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Monday, August 28th, 2017

ExxonMobil allegedly misled the public on climate change for 40 years

Author:     Luke Barnes
Source:     Think Progress
Publication Date:     Aug 24, 2017, 2:30 pm
 Link: ExxonMobil allegedly misled the public on climate change for 40 years
Stephan:   It is the tobacco story all over again. The tobacco industry knew decades before it became public that their products sickened and killed people. But profit was more important than integrity. And now we have this. An industry that has put the entire planet at risk, and has known that what they are doing is doing that. But, once again, profit is more important than either adaptation, or integrity. Exxon Mobil and the other carbon multinationals had years to take their trillions and create a carbon alternative, but greed and vision rarely go together. And so all life on the planet is at risk.

Steam rises from towers at an Exxon Mobil refinery in Baytown, Texas. Exxon Internal documents show ExxonMobil believed that climate change could be a major problem as early as 1977
Credit: AP Photo/Pat Sullivan

ExxonMobil officials reportedly knew about the dangers of climate change as early as 1977 but continued to publicly raise doubts about the science behind it for more than 40 years, a new study by Harvard University has found.

Researchers examined 187 public and private communications from the company between 1977 and 2014 and found that there was a massive discrepancy between the way the oil and gas giant talked about climate change publicly and privately. In internal documents, around 80 percent allegedly acknowledged that climate change was “real and human caused,” but only 12 percent of “advertorials” – editorial-style advertisements in the New York Times – said it was cause for concern.

“We conclude that ExxonMobil contributed to advancing climate science – by way of its scientists’ academic publications – but promoted doubt about it in advertorials,” the […]

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