfw people still think global warming is real

It's climate change you cucks.

[Syntaxvgm]

>mfw people still think global warming is real

It's climate change you cucks.

It turned from global warming to climate change when I turned off OCCT and Prime95 

[Jerakl]

It turned from global warming to climate change when I turned off OCCT and Prime95

*something about a nice meme*

[Syntaxvgm]

*something about a nice meme*

https://niceme.me/

yes that's a thing 

[Jerakl]

https://niceme.me/

yes that's a thing 

Yes I know. But that's for plebs who lack creativity.

My eyes itch.

[Sidiox]

Regardless of if we are the sole cause for the global warming or not. You cannot deny that pumping tons of CO2 into the atmosphere must have influence. And looking at the last time that this happened, it will influence the climate

[Jaybird]

simple because you feel a bit of information is false and you have the money to organize a group of scientist to disprove what has been presented is not uncommon. I really dont care. but if i remember correctly isnt greenpeace that hippy org that goes around vandalizing in the name of "green peace" 

[RuecanOnRails]

If you have some time, here's a great video on the seemingly controversial global warming / climate change debate.

 

[TheUzu]

Need see his shoulder for confimed Cpt rank.

[cesrai]

But what if they actually disprove ??? it's not like it's happening but if it happened that would be a great thing to watch.

[spartaman64]

If you have some time, here's a great video on the seemingly controversial global warming / climate change debate.

 

http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/

hm should i believe this guy or actual scientists. well its the scientist's profession as a congressman pointed out and its this guy's hobby so obviously we need to believe this guy over scientists

[Murdoch]

If you have some time, here's a great video on the seemingly controversial global warming / climate change debate.

 

snip

 

The only thing this video demonstrates is how to make a strawman argument last over 30 minutes.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

If you have some time, here's a great video on the seemingly controversial global warming / climate change debate.

 

-snip-

 

I am sorry, but that video proves next to nothing. What I see is a man cherry-picking statistics, making a logical spaghetti, and drawing arbitrary conclusions,

 

Having some actual depth of understanding in matters like this goes a very long way. That video was ultimately very shallow and barely scratched the surface of the subject, if even that.

[Guest Strangerbob]

I love how greed and stupidity might just be the two reasons we slowly and painfully go extinct.

 

I call that justice from an outside perspective, if you forget being human yourself.

[Trik'Stari]

I'd like to see where the funding for the UCS came from as well.

 

Not saying this isn't true. Not saying that at all, just saying that "green" energy companies (I hate that term) stand to gain a ****-load of money (and power as a result) as the oil companies go extinct.

 

That's all I'm saying lol

[CaptainGazzz]

This is not really something that we didn't know yet, this is just conformation of something that we highly suspected of all the major oil companies.  

[Atmos]

Why the hell does this ever surprise anyone?

 

It's like finding out that the catholic church is systematically making the world a safer place for pedophiles.

 

Or that the pope craps in the woods. 

 

Oh god, I must hate the church for some reason today.

[Toddwjp]

I'd like to see where the funding for the UCS came from as well.

Not saying this isn't true. Not saying that at all, just saying that "green" energy companies (I hate that term) stand to gain a ****-load of money (and power as a result) as the oil companies go extinct.

That's all I'm saying lol

True but the thing is we know now coal oil and gas will not last for ever and the burning of them has an impact on the environment that at current rates will cause massive food shortages and a significant change in the climate in many areas of the world. Therefore we should expect these companies to die out. How we do that is up to the government's of the world, either they take the proactive approach of transition to all electric and green generation of energy through use of subsidies and government built projects as well as new regulation for houses and cars. Or we can wait for the business world to do all these things on there own as coal and oil become to expensive to extract. However there is a time limit, if we take too long then it is disastrous. But if we move to quick the only thing lost is money. This is an area where I think it is okay to justify "overspending" as eventually l it will come back to us. Either as cheap energy for all or a massive economic boom in jobs in the green sector.

[allindaze]

Can we just all pay our carbon tax and move on already?