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.
66% chance by 2027
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65602293
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.