Climate Science & Policy Watch CSPW

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</div><div style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2016/03/08/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-1993-2000/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2016/03/08/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-1993-2000/</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Climate Science & Policy Watch is keenly interested in recent developments regarding various investigations into ExxonMobil Corporation, spurred by a growing concern that the company has chronically and grossly misrepresented to its investors and the public the risks it faces as a result of impacts and other factors associated with global climate disruption.</div><div class="entry-content" trebuchet="Trebuchet" ms="MS" verdana="Verdana" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="font-size: small; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both;">As part of an ongoing investigation of our own, we have reviewed all of the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.investopedia.com/terms/1/10-k.asp" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; background: url(">10-K forms</a> ExxonMobil has submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from 1993 (the furthest back these forms are available online) to the present, in an effort to better understand how this oil giant has addressed the climate change threat — a threat Exxon itself has been shown to fully grasp going back four decades, despite its rhetoric to the contrary. No doubt, the Attorneys General in New York and California investigating ExxonMobil have tasked their staffs with a similar exercise. <p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">These comprehensive, mind-numbingly detailed reports must not only address the financial health of the company and all of its operations, but must also address the full set of risks it faces in the marketplace and in the geographic areas in which it operates. From what we see in the 10-Ks, each over a hundred pages long and requiring, on average, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://www.sec.gov/about/forms/form10-k.pdf" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-image: url(" background-position="background-position" initial="initial" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" outline="outline">2,000 hours to complete</a>, Exxon has lied by both <em style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">omission and <em style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">commission: omitting mere mention for many years, and then grossly understating, the vast array of direct and indirect risks it faces as a result of climate change. Even worse, Exxon has intentionally, overtly, and flagrantly overstated possible financial and economic risks associated with <em style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">regulating carbon and other GHGs, both here in the US and in nations around the world.ExxonMobil has a simple but admittedly very difficult Darwinian choice to make: Will the oil giant continue with the defiant, rosy-scenario, thumbs-up, “bidness”-as-usual approach going forward, or will it continue to feel the heat — politically, socially, economically and quite literally on our warming planet — and eventually, burn.Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch an Exxon Tiger by the toe.

This is the first of a three-part series that analyzes the 10-K reports submitted to the SEC by the Exxon Corporation (which became ExxonMobil in 1998) from 1993-2015, this first covering 1993-2000. It is the latest installment in a series of CSPW posts focusing not only on Exxon, but on Big Oil as well, and the oil and gas industry’s stubborn recalcitrance in the face of indisputable scientific findings on climate change. Overwhelming scientific evidence now shows that the GHG burden in the atmosphere (now at an unprecedented <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">404 ppm and climbing</a>) as a result of fossil fuel combustion is profoundly altering and disrupting planetary climatic conditions, thus posing significant risks to all populations and all economic activity worldwide. From one narrow perspective, the head-in-the-sand ostrich approach to the climate change problem has worked fairly well for ExxonMobil and its predecessor companies, if profit margin is the sole metric. However, even Exxon’s bottom line is at risk now and ExxonMobil, like all fossil-based commercial entities, will ultimately need to either adapt to a low-carbon economy to survive, or go out of business (i.e., go extinct) altogether: even giants like Exxon are part of the fabric of society and not exempt from the Darwinian laws of nature. Constraints on carbon emissions are inevitable; it is not in our collective best interest to further delay action.Our review of Exxon Corporation’s 10-K forms, in light of key developments in climate science and policy in the years we reviewed, provided a troubling but insightful timeline. The stark contrast between what Exxon was sharing with its investors and what the rest of the scientific community was reporting to the rest of the world was remarkable, and incriminating of Exxon.1993 is the earliest year for which we could find an online 10-K for Exxon Corp; we closely reviewed the 10-Ks for 1993-2015 — 23 years worth. Of course to glean an even more comprehensive understanding of what Exxon was saying about climate change and when it was saying it, It will also be important to review Forms 10-K (and perhaps other financial and risk analysis reporting) for the time period beginning in the early 1970s (when Exxon began gearing up to conduct extensive in-house research on carbon dioxide in our oceans) through 1992 as well, to complete the timeline. In the meanwhile, we can set the scene with an initial abbreviated timeline leading up to 1993.Contrary to popular notions, the story really begins about 150 years ago, much earlier than the 1970s.<strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">INITIAL TIMELINE<strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The following are some key developments regarding Exxon and climate change, going back to the origins of both Exxon and our awareness of the prospect of global warming. Interestingly, they happened at approximately the same time in human history.1870: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Standard Oil Company</a> (Exxon’s predecessor) was formally established by John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in Ohio.1890: Congress passed the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Sherman Antitrust Act</a>, preventing monopolies like the one Standard Oil had become.1896: Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius, first published his findings after developing the first model for studying the heat-trapping properties and effects on our atmosphere and climate of industrial carbon dioxide. He was one of several scientists of the time to study and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">call attention</a> to Earth’s changing climate and the role rising CO2 could play.1911: In enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act, the US Justice Department <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">forced Standard Oil to break up</a> into 34 individual companies.1920s-1950s: Scientific papers addressing the prospect of global warming and its effect on the Arctic and our glaciers are <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">appearing in scientific literature</a> throughout the developed world.1957: The National Academy of Sciences submitted its First General Report on Climatology to the Chief of the Weather Bureau through a Committee on Climatology chaired by <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/malone-thomas.pdf" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Dr. Thomas F. Malone</a>. (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://www.aip.org/history/climate/bib.htm#491" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">AIP</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3586608/" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">NCBI</a>)1958: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_David_Keeling" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Charles David Keeling</a> began taking atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements at Mauna Loa Laboratory in Hawaii, initiating what has become the most reliable and longest continuous record of tropospheric CO2 concentrations in the world. These <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">essential measurements</a> continue to this day.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon3.jpg" rel="attachment wp-att-7206" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7206" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704im/http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon3-300x220.jpg" alt="Exxon3" width="300" height="220" srcset="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704im/http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon3-300x220.jpg 300w, https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704im/http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon3.jpg 567w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" style="border: none; background: transparent; margin: 4px 0px 12px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline; float: right; max-width: 100%; height: auto;" /></a>1962: Exxon Corporation takes an ad out in the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://books.google.com/books?id=k00EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA86-IA2#v=onepage&q&f=false" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">February issue of LIFE Magazine</a>, against a backdrop photograph of Alaska’s Taku Glacier, boasting that Humble Oil and Refining (an Exxon predecessor) supplies enough energy “to melt 7 tons of glacier.”1965: President Lyndon Johnson <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">warned</a> about the potential dangers of a changing climate in a special message to Congress: “Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places. This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”1972: Gas stations bearing the names Esso and Enco were newly named “Exxon” and the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey changed its name to the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esso" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Exxon Corporation</a>.<strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1977: In July, Exxon senior scientist James F. Black <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming" class="external external_icon" target="blank" background-position="background-position" initial="initial" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: url(">warned top Exxon management</a> of the dangers associated with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from fossil fuel combustion. “Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical,” Black admonishes in an internal briefing paper for Exxon leadership. (Hat tip to <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://insideclimatenews.org/" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">InsideClimate News</a> for it’s stellar investigative reporting on this topic.)1977 and beyond: As early as 1977, representatives of all the major oil companies including Exxon attended and testified at dozens of Congressional hearings addressing the relationship between CO2 emissions, the greenhouse effect, and global warming. Climate scientists such as former GAP client Dr. James Hansen, Charles Keeling, Richard Kerr, and others were busy publishing papers warning of the hazards of global warming as a result of fossil fuel combustion. (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">UCS report</a>)1978: Congress passed into law the National Climate Program Act for federal climate science research, a law spearheaded by Rep. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Brown,Jr." class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">George E. Brown</a> of California.1979: Exxon scientist Henry Shaw led company teams who began to study the absorption rate of CO2 in the oceans. “Exxon must develop a credible scientific team that can critically evaluate the information generated on the subject and be able to carry bad news, if any, to the corporation,” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/documents/Credible%20Scientific%20Team%201978%20Letter.pdf" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Shaw wrote in a letter</a> to Exxon research executives. (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://insideclimatenews.org/news/16092015/exxon-believed-deep-dive-into-climate-research-would-protect-its-business" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">InsideClimate News</a>)1980s: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Scientific papers</a> addressing the growing evidence of the global warming and global climate change threat became even more frequent and compelling.1987: The National Academy of Sciences issued its first major report on the prospect of rising oceans: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.nap.edu/read/1006/chapter/1" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Responding to Changes in Sea Level: Engineering Implications</a>.<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1988: Dr. James Hansen delivered famous testimony before Congress, declaring that climate change was real, it had arrived, and was already causing impacts. His testimony caused a major splash in the media and news of his conclusions rippled through organizations concerned about our global environment. Exxon had also taken notice: an internal memo from August 1988 lays out the beginnings of what would later become the “global warming denial machine,” a term of art coined and well documented by CSPW founder Rick Piltz. (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-image: url(" background-position="background-position" initial="initial" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" outline="outline">UCS report</a>)1989: The United Nations created the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.ipcc.ch/" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>.<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1989: The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) — a well-known front-group for fossil fuel interests — was created in 1989, shortly after the IPCC’s first meeting, operating out of the offices of the National Association of Manufacturers. Exxon Corp. was one of its earliest members, along with Chevron, Ford, General Motors, Shell, Texaco, and of course, the American Petroleum Institute. Throughout the 1990s until it disbands in 1997, the GCC grooms and dispatches well-known climate “skeptics” Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling, Fred Singer, and others (all partly funded by Exxon) as “climate science experts.” (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background: url(" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" outline="outline">UCS report</a>)<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1989: Exxon hired Harvard-educated astrophysicist Brian Flannery to examine the mathematical models being used to better understand global warming and project future scenarios. Through Exxon, Flannery granted funding to universities, starting with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, funding with strings. Flannery was clear in providing direction to MIT researchers: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB111870440192558569" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">“Embrace the uncertainty in all of this.”</a>1989: On March 24, the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Exxon Valdez</a> ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing one of the most massive and destructive oil spills in world history.<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1990: Exxon faces its first climate-related shareholder resolution, proposed by Brion Blackwelder of Friends of the Earth. With 250,000 Exxon shares, Blackwelder asked Exxon’s Board of Directors to develop a company-wide plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the company’s energy production plants and facilities worldwide.” Exxon pushed its typical “scientific uncertainty” message in its opposition statement: “Exxon’s own examination supports the idea that the facts today and the projection of future effects are very unclear.” The proposal was defeated, winning only six percent of the vote. But, it was a start. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://books.insideclimatenews.org/exxons25years" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">(ICN: Exxon’s 25 Years of ‘No’)</a><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1990: Exxon scientist Brian Flannery inserts himself into the IPCC process, submitting papers, attending meetings, and, as the first IPCC summary document on climate change was being prepared by scientists, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Carbon_War.html?id=9lv8c2LkYm4C&redir_esc=y" class="external external_icon" target="blank" background-position="background-position" initial="initial" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: url(">Flannery boldly asked</a> the drafters how they could justify large cuts in CO2 emissions, given all the uncertainties?1990: The US Global Change Research Act — a much-improved version of the National Climate Program Act — was signed into law; the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.globalchange.gov/about/legal-mandate" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">GCRA codified</a> (i.e. mandated by law) the interagency US Global Change Research Program, where CSW founder Rick Piltz later held senior positions from 1995-2005.1991: The National Academy of Sciences issued another seminal report: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.nap.edu/read/1794/chapter/1" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming</a>.1992: While still a US Senator from Tennessee, soon to be named Vice President, Al Gore wrote his first book addressing the climate problem: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_in_the_Balance" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit.</a>Without the 10-K reports for these years, especially for the 1970s when the company was conducting its own research on carbon dioxide in the oceans, it is difficult to know what Exxon was revealing to the SEC and its shareholders regarding its understanding of the relationship between fossil fuel combustion and global warming. Even so, we can learn much from the 23 years of 10-Ks from 1993-2015: CSPW’s summary and analysis, with important points of context, begins below for the period 1993-2000.<em style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Part Two of this series will cover the period 2001-2008. <em style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Part Three will cover 2009-2015.  Each of these reports was prepared by Exxon’s accounting firm, Price Waterhouse LLP, which merged with Coopers & Lybrand in 1998 to become PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, now known simply as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PricewaterhouseCoopers" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">PwC</a>, the 6th largest privately owned organization in the US.<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1993<strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">: In January 1993, Lee Raymond had officially taken the helm as Exxon’s Chair of the Board and CEO, held previously by Lawrence Rawl. For calendar (and fiscal) year 1993 — again, the earliest year we could find Exxon’s SEC filings online — Exxon Corporation’s <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/0000950131-94-000308.txt" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background: url(" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" outline="outline">Form 10-K</a> makes no mention of climate change at all. A global word search yields zero results for each of the following search terms: “climate,” “weather,” “global warming,” “carbon dioxide,” “CO2,” or “greenhouse gases.” In addressing overall risks, Exxon had this to say to the SEC and its shareholders:“The operations and earnings of the corporation and its affiliates throughout the world have been, and may in the future be, affected from time to time in varying degree by political developments and laws and regulations, such as forced divestiture of assets; restrictions on production, imports and exports; price controls; tax increases and retroactive tax claims; expropriation of property; cancellation of contract rights and environmental regulations (emphasis added). Both the likelihood of such occurrences and their overall effect upon the corporation vary greatly from country to country and are not predictable (emphasis added).”This theme — that the Exxon leadership views future potential environmental regulations as (potentially adversely) affecting “operations and earnings” and are unpredictable — and language similar to it, carries through all of the 10-K statements we reviewed.As the SEC requires reporting on company litigation matters, the 1993 10-K includes a paragraph regarding the 1989 <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Exxon Valdez oil spill </a>in Prince William Sound, Alaska:“A number of lawsuits, including class actions, have been brought in various courts against Exxon Corporation and certain of its subsidiaries relating to the release of crude oil from the tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989. Most of these lawsuits seek unspecified compensatory and punitive damages; several lawsuits seek damages in varying specified amounts. Certain of the lawsuits seek injunctive relief. The claims of many individuals have been dismissed or settled. Most of the remaining actions are scheduled for trial in federal court commencing May 2, 1994. Other actions will likely be tried in state court later in 1994. The cost to the corporation from these lawsuits is not possible to predict; however, it is believed that the final outcome will not have a materially adverse effect upon the corporation’s operations or financial condition.”<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Exxon <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/07/15/2301451/25-years-after-exxon-valdez-oil-spill-company-still-hasnt-paid-for-long-term-environmental-damages/" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-image: url(" background-position="background-position" initial="initial" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" outline="outline">never did pay</a> for long-term environmental damages to Prince William Sound and its vast shoreline.1994: With the exception of changes in the financial details, the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/0000950109-95-000647.txt" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">10-K for FY 1994</a> is essentially the same as that for FY 1993. No mention is made of climate, global warming, carbon dioxide, CO2, or greenhouse gases. There is one mention of “weather” — Exxon notes that “despite unseasonably warm temperatures in both the US and Europe during the fourth quarter of 1994, worldwide natural gas production” still rose from 1993 levels. So, shareholders: no worries, thumbs up.1995: The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/0000930661-96-000138.txt" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Form 10-K for FY 1995</a> also makes no mention at all of climate, weather, global warming, carbon dioxide, CO2, or greenhouse gases. However, Exxon reassured investors that, although a federal judge had imposed punitive damage verdicts against the company for the “accidental release” (their words) of oil in Alaska, the verdict was “unjustified” and Exxon vowed to appeal. The underlying message was that Exxon simply could not, would not, allow Valdez liabilities to cut too deeply into the lucrative profit margin.<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Meanwhile, the oil industry’s own scientists had been warning of climate change dangers, and we have evidence to prove it. For example, a leaked internal draft document prepared in 1995 by a team of scientists at Mobil Corporation (which had not yet merged with Exxon), intended for fossil industry executives but not the general public, unequivocally states:<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.”While there are plenty of other sources to cite, CSPW would like to recommend an informative, well-documented dissertation addressing the full extent of Big Oil’s role in over-emphasizing scientific uncertainties regarding anthropogenic climate change: a 2015 report produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">The Climate Deception Dossiers.</a>Tropospheric CO2 concentrations were rising fast: at the famous Mauna Loa laboratory, Charles Keeling was continuing (as he always had since 1958) to measure and report atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. In 1995 he <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v375/n6533/abs/375666a0.html" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">published a scientific paper</a> in Nature, “Interannual Extremes in the Rate of Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide since 1980.” By 1995, the climate problem was well known and knowable; one would have to have been an ostrich with its head in the sand not to understand that we were conducting an enormous experiment with Earth’s atmosphere with potentially dire consequences.1996: Our reading experience of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/0000930661-97-000575.txt" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Form 10-K for FY 1996</a>, in the words of Yogi Berra, was “Déjà vu all over again.” Mention of climate or anything related: zip. The weather, however, is mentioned in a positive note for investors: in 1996 natural gas production rose to the highest level in 15 years, up nine percent from the year before, “due to colder weather in Europe and the US.” The relationship between weather conditions and product sales does not escape Exxon.Meanwhile, the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.ipcc.ch/" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">IPCC</a> released two major reports in 1996: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sar/wg_I/ipcc_sar_wg_I_full_report.pdf" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">The Science of Climate Change</a>, and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/publications/SAR/index.html" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Impacts, Adaptations and Mitigation of Climate Change: Scientific-Technical Analyses</a> by Robert T. Watson, IPCC’s Chair in 1996. (Note: Exxon would later play a major role in ousting Watson from this position, in full character in its role as global bully).1997: Our review of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/0000930661-98-000526.txt" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Form 10-K for FY 1997</a> revealed more of the same, with some variations and, of course, updated financials for fiscal year 1997. Exxon was doing well, holding its superior position in the global marketplace. The fact that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was imposing penalties of up to $25,000 per day for Clean Air Act violations at Exxon’s Baytown, Texas oil refinery was reported almost as a minor nuisance. Again, Exxon’s 10-K was completely devoid of any mention of climate, weather, global warming, carbon dioxide (CO2), or greenhouse gases.What was the climate change backdrop in 1997?The most reliable data set for atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations being gathered at Mauna Loa Observatory was about to turn 40 years old; Dr. Charles Keeling received a special achievement award from then Vice President Gore at a July 1997 White House ceremony.The buzz regarding the fossil industry’s wholesale denial of climate change gained some new energy. Journalist Ross Gelbspan published his first book about climate change denial: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Heat_is_on.html?id=fkb5T0Vv_tQC&source=kp_cover&hl=en" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">The Heat is On: The High Stakes Battle over Earth’s Threatened Climate.</a><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Exxon’s leaders were worried and anxious in anticipation of the upcoming climate negotiations among world leaders in December when the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was to take place in Kyoto, Japan. Exxon’s Chairman and CEO Lee Raymond delivered <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.climatefiles.com/uncategorized/test5/" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background: url(" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" outline="outline">a major speech</a> in October 1997 to the World Petroleum Congress in Beijing. He opened by bragging that Exxon had been selling odorless kerosene oil to the Chinese people since 1910 and giving away kerosene lamps, gaining Exxon the nickname “Keepers of Light” among the Chinese people. He noted that the area of the world open for energy development had increased by one third, and emphasized the dominant role of fossil fuels in meeting energy needs. A good part of his speech was devoted to dismissing climate change as a real problem and warning how “tragic” it would be if the region was “deprived of the opportunity for continued prosperity by misguided restrictions and regulations” addressing carbon emissions.Exxon Corp. was essentially petrified of any sort of global consensus on driving down global greenhouse gas emissions as the result of the upcoming Kyoto climate negotiations. Exxon was not alone: all of the majors in the oil and gas industry, well-represented by the American Petroleum Institute (API) and its so-called Global Climate Science Communications Team, were doing their best to derail an agreement on placing limits on carbon emissions and thus constraining fossil fuel use, as there is no way to “scrub” CO2 out of emissions like we can for the pollutants causing acid rain. Raymond argued:“Proponents of the [Kyoto Protocol] agreements say they are necessary because burning fossil fuels causes global warming. Many people – politicians and the public alike – believe that global warming is a rock-solid certainty. But it’s not… the case for so called global warming is far from airtight. You would think that all the uncertainty would give political leaders pause. Unfortunately, it hasn’t, and officials continue to insist that agreement is needed in Kyoto.”Uncertainty (and thus, doubt) is precisely the product Exxon was selling (a notion well-documented in the book authored by Naomi Oreskes, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Merchants of Doubt</a>), and its CEO was doing all he could to ensure the message stuck. The brand of doubt and scientific uncertainty being sold was indeed a form of denial, being strategically employed as a tool to help ensure delay of public policy regulating CO2 emissions.“We need to understand the issue better, and fortunately, we have time,” Raymond assured his audience, “It is highly unlikely that the temperature in the middle of the next century will be significantly affected whether policies are enacted now or 20 years from now.” Exxon’s own scientists knew better, as we have since learned through investigations by InsideClimate and others. (And, of course, consensus of the Parties to the UNFCCC was reached anyway, resulting in the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Kyoto Protocol</a>.)<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1998: The warmest year (on average) on Earth, in the warmest decade, in the warmest century, for at least a thousand years, as noted in <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/aboutcc/how_cc_works/climate_timeline/" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-image: url(" background-position="background-position" initial="initial" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" outline="outline">a climate change timeline</a> prepared by the World Wildlife Fund.<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And yet, Exxon’s <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/0000930661-99-000626.txt" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-image: url(" background-position="background-position" initial="initial" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" outline="outline">Form 10-K for FY 1998</a>, once again, failed to make any mention of climate, global warming, carbon dioxide (CO2), or greenhouse gases. Again, a full paragraph is devoted to ongoing litigation surrounding the <em style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Exxon Valdez oil spill, nearly a decade after the disaster, and Exxon reasserts its belief that punitive damages being sought by federal courts are “unwarranted.” Exxon’s big news for 1998 was that it had successfully merged with Mobil Corporation to become ExxonMobil, a deal that was formally sealed on November 30, 1998.<p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s not like Exxon wasn’t prodded again that year to consider the climate change problem. At its annual shareholders meeting in May 1998, a resolution was proposed asking the company to consider and report on the impact climate change would have on its operations and business, liabilities it might face for contributing to the problem, and how it could cut carbon emissions. After a failed attempt to get the SEC to block the proposal, claiming it “implies a scientific certainty on climate change which, in fact, does not exist,” the resolution was put to a vote and handily defeated, with less than 5% of the shareholders voting yea. (This resolution and others are well-chronicled in the InsideClimate report, <em style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://books.insideclimatenews.org/exxons25years" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: url(" background-position="background-position" initial="initial" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip">Exxon’s 25 Years of ‘No’</a>)While the public was kept in the dark at the time, we now know that Exxon Corporation’s Washington, DC lobbyist, Randy Randol, contributed substantially to an API internal strategy memo dated April 3, 1998 laying out the scope of a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/784572-api-global-climate-science-communications-plan.html" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan</a> designed to convince “average citizens” and the media of “uncertainties” in scientific findings regarding climate change, despite nearly unanimous agreement in the global scientific community and an abundance of evidence of anthropogenic global warming. The action plan was taken right out of the Big Tobacco playbook for deceiving the public on the health hazards of cigarette smoking, noting that “victory” would be achieved once the notion of scientific uncertainty regarding climate change had been embraced by the general public and policymakers. This diabolical plan was crafted by the Global Climate Science Communications Team whose members, in addition to Exxon’s Randol, included representatives of The Marshall Institute, Frontiers of Freedom, The Southern Company, Chevron Corporation, and the American Petroleum Institute (See the UCS 2015 report <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">The Climate Deception Dossiers</a>).Attorneys General in California, New York, and other states that may decide to investigate ExxonMobil and other oil companies, to determine whether they misrepresented to shareholders the known risks of climate change and a host of accompanying impacts, should take a hard look at the April 1998 oil industry communications action plan memo in light of what Exxon was telling — and failing to tell — its own investors about the way it perceived the climate change threat.So, what else was happening in 1998 on the climate change science and policy front?The newly crafted Kyoto Protocol now required ratification by a requisite number of participating nations, so the question became one of whether the US Senate would take up the matter and ratify the agreement. As we well know, it did not, and hasn’t since.1998 represented the 40-year mark for continuous measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere taken at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, overseen by Charles Keeling. Levels had risen from 316 parts per million (by volume) in 1958 to 369 ppm in 1998. The upward trend was unmistakable and tracked closely with global fossil fuel use.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon4.jpg" rel="attachment wp-att-7207" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img class="alignright wp-image-7207" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704im/http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon4-300x129.jpg" alt="Exxon4" width="387" height="166" srcset="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704im/http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon4-300x129.jpg 300w, https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704im/http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon4.jpg 567w" sizes="(max-width: 387px) 100vw, 387px" style="border: none; background: transparent; margin: 4px 0px 12px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline; float: right;" /></a>The following are citations for some of the scientific papers that were published in 1998; note the publication authored by known climate denier Fred Singer, attempting to plant more seeds of scientific uncertainty: Keeling, Charles D. (1998). “Rewards and Penalties of Monitoring the Earth.” Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 23: 25-82.Kerr, Richard A. (1998). “Among Global Thermometers, Warming Wins Out.” Science 281: 1948-49.Mann, Michael E., et al. (1998). “Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing over the Past Six Centuries.” Nature 392: 779-87Oppenheimer, Michael (1998). “Global Warming and the Stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.” Nature 393: 325-32.Rosenzweig, Cynthia, and Daniel Hillel (1998). Climate Change and the Global Harvest: Potential Effects of the Greenhouse Effect on Agriculture. New York: Oxford University Press.Singer, S. Fred (1998). Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate. Oakland, CA: Independent Institute. 1999: The seventh 10-K we reviewed, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000093066100000656/0000930661-00-000656.txt" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Form 10-K for FY 1999</a>, followed in the tradition of failing to mention any prospect of climate change or global warming, carbon dioxide, or greenhouse gases. The report does contain, however, extensive discussions of the extraction of Alberta tar sands as part of a joint venture called Syncrude, something Mobil Corp brought to the table in the merger. And, with “Y2K” fast approaching, much discussion was devoted to compliance with requirements for ensuring a smooth transition into the year 2000.In November 1999, Kenneth P. Cohen was named Vice President, Public & Government Affairs — a position he kept until his forced retirement at age 65 in January 2016. Cohen did his part, and then some, to carry forward the elements of the communications action plan designed to cast in stone a public perception of the inherent uncertainty of climate science. The plan was oft referred to as diabolical in climate change policy circles, and, it worked. Public opinion was swayed, a conclusion that has been verified and well documented in the study by Justin Farrell published by the National Academy of Sciences (see <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.pnas.org/content/113/1/92.abstract" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">abstract</a>).Also in 1999, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences published a report, Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade (online <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.nap.edu/read/5992/chapter/1" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">here</a>) addressing areas of scientific research needing attention. (See later discussion under 2001).Some of the more notable scientific papers published in 1999 included: Immerwahr, John (1999). “Waiting for a Signal: Public Attitudes toward Global Warming, the Environment and Geophysical Research.” New York: Public AgendaKrabill, William, et al. (1999). “Rapid Thinning of Parts of the Southern Greenland Ice Sheet.” Science 283: 1522-24.Mann, Michael E., et al. (1999). “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations.” Geophysical Research Letters 26: 759-62. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Leggett" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Jeremy Leggett</a> authored an insightful book,  The Carbon War: Dispatches from the End of the Oil Century, relating a first-hand account of climate negotiations throughout the 1990s. And, again, we see a publication by Fred Singer sowing more doubt and uncertainty:Singer, S. Fred (1999). “Human Contribution to Climate Change Remains Questionable.” Eos, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 80(16): 183-87. 2000: With apologies for painful repetition, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000093066101000781/0000930661-01-000781.txt" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Form 10-K for FY 2000</a> also avoided mentioning climate change, global warming, carbon dioxide, or greenhouse gases. The merger with Mobil had not only introduced Synfuels to the Exxon portfolio, it had also brought additional problems for the company with the EPA: several refineries and oil production facilities that had been owned and operated by Mobil were penalized and fined for violating federal clean air and water laws.For the US, it was a historic presidential election year. President Bill Clinton was serving the last year of a two-term presidency. The November election results were too close to call, resulting in a December 12, 2000 landmark decision by the Supreme Court to name George W. Bush as the 43rd President of the United States.Meanwhile, the US Global Change Research Program had finally met one of its more important <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.globalchange.gov/about/legal-mandate" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">legal mandates</a>: to produce a scientific assessment report to Congress, due at least once every four years, that: 1. Integrates, evaluates, and interprets the findings of the Program and discusses the scientific uncertainties associated with such findings;2. Analyzes the effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity;3. Analyzes current trends in global change, both human-induced and natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years.For the first time since the GCRA had been passed into law, the USGCRP National Assessment Synthesis Team published and distributed its report to Congress and the public: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.globalchange.gov/browse/reports?f%5b0%5d=field_report_year%3A160" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change</a>. By 2000, even scientific papers reflected the dichotomy of public opinion versus known scientific findings that had high degree of confidence. A certain amount of national cognitive dissonance was well underway, and little imagination is needed to visualize Exxon’s high-fives. Hansen, James E., et al. (2000). “Climate Modeling in the Global Warming Debate.” In General Circulation Model Development, edited by David A. Randall, pp. 127-64. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Hansen, James E., et al. (2000). “Global Warming in the Twenty-First Century: An Alternative Scenario.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97: 9875-80.Krosnick, Jon A., et al. (2000). “The Impact of the Fall 1997 Debate About Global Warming on American Public Opinion.” Public Understanding of Science 9: 239-60.Lovelock, James E. (2000). Homage to Gaia. The Life of an Independent Scientist. Oxford: Oxford University Press.McCright, Aaron M., and Riley E. Dunlap (2000). “Challenging Global Warming as a Social Problem: An Analysis of the Conservative Movement’s Counter-Claims.” Social Problems 47: 499-522.Newell, P. (2000). Climate for Change: Non-State Actors and the Global Politics of the Greenhouse. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Sarewitz, Daniel, and Roger Pielke, Jr. (2000). “Breaking the Global-Warming Gridlock.” Atlantic Monthly, July, pp. 55-64. Preview to Our Next Post: ExxonMobil’s 10-Ks for 2001-2008
On January 20, 2001 President George W. Bush took office. This would mark the beginning of an unprecedented level of access to the White House for many major oil, gas, and coal companies, including of course, ExxonMobil. One would think that, by now, with all of the compelling evidence from the previous decades, increased world attention to the problem at the level of the United Nations, and the growing sense in the US that we must act decisively to avoid the many problematic impacts carefully outlined in the USGCRP National Assessment report, ExxonMobil might begin to talk about the climate change threat in its <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000093066102000889/0000930661-02-000889.txt" class="external external_icon" target="blank" web="web" im="im" http="http" www.climatesciencewatch.org="www.climatesciencewatch.org" wp-content="wp-content" plugins="plugins" sem-external-links="sem-external-links" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: url(">Form 10-K for FY 2001</a>.One would be wrong… Senior CSPW Contributor Anne Polansky has 30 years of experience in public policies relating to energy and the environment, with a strong focus on climate change and renewable energy.</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This entry was posted in <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/category/climate-science-watch/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Climate Science Watch</a>. Bookmark the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310090704/http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2016/03/08/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-1993-2000/" title="Permalink to ExxonMobil and Climate Change: A Story of Denial, Delay, and Delusion, Told in Forms 10-K (1993-2000)" rel="bookmark" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">permalink</a>.</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">----</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2001-2008/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2001-2008/</a></div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">pt 2</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="post-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; font-family: Montserrat;">To commemorate ExxonMobil’s 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders set to be held today, we are releasing Part Two of our <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2016/03/08/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-1993-2000/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">ongoing series</a> reporting on the company’s treatment of the climate change issue in its 10-K filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from 2001 through 2008, coinciding with the Bush-Cheney administration (read <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2016/03/08/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-1993-2000/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part One</a>).Calls for a U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) investigation — by presidential candidates, Members of Congress, and <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/20/3713761/exxon-climate-denial/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">former DOJ attorney Sharon Eubanks</a> — similar to the one conducted against Big Tobacco for lying about the connection of cigarette smoking and lung cancer, to determine whether Exxon Mobil Corp. should face federal charges under the <a href="https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/content/rico-act.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act</a> for knowingly misrepresenting scientific knowledge regarding global climate change and its impacts, have received significant play in the media over the last several months. Unsurprisingly, these appeals have been met with push-back by the oil company — and more recently in a Las Vegas Review-Journal <a href="http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-the-bully-pulpit-climate-change" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">editorial</a> and a Wall Street Journal <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/plenty-of-political-climate-change-1458083603" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">editorial</a>, both summarily <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/03/15/las-vegas-review-journal-twists-exxon-climate-c/209272" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">slammed</a> for multiple gross distortions by the journalistic watchdog group Media Matters. The more imminent and potentially more problematic legal threat for ExxonMobil (also referred to simply as Exxon) than a future DOJ probe is the ongoing criminal investigation of the oil giant by the state of New York. Uniquely armed with broad investigative and prosecutorial powers under the <a href="https://www.dechert.com/files/Publication/a4def5dd-77bf-48ae-bead-491bfcb9142c/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/dbeb2852-2e00-49d6-971f-4c2db9674658/FS_2004-04.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Martin Act</a>, a 1921 “Blue Sky” New York state law (amended in 1982) intended to prevent financial fraud, state Attorney General (AG) Eric Schneiderman <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-under-investigation-in-new-york-over-climate-statements.html?r=0" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">subpoenaed ExxonMobil</a> on November 4, 2015 to determine whether the oil giant has been knowingly deceiving its investors and the public (over a span of decades!) as to potential risks to its operations posed by human-induced global warming and associated impacts. California AG Kamala Harris may be conducting a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-exxon-global-warming-20160120-story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">similar investigation</a>, and Maryland AG Brian Frosh <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/23022016/maryland-attorney-general-investigate-exxon-climate-change" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">has indicated</a> he may do so as well.Whether ExxonMobil, or any of its competitors in the oil industry for that matter, will ultimately face state or federal criminal charges is anyone’s guess. Much clearer and demonstrable at this point is the distinct disparity between what Exxon has been saying and disclosing to its investors and shareholders (primarily via its 10-K filings with the SEC, the main focus of this series) and what Exxon has been saying and doing both publicly and privately behind closed doors as part of an apparently organized and carefully crafted communications strategy. One of the more damning pieces of evidence of their seeming intent to deceive is the leaked 1998 <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/784572-api-global-climate-science-communications-plan.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan</a> — a collaborative effort of Exxon, the American Petroleum Institute (API), and other key fossil energy interests. The body of evidence is vast and complex and, in some instances, nuanced and requires context. Nevertheless, in our view, ExxonMobil’s chronic duplicity is unmistakable.Irrespective of the ultimate outcome of any state or federal probe into ExxonMobil, a solid narrative has formed that appears to be growing into a grassroots movement to hold the fossil fuel industries in general (and ExxonMobil in particular) accountable for their respective roles in helping to engineer what CSPW has referred to since its inception in 2005 as the “global warming denial machine.” (Note to our readers, this phrase is an established CSPW website category going back to 2006, populated with several hundred posts, many of which focus on Exxon).Now popularized in social media under the Twitter hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ExxonKnew?src=hash" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">#ExxonKnew</a>, the moniker and its implicit message strike to the heart of what tends to stick in people’s craw: namely, the apparent, abrupt pivotExxon executives took at some point in the mid-1980s, when some sort of sea change evidently took place at corporate headquarters. Thanks to stellar investigative journalism at <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">InsideClimate News</a> (ICN), the <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Los Angeles Times</a>, and elsewhere, we have learned (or were reminded) that, back when Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter occupied the White House, when sideburns and wide ties were in fashion, Exxon was <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">spending millions of its own dollars</a> to conduct basic, in-house, curiosity-driven research on carbon dioxide levels in our oceans — and its leaders were understandably and legitimately worried about what that might portend. We also were reminded that Exxon subsequently did everything in its power to convince the public to stop worrying, despite what the science was saying — to carry on, businesses-as-usual.In other words, Exxon’s message to the world: It’s OK to wait for more definitive answers before we go inconveniently altering our carefree, consumptive lifestyles.Or, is it?Younger generations are waking up to the harsh reality of a compromised and potentially very dangerous global climate system in the only world in which they have to live, grow, and raise families. Naturally, they are looking for obvious culprits, and ExxonMobil is squarely on the radar. They are demanding explanations, and deserve to know the truth; we all do. Why and how did a corporate culture characterized by open-minded curiosity and concern regarding rising carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere as a direct result of fossil fuel combustion suddenly morph into a closed-minded culture known for its stubborn insistence that, despite what the body of evidence was showing at any given time, climate science was (and still is) too dicey, too uncertain (so goes the mantra) to warrant legislation aimed at cutting carbon emissions. The answer is painfully obvious: at Exxon, cutting carbon equals cutting corporate profit, a cardinal sin. And so, Deny. Delay. Delude. Repeat.Notably, Exxon has exhibited a harsher, more stubborn recalcitrance on the climate change question, compared with other oil majors, such as BP Amoco. One 2000 <a href="http://epc.sagepub.com/content/18/3/339.abstract" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">study</a> found “striking” differences between these two corporations with regard to their attitudes and actions on global climate change and BP Amoco was found to be significantly “more willing [than Exxon] to contemplate a world that uses less oil.” Less oil, you say? Exxon apparently would not have it. Perhaps this is why Exxon is being singled out for scrutiny: sheer hubris. And now, if only in the court of public opinion, this hubris is coming around to haunt Exxon.Now, we resume our timeline initiated in <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2016/03/08/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-1993-2000/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part One</a> covering years 1993 through 2000, with another well-documented offense that rightly belongs in the proverbial evidence locker. Almost exactly sixteen years ago, on March 23, 2000, The New York Times ran <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/705605-xom-nyt-2000-3-23-unsettledscience.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">an advertisement</a> paid for by ExxonMobil featuring a line graph of temperature data for the Sargasso Sea from a scientific study authored by Lloyd Keigwin, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Falsely implying the graph was representative of overall surface temperatures, the ad stated that “poorly understood natural variability” makes it “impossible for scientists to attribute the recent small surface temperature increase to human causes.” The ad extolled possible virtues of higher carbon dioxide concentrations (e.g., promotion of crop and forest growth), talked about both positive and negative consequences of climate change, and characterized as “empty rhetoric” calls for near-term public policy responses by “some [who] argue that the science debate is settled.”While the ad didn’t cite the US National Research Council report in which the Sargasso Sea data was presented, Keigwin later recognized his own work, <a href="http://www.sddt.com/News/article.cfm?SourceCode=20010322fj#.VuhaasegnEw" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">expressed dismay</a>, and <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050106185655/http:/campaignexxonmobil.org/pdf/ExxonMisleadsInvestors.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">complained publicly</a>:“I believe ExxonMobil has been misleading in its use of the Sargasso Sea data… There’s really no way these results bear on the question of human-induced climate warming… I think the sad thing is that a company with the resources of ExxonMobil is exploiting the data for political purposes.”A sad story indeed, one that grew even sadder when, a couple of months later, ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050106185655/http:/campaignexxonmobil.org/pdf/ExxonMisleadsInvestors.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">blatantly misrepresented</a> the Sargasso Sea data as global temperature data in a statement used as corporate ammunition to shoot down a climate-related shareholder resolution offered at its May 2000 annual shareholders meeting. Will this particular example of deception eventually make its way into a prosecutorial argument presented before a judge?Raymond must have either missed or disagreed with the admonishment in a November 2000 article published in <a href="https://hbr.org/2000/07/what-every-executive-needs-to-know-about-global-warming" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Harvard Business Review</a>, targeted to industry executives, warning that “companies that effectively calculate the risks and opportunities of climate change will be able to survive the coming storms.” Referring to the Global Climate Coalition, the piece pushes on:“The coalition and its supporters appear to be betting against the weight of scientific opinion, but their approach to the problem may be subtler than it appears. If they can stall regulation of carbon-dioxide emissions, they might be able to protect the short-term values of their assets. They may hope they’ll be able to convince the public that government regulation is a greater evil than climate change. In doing so, they run the risk of missing out on the opportunity to help tip the balance toward more sensible forms of intervention.”Fast forward to 2016: ExxonMobil is still making regulation out to be the bogeyman.Recall from Part One, no mention is made of climate change in ExxonMobil’s 10-K report for FY 2000, despite the following realities at the time:<ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Attitudes had shifted markedly in the U.S., as compared with a decade before, toward taking the climate threat seriously and believing action should be taken. For example, a <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/archive/ci/30/i12/html/12schmidt.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">publication</a> by the American Chemical Society reports that a 1998 survey by the World Wildlife Fund revealed that nearly 60 percent of Americans perceived global warming as a “real problem,” and a March 1999 poll taken by the Mellman Group determined that three fourths of a group consisting of representatives in Congress, industry association leaders, the media, economists, scientists, and other policy experts believed US action to cut carbon emissions was necessary.</li></ul><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In 2000, even The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/29/science/global-warming-the-contrarian-view.htmll" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">admitted</a> that those who were actively denying and taking issue with the seriousness of the climate change threat represented “the contrarian view.”</li></ul><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The industry front-group formed to impede an international climate treaty, the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), began fizzling out after losing key members: British Petroleum (BP) in 1996; Royal Dutch Shell in 1997; Ford Motor Company in 1999 (the first US company to defect); and Daimler-Chrysler, Texaco, the Southern Company, and General Motors in 2000. ExxonMobil stayed in. (Find <a href="http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=4468&Method=Full" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">additional detail</a> at <a href="http://www.heatisonline.org/main.cfm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">The Heat Is Online</a>.) A postscript: the GCC subsequently identified itself as an umbrella group for trade associations, and closed its doors for good in 2001.</li></ul><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Some who perceived the full gravity of the climate change problem took the view that “desperate times call for desperate measures” and began considering what some of us in climate policy circles at the time jokingly referred to as the “Geritol” solution. By introducing massive amounts of iron into the ocean, the theory goes, we could <a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/iron-sulfate-slow-global-warming.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">catalyze photosynthesis in phytoplankton</a>, resulting in a sort of giant swallowing of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In November 2000, Wired Magazine helped to popularize this last-ditch (and since rejected) effort at salvation in “<a href="http://www.wired.com/2000/11/ecohacking/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Dumping Iron</a>.”</li></ul><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">International pressure to move forward on implementing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol led to another set of U.N. talks in The Hague in November 2000. The talks ultimately collapsed, and as the world’s biggest polluter at the time, the United States was held largely to blame.</li></ul><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In the waning days of the Clinton administration, the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) released a seminal 2000 report to Congress, <a href="http://www.globalchange.gov/browse/reports?f%5b0%5d=field_report_year%3A160" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change</a>, required by the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990. As stipulated, it was distributed to all Members of Congress and made available to the public. Comprised of nearly a dozen regional assessments of climate impacts, drawing on information and guidance from hundreds of stakeholders, the report was detailed and robust enough to be used as a guide for helping to anticipate and prepare for a panoply of climate change consequences: extreme weather, storm surges, more intense and frequent hurricanes and floods, sea level rise, prolonged droughts, increased wildfires, melting glaciers, and so on. The outgoing Clinton-Gore team had handed the incoming Bush-Cheney team a treasure trove of valuable information on a silver platter. How was it received? Read on.</li></ul>2001: Some content of ExxonMobil’s <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000093066102000889/0000930661-02-000889.txt" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Form 10-K for FY 2001</a> did deviate from the boilerplate language that appears in the 10-Ks from 1993 to 2000. For example, new language appeared, under the category Industry and Economic Factors affecting ExxonMobil’s business operations. The relevant paragraph with the new wording (in bold) calls attention to the well-established knowledge that harsh weather is not always predictable and can cause problems, even for oil giants. It’s tiny, but it’s a start.Industry and Economic Factors: The operations and earnings of the corporation and its affiliates throughout the world are affected by local, regional and global events or conditions that affect supply and demand for oil, natural gas, petroleum products, petrochemicals and other ExxonMobil products. These events or conditions are generally not predictable (emphasis added) and include, among other things, general economic growth rates and the occurrence of economic recessions; the development of new supply sources; adherence by countries to OPEC quotas; supply disruptions; weather, including seasonal patterns that affect energy demand and severe weather events that can disrupt operations (emphasis added); technological advances, including advances in exploration, production, refining, and petrochemical manufacturing technology and advances in technology relating to energy usage; changes in demographics, including population growth rates and consumer preferences; and the competitiveness of alternative energy sources or product substitutes.This seemingly obvious, innocuous comment about the weather raises for us some important questions:Question 1: At this point — which would be early 2002 when the 10-K was being prepared for the previous fiscal year — did the company draw any connection between “severe weather events” acknowledged in the 10-K and “extreme weather” predicted by multiple IPCC Assessment Reports to date and the USGCRP 2000 National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts?Question 2: Was CEO Lee Raymond cognizant of ExxonMobil’s own carbon footprint, of the massive carbon dioxide emissions resulting from consumer use of its products as intended?Question 3: Was there any perception that its own operations could be disrupted by extreme weather brought about by human-caused global climate disruption?If so, there was no evidence of it in its reports for shareholders, and Exxon’s 10-K for 2001, again, omits any discussion of climate change or national and international efforts to address it.The backdrop for 2001: ExxonMobil as climate bully In early 2001, just as deliberately and forcefully as ExxonMobil was turning its back on formally acknowledging any notion of problems with Earth’s climate, the company was excitedly embracing sudden changes in our national political climate. Regime change had come, and the sound of champagne corks popping in the new Bush-Cheney White House were nearly audible as far away as Irving, Texas, headquarters for ExxonMobil, which now had a prominent seat at the table at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. ExxonMobil’s Washington, D.C. office was strategically located just a few blocks away from the Oval, at 2001 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest. Arthur G. Randol III, Ph.D., known simply as Randy Randol, served at the time as Exxon’s “Senior Environmental Advisor,” but in practice he was a full-time lobbyist evidently tasked with fending off any and all Congressional attempts to introduce and pass legislation curtailing carbon emissions or even addressing climate change in any meaningful way.His actions reveal his mission. We can report one prime example, in exclusive coverage of information obtained by GAP and released today by The Guardian:On the morning of January 29, 2001, just one week into the new Republican administration, Randol placed a phone call to the USGCRP Coordinating Office, asking to speak with its Communications Director, Nicky Sundt.  Sundt took the call and made written notes of the conversation as it took place; he has shared his phone log of the exchange with CSPW:29 January 2001. Sundt receives a phone call from Randy Randol of Exxon-Mobil. Arthur G. Randol, III is senior environmental adviser for Exxon Mobil Corp. He says [someone] forwarded him a copy of some survey questions that Sundt sent to Congressional staffers. The survey related to the possibility of sponsoring climate science seminars on Capitol Hill. Randol called Sundt and wanted to know a little about where USGCRP was headed with the seminars. Randol suggested that previous USGCRP seminars were “agenda-driven” and indicated that with the new administration and Congress — “IF the seminars continue” — he hoped to see a different balance with other viewpoints. He suggested a “different process” for picking topics and speakers. He said USGCRP needed to look at the structure of seminar series and suggested USGCRP put more emphasis on putting things in context. He specifically mentioned the NRC’s “Global Change: Pathways for the Next Decade” report as providing a useful framework.According to Sundt, he did more listening than responding, and was alarmed enough by the direct attempt of an oil company lobbyist to blatantly influence legitimate communications to Congress regarding taxpayer-funded programs that he immediately reported the call to USGCRP Director Richard Moss. While not stated explicitly, Randol’s motive was clear to Sundt: ExxonMobil was interested in limiting the scope of communications between the USGCRP Coordinating Office and Congressional staff to the basic physical science of climate change, and to stay away from talking about climate change impacts and our collective vulnerability to them. After all, it was not in the oil company’s interest to have a bunch of Congressmen and Senators asking probing questions about the troubling findings in the USGCRP <a href="http://www.globalchange.gov/engage/process-products/NCA1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">National Assessment</a> report that had recently been distributed to every office in the House and Senate, warning of harmful climate impacts in a dozen regions of the United States. Instead, Randol redirected Sundt to a report focused narrowly on basic climate research, Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade, a 1999 National Research Council <a href="http://www.nap.edu/read/5992/chapter/1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">publication</a> identifying specific areas of basic climate science research needing more attention, devoid of content addressing the array of impacts affecting real people (i.e., consumers), in real places (i.e., markets). Meanwhile, the Bush White House went to work deep-sixing the National Assessment report, suppressing it, quietly getting the message across to political appointees and civil servants alike that they’d best avoid mention of the report or its findings, or else. CSPW founder Rick Piltz would later identify this mass suppression as “<a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2006/10/04/the-unfinished-business-of-the-national-climate-change-assessment-scandal/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">the central climate science scandal of the Bush Administration</a>.”Prime example number two of Randy Randol’s (and ExxonMobil’s) agenda to derail both domestic and international efforts to reach agreement on the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can be found in a <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2623106-exxon-randy-randol-to-john-howard-ipcc-fax.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">memo</a> he sent over to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), dated February 6, 2001, just one week after the call to the USGCRP. The memo is addressed to John Howard, CEQ’s Senior Associate Director at the time. The IPCC was on track to produce a Third Assessment Report (TAR) later that year, and ExxonMobil was, we now know, determined to do all it could to have greater control over the content of these international assessments representing the collective research results of nearly 3,000 highly credible scientists worldwide. From the White House CEQ director, Randol wanted answers to some fairly pointed questions.First, Randol asked: “Could [IPCC Chair Robert] Watson be replaced now at the request of the U.S.?”<a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon-2b.jpg" data-caption="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;"><img class="alignright wp-image-7217 lazyloaded" src="https://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon-2b-300x247.jpg" data-orig-src="https://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon-2b-300x247.jpg" alt="Exxon 2b" width="364" height="300" style="border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border-style: none; vertical-align: top; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline; float: right; margin-left: 15px;" /></a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Watson(scientist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Sir Robert Tony Watson</a> (knighted by the Queen of England in 2012) had chaired the IPCC since 1997; ExxonMobil was overtly clear it wanted him ousted and to have him replaced by Rajendra Pachauri, whom the company viewed as more industry-friendly. ExxonMobil ultimately got its way: Watson gave up his position as Chair in May 2002 and was replaced by Pachauri.Randol doesn’t stop there. In the memo he also asks if Dr. Rosina Bierbaum, Associate Director for Environment on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Dr. Michael MacCracken, Executive Director of the US Global Change Research Program, have been “removed from their positions of influence.” Randol attacks the 2000 National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts as “roundly criticized for its political and scientific bias” and “driven by a political schedule to help the Gore campaign,” allegations that have never been credibly corroborated.The second week of the Bush-Cheney administration also brought the top-secret formation of the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), later known simply as the Energy Task Force, chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney. Dozens of task force meetings were held with outside groups, energy and environmental organizations, private companies and individuals; meetings so deeply shrouded that it took six full years for even partial knowledge of their inner workings and meeting attendees to be revealed: the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701987.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Washington Post broke the story</a> in July 2007.To this day, we still do not have the full picture of what happened behind the closed-door meetings of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Task_Force" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Energy Task Force</a>, despite multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and several lawsuits, though a fairly good <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=amid0201rouselay" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">timeline</a> has been constructed. On May 16, 2001, the NEPDG released its <a href="http://www.wtrg.com/EnergyReport/National-Energy-Policy.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">final report</a> which was taken to be the new “national energy policy” to serve as a template for altering the regulatory landscape.<div id="attachment_7216" class="wp-caption alignright" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; float: right; margin-left: 15px; max-width: 100%; width: 310px;"><a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon-2c.jpg" data-caption="Testifying at a Senate hearing, from left, Lee R. Raymond of Exxon Mobil, David J. O’Reilly of Chevron, James J. Mulva of ConocoPhillips, Ross Pillari of BP America and John Hofmeister of Shell Oil. (By Chip Somodevilla — Getty Images)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-7216" class="wp-image-7216 size-medium lazyloaded" src="https://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon-2c-300x192.jpg" data-orig-src="https://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Exxon-2c-300x192.jpg" alt="Exxon 2c" width="300" height="192" style="border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border-style: none; vertical-align: top; max-width: 100%; height: auto;" /></a>Testifying at a Senate hearing, from left, Lee R. Raymond of Exxon Mobil, David J. O’Reilly of Chevron, James J. Mulva of ConocoPhillips, Ross Pillari of BP America and John Hofmeister of Shell Oil. (By Chip Somodevilla — Getty Images)</div>While it is beyond the scope of this series to provide detail, suffice it to say the oil and gas industry was treated well during the George W. Bush presidency. Moreover, while we now have evidence to the contrary, ExxonMobil vice president James J. Rouse and CEO Lee Raymond attended task force meetings, provided substantive input to the White House regarding energy policy, and vehemently denied doing so when questioned directly by the late Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), as witnesses testified in a 2005 Congressional hearing (see, for example, coverage by <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/big-oil-defends-profits/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">CBS News</a>). While they could not be accused of perjury as they were not officially under oath, their outright dishonesty was exposed as such in a scathing headline in the November 16, 2005 Washington Post which broke the story: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force</a>. The accompanying photograph — the picture that says a thousand words — shows ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond at the far left, joining in one of the oil industry’s most famous group lies.Mainstream press coverage was abundant; this November 17, 2005 <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/congress-to-oil-execs-clarify/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">CBS News</a> report is a good example of what the public was finally able to learn after years of speculation and suspected secrecy.2001 was a year chock-full of bad news for those hoping for a positive public policy response to the looming climate change threat. The U.S. Senate with a narrow Republican majority did not have the votes needed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and, 15 years ago, on March 28, 2001, Christine Todd Whitman, Bush’s choice to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced that the United States had “no interest” in implementing the painstakingly crafted terms of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2001/mar/29/globalwarming.usnews" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Bush kills global warming treaty</a>, proclaimed The Guardian on March 29. Kyoto was officially dead, it seemed. (Ultimately, the treaty entered into force in 2005 when the requisite 55 nations ratified its terms; the U.S. never became a signatory.)A few weeks later, The Guardian published an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/apr/17/environment.highereducation" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">article</a> blasting ExxonMobil for its role in stymieing progress on slowing global warming. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/apr/17/environment.highereducation" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">How the high priests of capitalism run roughshod over fears for planet</a> quotes Kenneth P. Cohen, the company’s head of government relations and public affairs (i.e., the new Randy Randol):“We know we have a giant target painted on our chests.”The target, one could argue, was painted on Planet Earth and the weapon pointed at it was in the hands of ExxonMobil and the rest of Big Oil. Greenpeace International successfully launched a harsh negative ad campaign targeting ExxonMobil (known as Esso in Europe). Meanwhile, Charles Keeling’s Mauna Loa carbon dioxide curve (see Part One for more detail) continued to climb, and the spirits of many intent on some sort of rational response to the climate problem continued to take a nosedive.On September 11, 2001, two large passenger airliners crashed directly into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; a third plane crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth was downed before it could reach Washington, D.C. “9-11” changed everything, it seemed. Domestic policymaking necessarily took a back seat to the nation’s need to recover from shock, bury its dead, and seek to understand what had happened and who was behind the attack. Within short order, plans were in the works to invade Iraq. Climate change dropped way down on the list of public policy priorities.In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Third Assessment Report (TAR)</a>; five years had passed since the Second Assessment Report (SAR) had been released in 1996, and climate science had significantly evolved. Each of three working groups issued its own voluminous report: I) <a href="http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">The Scientific Basis</a>, II) <a href="http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/index.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability</a>, and III) <a href="http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg3/index.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Mitigation</a> (active measures to bring down atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases). The three working group reports were then condensed into a <a href="http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/vol4/index.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Synthesis Report</a>. In the TAR, newer and stronger evidence emerged that the bulk of Earth’s warming that occurred over the previous 50 years was attributable to human activities (primarily the combustion of oil, gas, and coal), and the level of scientific certainty attached to each major conclusion regarding global average temperature increases and associated impacts rose to levels on which any major decision could arguably be based.By the close of 2001, one wonders if ExxonMobil executives had bothered to familiarize themselves with the conclusions drawn from the IPCC Third Assessment Report.  Was anyone at corporate headquarters concerned with how the multinational corporation would deal with and respond to mounting challenges in a climate-disrupted world? And, if not, why not? What CEO of a major corporation chooses to remain in the dark regarding a serious threat to its own business interests?It’s a serious question.2002: By the time the 2002 10-K report was submitted to the SEC, in late March 2003, CEO Lee Raymond had turned 64 years of age and was closing in on forced retirement, which occurs at 65. Senior Vice President Rex Tillerson, then 51, was being groomed for the position and was reportedly already actively involved with Raymond in top-level decision-making. Tillerson’s attitudes toward climate change, we soon learn, are all but indistinguishable from those of his predecessor.The new language ExxonMobil had introduced in its 2001 10-K filing was carried through to its <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000093066103001208/d10k.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Form 10-K for 2002</a>; the report again includes under Risks: Industry and Economic Factors: “weather, including seasonal patterns that affect energy demand and severe weather events that can disrupt operations” among other factors (such as “supply disruptions”). In this, the tenth 10-K report CSPW reviewed, we continued to find radio silence on likely and potential risks to its global operations associated with climate disruption. It’s a silence that speaks volumes given all else the corporation was doing and saying that year.Take, for example, the 10-page letter ExxonMobil staff scientist Brian Flannery wrote to presidential science advisor John Marburger in March 2002. Noting ExxonMobil’s 20-plus year involvement in climate science research and the many scientific papers it had produced and submitted to the IPCC, Flannery urged Marburger to pressure the USGCRP to set its focus on reducing scientific uncertainties; the clear, implicit message was to stay away from talking about climate change impacts. Even though the USGCRP had a clear mandate from Congress to study and report on climate change impacts and to draw connections between mounting carbon emissions and heat waves, sea level rise, extreme weather, more intense flooding, prolonged droughts, and so on, ExxonMobil had a vested interest in those connections not being drawn.Or, did it? In a provocative paper published in 2002, “Risking Shareholder Value? ExxonMobil and Climate Change—An Investigation of Unnecessary Risks and Missed Opportunities,” author Mark Mansley warns:“For investors…the key point is that ExxonMobil’s current strategy on global warming endangers (emphasis added) shareholder value.” The notion that crude oil will eventually become a “stranded asset” for corporations such as ExxonMobil, and thus could jeopardize its stock value, is a growing concern.At the 2002 annual shareholders meeting on May 29, a remarkable thing happened. A repeat shareholder resolution asking the company to adopt a policy to promote renewable energy as part of its energy portfolio (as BP and Royal Dutch Shell had recently done) was submitted, approved by the SEC over ExxonMobil’s objections), and put to a vote. The proposal amassed an unprecedented 20.3 percent of the shareholder vote, representing about $60 billion in shares — a level of support four or five times higher than for most other “dissident” resolutions (see <a href="http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2002/2002-05-29-05.asp" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">archived ENS News report</a>). The same resolution received 9 percent of the vote in 2001. In his book <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Boiling_Point.html?id=Q48gAQAAIAAJ" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Boiling Point</a>, Ross Gelbspan notes that the unusually high approval rate “sent shock waves” through corporate headquarters and caused the company to change its tune, “soften its stance” toward global warming, and tone down the rhetoric in its frequent advertisements in The New York Times.While the Bush-Cheney White House was still holding top-secret Energy Task Force meetings with a variety of corporate energy interests, what must have been an awkward moment for President George W. Bush occurred. On June 13, in a rose garden ceremony, Bush presented fifteen scientists, including Mauna Loa’s Dr. Charles Keeling of tropospheric carbon dioxide measurement fame, with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Medal_of_Science" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">National Medal of Science</a>: the highest U.S. award for scientific research lifetime achievement.In late September 2002, ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, and each member of ExxonMobil’s board of directors, received a lengthy, personal letter from Dr. Michael MacCracken, who was soon to leave his post as director of the USGCRP. Acknowledging attempts by ExxonMobil to have him ousted, MacCracken took the oil company to task for egregiously misleading messages in a whole series of paid advertisements in The New York Times, defending his positions using scientific citations. Rick Piltz posted the <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2006/11/23/michael-maccrackens-2002-letter-to-the-exxonmobil-board-of-directors/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">full letter</a> on the Climate Science Watch website in 2006; it is well worth the read. Below are some excerpts, containing messages ExxonMobil leadership still needs to hear.“While my departure may be satisfying to ExxonMobil, I can assure you that this will not make the scientific challenge of climate change and its impacts go away. That 150 countries unanimously agree about the science of this issue is not because of some “green” conspiracy, but because of the solid scientific underpinning for this issue. Certainly, there are uncertainties, but decisions are made under uncertainty all the time—that is what executives are well paid to do.…I offer this advice to you in remembrance of my great grandfather, Samuel Calvin Tate Dodd, who a century ago was legal counsel to John D. Rockefeller (notably, he took no stock to ensure his opinions would not be tainted by the economic implications of his advice). What I rather imagine he would say is that you are on the wrong side of history, and you need to find a way to change your position…”Some of ExxonMobil’s public rhetoric did soften in the latter part of 2002, but it was evidently just talk. ExxonMobil took zero action to address the looming climate threat.The US Congress was not sitting idly by while the George W. Bush administration turned its back on the climate change issue. To the contrary, by the time the 107th Congress adjourned in late 2002, more than 80 proposals (bills, resolutions, and amendments) had been put forth, and about half of them had been acted upon in some way; for example, through committee hearings and markups. (C2ES provides a <a href="http://www.c2es.org/federal/congress/107/climate-change-legislative-proposals" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">good summary.</a>) A good example is the comprehensive bill introduced by Sen. James Jeffords (I-Vermont) titled The Clean Power Act, which required reductions in carbon dioxide (and other pollutant) emissions from electric power plants. Considered and passed by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, then chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the bill was not acted upon by the House or Senate. No bill regulating the fossil fuel industry’s emissions would survive a certain veto by President Bush. Other similar bills were introduced and considered, but failed to make it through the many gauntlets required to pass into law. Meanwhile, atmospheric carbon levels continued to climb.In late 2002, the eighth Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or simply <a href="http://unfccc.int/cop8/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">COP 8</a>, took place in New Delhi. The Kyoto Protocol still lacked the requisite number of ratifications it needed to enter into force. Leaders of less developed nations rightfully complained that they were being hardest hit by climate change impacts, yet bore little of the responsibility for the emissions causing global warming. “Technology transfer” was the buzz phrase used to describe the obligation of the wealthier nations out of basic fairness to supply advanced technologies for economic growth, as well as funding.In advance of the climate negotiations in New Delhi, Greenpeace International issued <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/5292.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Exxon’s Weapons of Mass Deception</a>, a report that included a forward by Bianca Jagger, wife of Rolling Stone rock star Mick Jagger. “As citizens of this planet,” she wrote, “we are each reliant on our governments’ representatives at the climate talks. But in amongst these delegates are powerful agents with vested interests who continue to wage a cynical, self-interested war to derail this vital process. The worst of these are the men from ExxonMobil.”This type of high-profile negative publicity had to be ruffling feathers inside ExxonMobil’s headquarters, and had to sting a little bit; especially after the beating the corporation took at its annual shareholders meeting when one-fifth of the shareholders told the company it was heading the wrong way by failing to embrace cleaner, safer, energy sources. Given all that had taken place in 2001 and 2002, the failure to mention climate change as a potential risk to its bottom line in the 10-K report for fiscal year 2002 is a glaring — and highly questionable — omission.2003: More new language appears in ExxonMobil’s <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000119312504041877/d10k.htm" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Form 10-K for FY 2003</a> that appears to have been drafted by corporate attorneys interested in creative hedging. Two entirely new sentences appear under the same heading we’ve been discussing, category: Risks, subcategory: Industry and Economic Factors:Throughout ExxonMobil’s businesses, new and ongoing measures are taken to prevent and minimize the impact of our operations on the air, water and ground. This includes a significant investment in refining technology to manufacture low-sulfur motor fuels and projects to reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide emissions.The first sentence is too vague and all-encompassing to mean anything at all. The second sentence is a bit of a mystery; it is not clear what is behind the mention of two specific pollutants, oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, but not others typical of ExxonMobil’s oil extraction and refining operations. The reference to “severe weather events” introduced in 2001, carried over in the 2002 10-K report, appears again, verbatim, in the 2003 filing:   “weather, including seasonal patterns that affect energy demand and severe weather events that can disrupt operations.”What else was happening at ExxonMobil and in the world in 2003?Arthur G. Randol, III, whom everyone knew as Randy Randol, retired and left his post as Senior Environmental Advisor, a position he held since the 1980s.On the climate change question, ExxonMobil was now isolated and alone among the four “super-major” oil companies at the time; the other three — Shell, BP, and ChevronTexaco — were taking positive steps to face this difficult challenge. According to a study (<a href="http://ceres.org/resources/reports/sleeping-tiger-hidden-liabilities-exxonMobil-2003" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">full report, pdf</a>) conducted by London-based Claros Consulting, strategies being explored by ExxonMobil’s three largest competitors included “incorporating ‘carbon pricing’ into future planning scenarios and decisions, setting emissions reductions targets, developing emissions trading experience, and investing in renewable energy.” Ceres, a coalition of investor and public interest groups working with major companies to increase corporate environmental responsibility worldwide, issued a May 2003 <a href="http://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/study-exxonmobil-now-the-only-giant-oil-co.-failing-to-act-on-global-warming-risks" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Press Release</a> applauding the Claros report, issued shortly before the May 2003 annual shareholders meeting.Claros was recommending shareholder support for several proxy resolutions seeking greater disclosure of ExxonMobil strategies to address the climate risk and respond to shareholder pressures to embrace renewable energy. The report’s author and head of Claros Consulting, Mark Mansley, observed ExxonMobil’s growing isolation, noting how much it was “out of step” in continuing to deny the climate change threat. The company was “relying on a ‘hope for the best’ strategy,” he said, that would be logical only if one expected the climate threat to suddenly “evaporate.” Ceres Executive Director Mindy Lubber <a href="http://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/study-exxonmobil-now-the-only-giant-oil-co.-failing-to-act-on-global-warming-risks" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">said it best</a>: “It doesn’t matter if you ‘believe in climate change’ if policies are emerging around the world that affect your industry. ExxonMobil’s continued denial of this reality demonstrates an impressive lack of sophistication in basic risk management.” Impressive, indeed.January 2003 saw the opening of the 108th Congress. The U.S. Senate maintained a narrow Republican majority, and the November elections of 2002 had widened the Republican majority in the House. While tax credits were extended for a variety of alternative energy sources, no major climate legislation was adopted in the first session.Meanwhile, scientists continued to churn out peer-reviewed publications in academic journals and to contribute to the scientific knowledge base on which we depend to gauge the threat. For example, well-known climate scientist Michael Mann continued the important work of studying and reporting global surface temperature trends. And, by 2003, more academics were interested in analyzing the negative influence of politics on our collective ability to adopt sensible public policy commensurate with what the science was telling us.2004: Two new sentences appearing in ExxonMobil’s 2003 10-K filing, one which mentions measures it was taking to “minimize the impact” of its operations “on the air, water and ground” and the second which reports efforts to reduce emissions of oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, were carried forward to its <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000119312505038144/d10k.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Form 10-K for FY 2004</a>. And, for the fourth time in a row, the risk factor mentioning “severe weather events” is included.2004 was a presidential election year, and naturally, the Bush-Cheney team was determined to stay in office. Shortly before Election Day, in mid-October 2004, former Vice President Al Gore delivered a speech (<a href="http://work.colum.edu/_{amiller/algore1018.htm}" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">full text</a>) at Georgetown University castigating the Bush administration for epic failures on global warming. He attacked the administration for its duplicitousness regarding the alleged role national greed for Middle East oil played in our decision to invade Iraq in early 2003. Gore noted that among “documents obtained in discovery proceedings against the Cheney [Energy] Task Force by the odd combination of Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club” was found “a detailed map of Iraq showing…in great detail the location of every single oil deposit known to exist in the country.”However, not everyone at the Pentagon was on board with Dick Cheney’s fixation on oil fields in the Middle East region. In early 2004, the Defense Department secretly commissioned a report assessing the climate risk from a national security standpoint. Authored by CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Peter Schwartz, the report warned that, in a matter of two decades, climate change could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters, as reported by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">The Guardian</a>. Concluding that the climate threat to global stability vastly eclipsed that of global terrorism, and that climate change should move beyond scientific debate to a national security concern, the report became a potential embarrassment for President Bush, who was still publicly denying the mere existence of climate change. Robert (Bob) Watson, who had moved on to become chief scientist for the World Bank after being pushed out of the IPCC, asked the key question: “Can Bush ignore the Pentagon?” Noting how difficult it would be for Bush and Cheney to dismiss the Pentagon’s findings, Watson continued: “After all, Bush’s single highest priority is national defense…If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act.”“There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,” Watson noted. So, was the Bush administration listening more closely to the oil lobby, or the Pentagon?The other big climate-related news for 2004 was the May release of the 20th Century Fox film, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">The Day After Tomorrow</a>, starring Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal. Ridiculed for its apocalyptic message and ridiculous notion that the Earth could suddenly careen into a full-blown ice age in a matter of a few weeks, the film did have the benefit of raising public awareness of potentially abrupt changes in our climate system.There were some notable climate-related publications in 2004:<ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Jared Diamond published his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed</li></ul><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ross Gelbspan authored Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis — and What You Can Do to Avert Disaster</li></ul><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In April 2004 James Gustave Speth released his book Red Sky at Morning. America and the Crisis of the Global Environment</li></ul><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In October 2004 Stanford-based climate scientist Steve Schneider published a scientific paper with the alarming title, “Abrupt Non-Linear Climate Change, Irreversibility and Surprise (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378004000408" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">abstract</a>)</li></ul><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In November 2004 the Pew Center on Global Climate Change (now the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions) released a <a href="http://www.c2es.org/publications/observed-impacts-climate-change-united-states" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">report</a>, Observed Impacts of Global Climate Change in the U.S., the twelfth in a series.</li></ul><ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">A December issue of Science magazine included an <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">article</a> by Naomi Oreskes, “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.” Oreskes had conducted a thorough literature review of the science, concluding: “a robust consensus that anthropogenic global climate change is occurring…despite claims sometimes made by some groups that there is not good evidence that Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities.”</li></ul>The climate change threat was now being widely covered, and one would have had to work really hard to remain ignorant of the looming prospect of a world significantly disrupted by human-caused alterations in Earth’s climate system.2005: Given the rich variety of attention paid to climate change over the previous decade, and positive actions to deal with climate change by other companies in the oil and gas industry, it is almost shocking to see that ExxonMobil’s official report to shareholders in its <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000119312506040951/d10k.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Form 10-K for FY 2005</a> continues to make no mention of climate change, global warming, or carbon dioxide emissions. As was seemingly the general rule, language from the previous year’s report was carried forward, so, under Risks: Industry and Economic Factors, we see the same two sentences: “Throughout ExxonMobil’s businesses, new and ongoing measures are taken to prevent and minimize the impact of our operations on the air, water and ground. This includes a significant investment in refining technology to manufacture low-sulfur motor fuels and projects to reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide emissions.” And, for now the fifth year in a row, we see the same risk factor about the weather: “weather, including seasonal patterns that affect energy demand and severe weather events that can disrupt operations.”The Beginnings of Climate Science Watch In June 2005, Climate Science Watch was founded as a program of the Government Accountability Project, by federal climate science whistleblower and former GAP client Rick Piltz.Piltz had abruptly left his 10-year stint at the USGCRP Coordinating Office in March, <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2005/04/09/resignation-of-rick-piltz-from-the-u-s-climate-change-science-program/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">resigning his post</a> after witnessing multiple instances of politically-motivated tampering of official White House documents addressing the current state of our scientific understanding of global climate change and potential impacts.“I believe the overarching problem is that the [George W. Bush] Administration…does not want and has acted to impede forthright communication of the state of climate science and its implication for society,” he wrote in his formal letter of resignation.Piltz also penned <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2005/06/02/on-issues-of-concern-about-the-governance-and-direction-of-the-climate-change-science-program/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">a lengthy critique</a> for the interagency leadership of the nation’s climate research programs codified by the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the US Global Change Research Program, which had been renamed the Climate Change Science Program under Bush.Piltz took issue with multiple, blatant attempts by Phil Cooney, who had been recruited to the White House Council on Environmental Quality from his post as a corporate attorney and chief lobbyist (not a scientist) at the American Petroleum Institute, to water down scientific conclusions in official government reports. With strategic and tactical foresight, Piltz had collected a significant body of hard evidence in the way of a paper trail demonstrating the White House’s not-so-hidden agenda to exaggerate the scientific uncertainty of climate change — the same disingenuous game ExxonMobil had been engaged in for the previous two decades. Piltz submitted copies of documents clearly showing Cooney’s hand-scribbled edits to reporter Andrew Revkin, then at The New York Times. The June 8 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/politics/bush-aide-softened-greenhouse-gas-links-to-global-warming.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">news story</a> made page one (<a href="http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=42676" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">archived here</a>), and was chronicled in <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2005/06/08/bush-aide-edited-climate-reports-ex-oil-lobbyist-softened-greenhouse-gas-links-ny-times/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">one of Piltz’s first few posts</a> on the new Climate Science Watch website. Two or three days later, <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2005/06/08/white-house-responds-to-new-york-times-expos/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">we learned</a> that Cooney had jumped ship as CEQ’s chief of staff and took a plush position at Exxon Mobil Corp.  Was this jump evidence of a pre-arranged safety net the oil company had put in place for Cooney?  It sure did have that appearance.Piltz used his new platform at Climate Science Watch to offer a detailed explanation of the factors leading to his decision to leave the comfort and security of a federal government job in order to blow the whistle; he had decided to formally identify as a whistleblower and thus be afforded specific protections under whistleblower laws on the books at the time.In <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2005/06/08/censorship-and-secrecy-politicizing-the-climate-change-science-program/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Censorship and Secrecy: Politicizing the Climate Change Science Program</a>, Piltz blasted the Bush-Cheney White House, and posted it on the same day The New York Times story was published:“This administration has acted to impede honest communication of the state of climate science and the implications for society of global climate change. Politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program in its relationship to the research community, to program managers, to policymakers, and to the public interest.”June 8, 2005 was a productive day for Piltz: he also <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2005/06/08/white-house-responds-to-new-york-times-expos/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">chronicled</a> the immediate White House response and <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2005/06/18/more-on-the-white-houses-editing-of-climate-science-reports/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">various media reports</a> (Piltz went on to direct Climate Science Watch for nearly ten years and to serve as an effective watchdog over the scientific integrity of climate science and policy before sadly <a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2014/10/19/r-i-p-rick-piltz/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">passing away</a> on October 18, 2014).The 109th Congress was sworn in during January 2005. The Republican majority in both the House and Senate was strengthened following the election. Legislative proposals addressing various aspects of climate change were still being developed and introduced by a number of Members of Congress, but nothing passed into law. Notably, the Energy Policy Act was significantly amended in 2005 but did not contain any provisions relating to climate.It was November 2005 when five oil executives, including outgoing ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, lied to a Congressional committee about their participation in the super-secret Energy Task Force chaired by VP Dick Cheney (see discussion above under section for 2001 and accompanying photograph). Sen. Frank Lautenberg had asked each witness the same question: “Did your company or any representatives in your companies participate in Vice President Cheney’s energy task force in 2001?” One by one, each responded in the negative. Eight U.S. Senators later submitted <a href="http://www.cantwell.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cantwell-repeats-demand-for-investigation-into-oil-execs-false-testimony" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">a formal request</a> (as reported by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)) to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for a Justice Department investigation.The letter noted the public disclosure by The Washington Post of a leaked Secret Service document raising questions about the veracity of their claims and subsequent statements and letters issued by the CEOs attempting to “clarify” their answers, with some admitting participation after all. The Senators wanted to know if testimony provided at the November 9 hearing had violated the Federal “False Statements” statute, or any other applicable statutes. “If witnesses believe that the laws requiring truthful testimony before our committees will not be enforced, our hearings will lose their usefulness and the Senate’s ability to effectively legislate will be hampered,” the letter continued, concluding with: “You and your Department have a unique Constitutional duty to enforce laws that help protect the integrity of proceedings before the United States Senate. We strongly urge you to exercise this critical duty.” The five oil company executives never had to face legal consequences for what would have been outright perjury in a court of law. Now, most Congressional hearings require witnesses to “take the oath” to tell the truth, and nothing but, with more serious consequences for lying than existed back in 2005.The other big climate and weather-related development of 2005, of course, was the landfall of Hurricanes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Katrina</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Rita</a>, slamming the Gulf Coast region with devastating force, taking lives and property, leaving a trail of death and destruction from which the region has still not completely recovered from. Were these powerful hurricanes, as the late Steve Schneider would put it, souped-up on “climate change steroids?” It is generally accepted now that warmer average global temperatures often cause hurricanes to pack a bigger punch.Also of note, on June 20, 2005, Charles David Keeling <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/science/charles-d-keeling-77-who-raised-global-warming-issue-dies.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">passed away</a>; his son, Ralph Keeling, had picked up the torch at Mauna Loa and has continued gathering measurements of tropospheric carbon dioxide concentrations ever since. Remarkably, this essential data record is continuous from 1958 to the present.On the publications front, Rick Piltz had an article published in the academic journal Eos: “Toward a Second U.S. Climate Change Assessment.” (Over the years, Climate Science Watch has paid quite a bit of attention to the requirement for these periodic assessments of climate change impacts, and how well or how poorly this requirement has been satisfied). Known climate-deniers John Christy and Roy Spencer published a paper in Science titled: “Correcting Temperature Data Sets” (a likely attempt to dispute or discredit an upwards warming trend); meanwhile, former GAP client and renowned climate scientist Dr. James Hansen published an editorial in the academic journal Climatic Change with the provocative title, “A Slippery Slope: How Much Global Warming Constitutes ‘Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference’?” Chris Mooney (now a journalist with The Washington Post) published a book, The Republican War on Science.2006: On January 1, 2006, Rex Tillerson took the reins of the Exxon Mobil Corporation, as CEO and Chairman of its Board of Directors; Lee Raymond had been forced to retire when he reached age 65.Along with the change in leadership came many new changes in the 10-K filed for 2006. For the very first time since 1993, the year our review began, the words “risks of global climate change” appear. However, rather than admitting climate change and associated impacts could pose a risk to ExxonMobil’s operations, the matter is turned on its head. A brand new risk factor is added in a section titled “Political and Legal Factors” under “Risks” in the <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000119312507042435/d10k.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Form 10-K for FY 2006</a>, and reads as follows: “laws and regulations related to environmental or energy security matters, including those addressing alternative energy sources and the risks of global climate change.” Notably, this “risk factor” appears among a half dozen other risk factors including “war or other international conflicts” and “civil unrest.”In other words, it is not the array of impacts associated with climate change that ExxonMobil sees as a problem; rather, it is the threat of potential “laws and regulations” addressing climate and alternative (renewable) energy sources that ExxonMobil feels a fiduciary responsibility to warn its shareholders about. So, after being called out for being “out of step” with the rest of the industry, for being alone and isolated in its recalcitrance regarding the climate change issue, ExxonMobil decides to dig in even further.The company also made some editorial changes to the risk factor regarding weather patterns; the new phrase now reads (additions in bold): “weather, including seasonal patterns that affect regional energy demand (such as the demand for heating oil or gas in winter) as well as severe weather events (such as hurricanes) that can disrupt supplies or interrupt the operation of ExxonMobil facilities.” It makes sense that ExxonMobil would specifically mention the winter months (and not the summer months) in discussing energy demand, as most air conditioners draw electrical power generated by coal, not oil or gas. It also makes sense that ExxonMobil would mention hurricanes, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, which disrupted energy supplies including those provided by ExxonMobil. However, the likely climate change component to the vast devastation wasn’t acknowledged in the slightest.In 2006, Al Gore’s famous book, An Inconvenient Truth, was made into a <a href="http://www.takepart.com/an-inconvenient-truth/film" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">movie</a> of the same name. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the film was intended to alert average citizens of the “planetary emergency” of global warming, “before it’s too late.”Dr. James Hansen, from his post at NASA, was still cranking out research papers. In 2006, he published “Dangerous Human-Made Interference with Climate: A GISS Model Study.” It was about at this time that Hansen began to use the word “dangerous” to describe human-caused perturbation of Earth’s climate system.Another trend that began taking a stronger hold was the growing alliance between the “faith” community and the climate science and policy communities. Journalist Eli Kintisch wrote about this in “Evangelicals, Scientists Reach Common Ground on Climate Change” published in Science magazine.And, academics were beginning to take a good, hard look at the troubled legacy of the George W. Bush Administration pertaining to the climate threat. For example, Seth Shulman published a 2006 book, Undermining Science: Suppression and Distortion in the Bush Administration.2007: The company’s <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000119312508041781/d10k.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Form 10-K for FY 2007</a> carries forward the brand new language introduced in 2006 under “Political and Legal Factors” in disclosing risk factors to its investors: “laws and regulations related to environmental or energy security matters, including those addressing alternative energy sources and the risks of global climate change.” Nowhere in the report is it acknowledged that the company’s operations could be adversely affected by climate change impacts. The slightly amended risk factor addressing “severe weather events” is repeated verbatim from the 2006 report: “weather, including seasonal patterns that affect regional energy demand (such as the demand for heating oil or gas in winter) as well as severe weather events (such as hurricanes) that can disrupt supplies or interrupt the operation of ExxonMobil facilities.” More frequent and intense hurricanes as the result of rising global surface temperatures and warmer oceans were some of the more frequently discussed climate change impacts in the media. One might argue that ExxonMobil’s specific mention of hurricanes as a risk factor could be interpreted as its own inadvertent admission that it was just as vulnerable to climate change impacts as the rest of us. But, that argument is a stretch, and ExxonMobil was still actively in the deny-delay-delude business.Early 2007 saw the release of the IPCC’s <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar4/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Fourth Assessment Report</a> (AR4), summarizing our current scientific understanding of changes already taking place in our climate system as a result of rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. The three working groups issued their voluminous reports: I) <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">The Physical Science Basis</a>, II) <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/contents.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability</a>, and III) <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/contents.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Mitigation of Climate Change</a> — as well as the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/contents.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">AR4 Synthesis Report</a>.The new IPCC findings were heavily covered by the worldwide media with predictions for global temperature increases, sea level rise, prolonged droughts, increased flooding, melting glaciers, and so on. The most important, newsworthy finding in the AR4 was that the panel had now concluded that it was at least 90% certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases, rather than natural variations, were warming the planet’s surface. The <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6321351.stm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">BBC</a> and others quoted co-lead author Dr Susan Soloman: “We can be very confident that the net effect of human activity since 1750 has been one of warming,” addressing the delegates in Paris. The unequivocal nature of this conclusion made waves everywhere.IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri, brought in to replace Robert Watson, expressed satisfaction with the results: “It is extremely encouraging in that the science has moved on from what was possible in the Third Assessment Report.” Pachauri also had a warning for the world: “If you see the extent to which human activities are influencing the climate system, the options for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions appear in a different light, because you can see what the costs of inaction are.” The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/science/earth/02cnd-climate.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">characterized</a> the new climate assessment report as “bleak and powerful.” John Holdren, later to become the White House science advisor for President Barack Obama, noted that the report “powerfully underscores the need for a massive effort to slow the pace of global climatic disruptions before intolerable consequences become inevitable.” Intolerable. Holdren is well known for quipping that there are only three solutions to climate change: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. In recent years, we certainly have observed “suffering” with myriad record floods in the Southeast and elsewhere, record droughts and wildfires in the West, severe snow storms, and other impacts long-predicted by the scientific community.2008: It is evident from the 2008 10-K report submitted by ExxonMobil to the SEC that upper management had not read the IPCC AR4 reports or the vast amount of news coverage the new IPCC findings generated. The <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000119312509040966/d10k.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Form 10-K for FY 2008</a> simply repeats the language from 2007, including the two sentences about minimizing impacts on air, water, and the ground, and reducing emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides. The “severe weather” risk factor is also repeated, as is the backward-thinking inclusion of potential regulations intended to avert catastrophic, “intolerable” climate impacts as a risk to its operations, not the dangerous impacts themselves.Meanwhile, academic papers addressing the very real nature of the climate change threat continued to flourish, Charles Keeling’s son Ralph published a paper in Science titled “Recording Earth’s Vital Signs,” and the media, for the most part, continued to cover climate change, with varying levels of competence and neutrality. Yet, the executives at ExxonMobil, the second largest corporation in the world at the time, holding the number two spot on the Fortune 500, with $460 trillion in revenue for 2008 and $45 trillion in profit, continued to bury their heads in the (increasingly hot) sand.Part Three of our series will cover the years 2009 through 2015, and an assessment of tomorrow’s annual shareholders meeting. CSPW Senior Climate Policy Analyst Anne Polansky has 30 years of experience in public policies relating to energy and the environment, with a strong focus on climate change and renewable energy.</div><div class="fusion-meta-info" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; overflow: hidden; margin-top: 20px; padding: 5px 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(203, 215, 228); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(203, 215, 228); border-right-color: rgb(203, 215, 228); border-left-color: rgb(203, 215, 228); font-family: Montserrat;"><div class="fusion-meta-info-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;">May 25th, 2016|<a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/activism/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Activism</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-research-and-assessment/assessments-of-climate-impacts-and-adaptation/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/politicization-of-climate-science/attacks-on-climate-science-and-scientists/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Attacks on Climate Science and Scientists</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-education-and-communication/climate-change-education-and-communication/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Change Education and Communication</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/policy-responses-to-climate-change/climate-change-mitigation/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Change Mitigation</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/policy-responses-to-climate-change/climate-change-preparedness/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Change Preparedness</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-litigation/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Litigation</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/general/climate-science-watch/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Science & Policy Watch</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/politicization-of-climate-science/climate-science-censorship/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Science Censorship</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/general/climate-science-watch-update/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Science Watch Update</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/us-government/congress-legislation-and-oversight/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Congress: Legislation and Oversight</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/energy/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Energy</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/general/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">General</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-research-and-assessment/global-climate-disruption-and-impacts/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Global Climate Disruption and Impacts</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/politicization-of-climate-science/global-warming-denial-machine/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Global Warming Denial Machine</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/policy-responses-to-climate-change/international-climate-policy/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">International Climate Policy</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/national-security/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">National Security</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/us-government/obama-administration/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Obama Administration</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/obama-climate-plan/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Obama Climate Plan</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-education-and-communication/science-communication/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Science Communication</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/policy-responses-to-climate-change/science-policy-interaction/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Science-Policy Interaction</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/scientific-integrity/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Scientific Integrity</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-research-and-assessment/u-s-global-change-research-program/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">U.S. Global Change Research Program</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/general/whistleblowers/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Whistleblowers</a></div></div></div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">=</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">pt iii</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-part-three-e-2013/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-part-three-e-2013/</a></div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="post-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; font-family: Montserrat;">Covering the year 2013, this is our latest installment in a timeline series addressing how the Exxon Mobil Corporation has characterized risks to its business operations associated with climate change (in its annual 10-K reports to shareholders), in light of what corporate leadership knew, or reasonably could have known, regarding anthropogenic global warming and associated climate change impacts. For previous segments, see <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2016/03/08/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-1993-2000/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part One (1993-2000)</a>; <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2016/05/25/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2001-2008/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part Two (2000-2008)</a>; <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2016/09/08/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2009-2015/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part Three(A) (2009)</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2016/12/01/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2009-2016-part-three-b-2010/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part Three(B) (2010)</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2017/04/03/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2009-2016-part-three-c-2011/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part Three(C) (2011)</a>, and <a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-part-three-e-2013/#" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part Three(D) (2012)</a>.In 2013, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide exceeded 400 parts per million for the first time in millions of years, marking a milestone that, while symbolic, called greater attention to escalating greenhouse gas levels and a steady global warming trend. Scientists had already been warning that a runaway greenhouse effect could disrupt Earth’s climate system to a point of no return. Climate change impacts continued to worsen in regions across the globe, and few communities were sufficiently prepared for these impacts. Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil was investing its massive $45 billion in earnings in maximizing extraction and processing of oil and gas, including the controversial use of hydrofracturing (fracking) to extract fuel from tar sands and the expansion of offshore oil drilling. Despite pressure from shareholders to address climate change meaningfully, CEO Rex Tillerson stood his ground in suggesting that bringing fossil fuels to those who lack ready access (such as the <a href="https://www.iea.org/topics/energypoverty/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">1.2 billion people without electricity</a>) was the “humanitarian” thing to do, rather than leading the transition away from an increasingly risky high-carbon energy future. By 2013, nine of the ten hottest years on record had occurred since the turn of the century, and growing instances of harmful climate impacts across the US and the world were impossible to ignore. Yet, these risks were readily discounted by corporate leadership at ExxonMobil. The Rising Stakes of Escalating Greenhouse Gas Emissions in 2013 In the spring of 2013, the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii reported that the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere had exceeded 400 parts per million for the first time in human history; indeed, for the first time in millions of years. The last time levels were this high, Earth was in the middle of the Miocene period and there was almost no ice on the planet. A <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/05/130510-earth-co2-milestone-400-ppm" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">feature article</a> in National Geographic puts things in perspective:“The last time the concentration of Earth’s main greenhouse gas reached this mark, horses and camels lived in the high Arctic. Seas were at least 30 feet higher—at a level that today would inundate major cities around the world. The planet was about 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer. But the Earth then was in the final stage of a prolonged greenhouse epoch, and CO2 concentrations were on their way down.”According to <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201313" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center</a>, “2013 tied with 2003 as the fourth warmest year globally since records began in 1880.” The year 2013 also marked “the 37th consecutive year (since 1976) that the annual temperature was above the long-term average.” As of 2013, nine of the ten warmest years on record had occurred during the 21st century; only one year, 1998, was warmer than 2013. Global average temperatures were climbing steadily, at rate of about a third of a degree Fahrenheit since 1970. The previous year, 2012, was the hottest year on record in the lower 48 states. It is virtually impossible to believe that this corporation, with all of its scientific prowess, did not know this.In January 2013, the US Global Change Research Program released a draft of the third National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive report of climate impacts being experienced in the United States — an assessment required by law to be conducted and published at least once every four years. As <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/national-climate-assessment-obama-best-chance-global-warming" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">reported</a> by Chris Mooney at Mother Jones at the time (now a journalist at the Washington Post), the draft report warned unequivocally that unchecked greenhouse gas emissions would cause the global warming trend to “accelerate significantly,” bringing more heat waves and weather extremes, severe storms, rising seas, devastating floods, prolonged droughts, and more. The key takeaway quote was made by Ed Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication and a member of the federal advisory committee that released the assessment: “Data is accumulating to show that Americans want their politicians to take action.” Still, despite <a href="https://www.c2es.org/federal/congress/113" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">a host of climate change bills</a> introduced in both the House and the Senate in the 113th Congress, the passage of meaningful climate legislation was not yet in the cards, and is even less of a possibility today given the current political climate.The Underwhelming Response by Rex Tillerson and the Exxon Mobil Corporation Meanwhile, the ExxonMobil Corporation had taken in a whopping $45 billion in earnings in 2012. It expanded extraction using hydrofracturing in tar sands to increase activity in offshore oil drilling all over the world, thereby maximizing its rate of fossil fuel extraction and processing. <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exxonmobil-corporation-ceo-hosts-annual-221305776.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Addressing shareholders</a> at the company’s annual meeting on May 29, 2013, CEO Rex Tillerson bragged that 2012 earnings were the second highest in the history of the oil giant, and was crystal clear about corporate priorities:“In 2012 we invested $39.8 billion in capital expenditures and total shareholder distributions were $30.1 billion. For the 19th consecutive year, we added more oil and natural gas reserves than we produced and our crude reserve replacement rate exceeded 100%. All of the above results reflect the hard work, diligence and dedication of the almost 77,000 men and women who work on ExxonMobil’s behalf the world over.”Tillerson was aware of pressure from shareholders to address the climate threat more meaningfully than it had been doing. Pressure was even coming from heirs to the oil fortune, descendants of the company’s original founders. Jane Dale Owen, granddaughter of one of the founders of Humble Oil, the parent company of ExxonMobil, <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/how-will-exxonmobil-adapt-to-climate-change-crisis-it-helped-create-4b5047d16b8c" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">made a strong appeal</a> to shareholders to put more pressure on corporate leadership to divert its resources to cleaner more renewable forms of energy. She wrote:“As I cast my votes this year, I hope that more shareholders will get involved to move ExxonMobil toward a life-sustaining future. ExxonMobil’s $44.9 billion in earnings for 2012 came close to a world’s record. Instead of wildcatting in costly, unproven non-conventional fossil fuel technologies such as fracking and tar sands that add greenhouse gas to the atmosphere, the company could show foresight and leadership by investing in clean, renewable energy such as wind, solar and geothermal.”But the shareholder resolution asking the company to set greenhouse gas and emissions reductions goals was defeated: even though it got a respectable share of the vote – 26.8% of voting shares supported the resolution – 73.2% voted against. Still, this sent a strong message to corporate leadership. Normally, when more than a quarter of shareholders demand an outcome, most corporate leaders make strong efforts to meet that outcome; Rex Tillerson was not among them. Instead, despite the growing certainty of climate science that was readily available and widely communicated to the public – most recently in the draft Fourth National Climate Assessment – <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/exxonmobil-corporation-ceo-hosts-annual-221305776.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">he had this to say</a>:“If you examine the temperature record of the last decade, it really hadn’t changed. I know you will like to hear that as it don’t [sic] comport to some of the views of others, but last 10 years’ temperatures had been relatively flat.”This statement is false and misleading, and is a classic example of one of the favorite tactics of climate change deniers: the use of short time periods to draw false conclusions about longer-term trends. As stated above, nine of the hottest ten years on record had occurred since 2000, and one of those ten occurred in 1998.Moreover, instead of acknowledging the urgency of the problem and the growing certainty of the science, Tillerson brought out the tired claim that the science justifying action was not there yet: “[O]ur ability to understand all of the relationships between emissions and the environment and the feedback loops continues to be one of the science community’s grand challenges,” he said. Exaggerating scientific uncertainty around the climate change threat was one of the planned tactics of the oil industry’s Global Climate Coalition formed in the 1980s to push back against the Kyoto Protocol, and continued to be a recurrent theme at Exxon headquarters.At the shareholders meeting, Tillerson pointed out that fossil energy raises the standard of living for people and asked, “What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers in the process?” The irony of his statement was lost on him: those who were already suffering – and dying – from climate impacts (such as more extreme weather, intense flooding, prolonged droughts, and so on) evidently were not considered in Tillerson’s equation.In a <a href="http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/company/news-and-updates/speeches/a-business-perspective-on-global-energy-markets" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">speech</a> delivered just days later, in June 2013, to the Asia Society, Tillerson reiterated the corporate “feel good” philosophy – the story company leaders apparently told themselves to justify the drill-baby-drill mentality:“Approximately 1.3 billion people on our planet still do not have access to electricity for basic needs like clean water, cooking, sanitation, light, or for the safe storage of food and medicine. Therefore, whether we are leaders in business, policymakers in government, or decision makers in philanthropic organizations, the need to expand energy supplies has a humanitarian dimension that should inform and should guide our energy policy dialogue.”So, following this logic, it’s humanitarian to continue, even to expand, our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels worldwide. But is it humanitarian to bury one’s head in the sand when it comes to the negative side effects of continuing this reliance?Contrast Exxon’s and Tillerson’s message, which implies that it’s the right thing to do to lock us into a high-carbon energy future, with that made by the newly reelected President Barack Obama in his January 2013 Inaugural Address. President Obama <a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-part-three-e-2013/#" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">declared</a>:“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it.”Evidently ExxonMobil had no intention of leading this transition; rather, the corporate attitude was spelled out clearly in its <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000003408814000012/xom10k2013.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">2013 10-K report </a>to the SEC and shareholders. Public policies that protect against environmental harms are listed as a business risk, i.e. a threat to their basic business model. Under the category “Regulatory and litigation risks” the 10-K says specifically that “changes in environmental regulations or other laws that increase our cost of compliance or reduce or delay available business opportunities (including changes in laws related to offshore drilling operations, water use, or hydraulic fracturing)” are a risk to the company’s health and wellbeing. Also listed under “risks” to the bottom line are policies or regulations that promote “alternative fuels” or “uncompetitive fuel components” – as these further “expose” the company and “could adversely affect results.”It is apparent to us that Tillerson was seeing climate change in a different light: the global warming trend was having the effect of making it possible to drill for oil in areas that had heretofore been too covered in thick ice to make drilling feasible. In February, ExxonMobil and Rosneft (Russia’s state-run oil company) agreed to <a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-part-three-e-2013/#" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">expand the deal</a> they made in 2011 to drill for oil in the Russian Arctic. The 10-K report mentions the new joint venture with Rosneft and talks about this massive Russia oil deal this way:“ExxonMobil’s net acreage holdings in Sakhalin at year-end 2013 were 85 thousand acres, all offshore. A total of 0.9 net development wells were completed. Development activities continued on the Arkutun-Dagi project during 2013. At year-end 2013, ExxonMobil’s net acreage in the Rosneft joint venture agreements for the Kara and Black Seas was 11.3 million acres, all offshore.”This Russia oil deal has raised much controversy, has now made ExxonMobil subject to penalties and fines for violating US sanctions against the country, and is a focal point of concerns surrounding the appointment of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. This will be covered extensively in future posts.How was ExxonMobil Talking about Addressing the Global Threat of Climate Change? The <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000003408814000012/xom10k2013.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">2013 10-K report</a> address climate change and carbon dioxide emissions this way:“Climate change and greenhouse gas restrictions. Due to concern over the risk of climate change, a number of countries have adopted, or are considering the adoption of, regulatory frameworks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These include adoption of cap and trade regimes, carbon taxes, restrictive permitting, increased efficiency standards, and incentives or mandates for renewable energy. These requirements could make our products more expensive, lengthen project implementation times, and reduce demand for hydrocarbons, as well as shift hydrocarbon demand toward relatively lower-carbon sources such as natural gas. Current and pending greenhouse gas regulations may also increase our compliance costs, such as for monitoring or sequestering emissions.”It is a well-known fact that cadres of highly paid lobbyists representing ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute fought hard against the so-called Waxman-Markey bill, a comprehensive legislative proposal before the Congress in 2009 that passed the House but was not brought up in the Senate. The American Clean Energy and Security Act, if passed, would have established a broad cap-and-trade scheme and required cuts in carbon dioxide emissions across the board. Oil, gas, and coal companies were vehemently opposed to this, and used vast resources to defeat the proposal — the only major climate bill to have real legs.ExxonMobil’s formal position supporting a carbon tax grew out of its opposition to a cap-and-trade scheme. While many have praised the oil giant for adopting a more enlightened policy position, it is probably more accurate to say that the company’s leadership is hedging its bets and using its support for a carbon tax to help fend off stricter public policy solutions. It is also quite likely that corporate accountants have found a way to make this a win-win, monetarily, for ExxonMobil. Consider <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/story/12728015/1/why-a-carbon-tax-could-profit-us-business-consumers.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">this statement</a> regarding the company’s stated concern about regressive taxation:“If policymakers do move to impose a cost on carbon, we believe that a carbon tax would be a more effective policy option to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions than alternatives such as cap-and-trade. And to ensure revenues raised from such a tax are indeed directed to investment, and to assist those on lower incomes who spend a higher proportion of their income on energy, a carbon tax should be offset by tax reductions in other areas to become revenue neutral for government. It is rare that a business lends its support to new taxes. But in this case, given the risk-management challenges we face and the policy alternatives under consideration, it is our judgment that a carbon tax is a preferred course of public policy action versus cap and trade approaches.”In other words, ExxonMobil is looking for a zero-sum game in which a carbon tax would be offset by tax benefits, and the cost to the company would essentially be nil.How was ExxonMobil Talking about Low-Carbon Renewable Energy Options The company’s <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000003408814000012/xom10k2013.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">2013 10-K report</a> says this about renewable energy, referring to it as “alternative energy” that has more negative connotations in the energy business world than does the word “renewable”:“Government sponsorship of alternative energy. Many governments are providing tax advantages and other subsidies to support alternative energy sources or are mandating the use of specific fuels or technologies. Governments are also promoting research into new technologies to reduce the cost and increase the scalability of alternative energy sources. We are conducting our own research efforts into alternative energy, such as through sponsorship of the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University and research into liquid products from algae and biomass that can be further converted to transportation fuels. Our future results may depend in part on the success of our research efforts and on our ability to adapt and apply the strengths of our current business model to providing the energy products of the future in a cost-competitive manner.”ExxonMobil’s attempted venture into the use of algal biofuels would allow the company — if successful — to continue to use much of its existing infrastructure. But in March 2013, the company announced it was <a href="http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Biofuels/Exxons-100m-Algae-Investment-Falls-Flat.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">pulling out</a> of a $600 million project to make motor fuels from algae, a joint venture with Synthetic Genomics Inc., less than six years after the project <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/07/14/14greenwire-exxon-sinks-600m-into-algae-based-biofuels-in-33562.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">began in July 2007</a>. In a March 7 <a href="https://charlierose.com/videos/20063" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">interview with Charlie Rose</a>, Tillerson revealed that it would be about another 25 years before they could develop a strain of algae that could produce enough oil to supply a refinery.Notably, it was during this same interview with Charlie Rose that Tillerson famously said:“My philosophy is to make money. If I can drill and make money, then that’s what I want to do.”In 2013, What Did We Know About Carbon-Emitters? In November 2013, an industrious climate researcher and author named Richard Heede, head of the <a href="http://climateaccountability.org/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Accountability Institute</a>, published a watershed <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">scientific paper</a> in Climatic Change. The study presents a quantitative analysis of historic records for major carbon dioxide emitters worldwide, over a period starting in the 1850s – at the dawn of the industrial revolution – through 2010. The vast amount of data Heede meticulously excavated and organized revealed a stark reality about <a href="http://carbonmajors.org/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">carbon majors</a> that surprised many: a mere 90 companies were responsible for two-thirds of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. This watershed, painstaking analysis traces emissions totaling 914 gigatons of carbon dioxide-equivalent — which amounts to 63% of the cumulative worldwide emissions of industrial CO2 and methane between 1751 and 2010 — to 90 so-called “carbon major” entities worldwide. Astonishingly, half of these emissions had occurred since 1986!<img class="wp-image-7562 alignright lazyautosizes lazyloaded" src="https://wordpress-350926-1087337.cloudwaysapps.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies.jpg" data-orig-src="https://wordpress-350926-1087337.cloudwaysapps.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies.jpg" alt="Carbon-companies" width="293" height="293" srcset="https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies-66x66.jpg 66w, https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies-150x150.jpg 150w, https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies-200x200.jpg 200w, https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies-300x300.jpg 300w, https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies-400x400.jpg 400w, https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies.jpg 500w" data-srcset="https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies-66x66.jpg 66w, https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies-150x150.jpg 150w, https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies-200x200.jpg 200w, https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies-300x300.jpg 300w, https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies-400x400.jpg 400w, https://whistleblower.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carbon-companies.jpg 500w" data-sizes="auto" data-orig-sizes="(max-width: 293px) 100vw, 293px" sizes="293px" style="border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border-style: none; vertical-align: top; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline; float: right; margin-left: 15px;" />The Guardian was the first out of the gate with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/20/90-companies-man-made-global-warming-emissions-climate-change" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">full coverage</a> of the study, and included several of the whizbang <a href="http://carbonmajors.org/downloadable-graphics/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">downloadable graphics and images</a> Heede provided as part of the project. Note the relative size of the Exxon Mobil circle on the graph below; Heede found that the company and its predecessor entities were responsible for 3.22% of cumulative global emissions from 1854 through 2010. The only other investor-owned oil company emitting more carbon is Chevron Corporation, which was responsible for 3.52%.Heede also published these findings in a report, <a href="http://climateaccountability.org/pdf/MRR%209.1%20Apr14R.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Carbon Majors: Accounting for carbon and methane emissions 1854-2010 Methods & Results Report</a>, commissioned by two major international organizations, the Climate Justice Programme based in Sydney, Australia, and Greenpeace International based in Amsterdam.Is it likely the corporate leadership at ExxonMobil was completely unaware of this major study, implicating it in a share of the climate change burden on the world? Doubtful.What Did the Climate Denial Force Look Like in 2013? The groups that set out to obfuscate the scientific findings around the climate change problem back in the 1980s had largely succeeded in creating a constellation of organizations that would become a permanent presence in the climate change landscape. In 2013, the Union of Concerned Scientists <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/global-warming-skeptic.html#.WOHBA1KZORs" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">published a document</a> listing these groups which it refers to as “skeptic” organizations; a term CSPW takes issue with, as healthy skepticism is a lynchpin in the scientific process — without it, peer review would be a fruitless exercise. The UCS web page, “Global Warming Skeptic Organizations,” lists all the groups that take oil industry money to spread propaganda about the climate change threat and the underpinning science. The American Enterprise Institute, Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and a few others are profiled. The “global warming denial machine” was alive and well in 2013, and continued to have an impact on public opinion regarding the seriousness of the problem.Moreover, some truly ridiculous statements were being made about climate change by people who had a voice in American discourse and a responsibility not to say such things. The June 2013 issue of Rolling Stone published some of these utterings, several made by prominent elected officials, in its funny article, “<a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-part-three-e-2013/#" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">The 10 Dumbest Things Ever Said About Global Warming</a>,” just as likely to draw tears as it is to invoke laughter. Yet, this was part and parcel to the groupthink at the time, and in many ways, still is: sad, but true.High Marks to the Obama Administration for Taking on Climate Change Impact Preparedness In 2008, Climate Science Watch called for the US federal government to take on a National Climate Change Preparedness Initiative. On November 1, 2013, President Obama signed an Executive Order doing just that. As CSW founder Rick Piltz <a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-part-three-e-2013/#" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">noted at the time</a>, the order, “Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change,” was long overdue. Piltz stated:“It has taken 25 years – since the global warming problem was first recognized as a major public issue — to get to this stage, with climate change preparedness planning and action being framed as a U.S. presidential order to the Executive Branch.”One can only imagine the extent of lives saved, habitat spared from destruction, property damage avoided, if such an initiative had taken hold decades earlier. The failure to prepare adequately for climate conditions has imposed a heavy cost, one that only goes up over time.While this Preparedness Initiative only went so far, and never truly took a strong hold on local, state, or federal public policymaking, it is an idea that should be supported and expanded, not abandoned as the Trump Administration has clearly done.In sum, the Exxon Mobil Corporation has not been taking the climate change threat seriously enough to do justice to its investors and shareholders. Old-school mentality dominates the corporate culture, and has been articulated clearly year after year in its 10-K reports to shareholders. The truth about climate change is now coming back to bite this oil giant. CSPW Senior Climate Policy Analyst Anne Polansky has 30 years of experience in public policies relating to energy and the environment, with a strong focus on climate change and renewable energy. She is a former Professional Staff Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
</div><div class="fusion-meta-info" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; overflow: hidden; margin-top: 20px; padding: 5px 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(203, 215, 228); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(203, 215, 228); border-right-color: rgb(203, 215, 228); border-left-color: rgb(203, 215, 228); font-family: Montserrat;"><div class="fusion-meta-info-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;">August 21st, 2017|<a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-research-and-assessment/assessments-of-climate-impacts-and-adaptation/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/politicization-of-climate-science/attacks-on-climate-science-and-scientists/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Attacks on Climate Science and Scientists</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-education-and-communication/climate-change-education-and-communication/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">ClimateChange Education and Communication</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/policy-responses-to-climate-change/climate-change-preparedness/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Change Preparedness</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/general/climate-science-watch/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Science & Policy Watch</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/politicization-of-climate-science/climate-science-censorship/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Science Censorship</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/energy/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Energy</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/general/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">General</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-research-and-assessment/global-climate-disruption-and-impacts/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Global Climate Disruption and Impacts</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/politicization-of-climate-science/global-warming-denial-machine/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Global Warming Denial Machine</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/us-government/obama-administration/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Obama Administration</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/policy-responses-to-climate-change/science-policy-interaction/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Science-Policy Interaction</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/scientific-integrity/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Scientific Integrity</a></div></div></div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">see polansky on hurricanes below</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">=</div><div class="entry-utility" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" nimbus="Nimbus" sans="Sans" l="L" sans-serif="sans-serif" clear="clear" both="both" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-size-adjust="text-size-adjust" style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="post-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;">ExxonMobil moved to squash a well-established congressional lecture series on climate science just nine days after the presidential inauguration of George W Bush, a former oil executive, the Guardian has learned.Exxon’s intervention on the briefings, revealed here for the first time, adds to evidence the oil company was acutely aware of the state of climate science and its implications for government policy and the energy industry – despite Exxon’s public protestations for decades about the uncertainties of global warming science.Indeed, the company moved swiftly during the earliest days of the Bush administration to block public debate on global warming and delay domestic and international regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to former officials of the US Global Change Research Program, or USGCRP.The Bush White House is now notorious for censoring climate scientists and blocking international action on climate change by pulling the US out of the Kyoto agreement.The oil company is under investigation by 17 attorney generals for misleading the public about climate change, and is facing a shareholder revolt at its annual general meeting on Wednesday by <a class="u-underline" href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/24/exxonmobil-shareholders-climate-change-impact-investments" data-component="in-body-link" data-link-name="in body link" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">investors pressing Exxon for greater disclosure</a> about the effect of climate change on its profits.In early 2001, however, after Al Gore lost the White House to <a class="u-underline" href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/george-bush" data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">George Bush</a>, Exxon officials apparently saw a chance to influence the incoming administration, according to former officials of the research program.The government agency was set up in 1990 and charged with producing definitive reports to Congress every four years on the effects of climate change on the US. In the mid-1990s, as part of its legal mandate, USGCRP began organizing monthly seminars on climate science for elected officials and staffers in Congress.On 29 January 2001, nine days after Bush’s inauguration, Arthur Randol, a former senior environmental advisor at Exxon, telephoned Nicky Sundt, then communications director for the research program, to inquire about the future of the lecture series.A few days earlier, Sundt had emailed a survey to congressional staffers seeking suggestions for the next lecture series. Exxon had not been on his distribution list, and Sundt said he was surprised to receive a call from Randol.“I thought it was very unusual, if not inappropriate, for a fossil fuel lobbyist to be calling me directly days after the administration was sworn in only directly to instruct me on how we would be communication to the Congress on climate change,” Sundt told the Guardian. “This is ExxonMobil reaching into the federal government science apparatus and seeking to influence the communication of science.”Sundt, who now directs the WWF-US climate science programme (although he said he was not speaking on behalf of the organisation), said he made notes of the phone call.The briefings had then been running for a number of years and were well regarded by Republican as well as Democratic staffers, according to Bryan Hannegan, a Senate staffer and scientist who went on to work for the Bush administration and is now at the National Renewable Energy Lab.But the Exxon lobbyist saw it differently. “I very specifically remember him suggesting that the seminars were what he called ‘agenda-driven’, and he indicated that with the new administration and the Congress that – if the seminars continue – he hoped to see a different balance of viewpoints,” Sundt said.That was Sundt’s only encounter with Randol. He told his USGCRP colleagues about the telephone call but did not speak out publicly until now.In retrospect, Sundt said the telephone call was the first sign of the energy industry’s efforts to squash the agency’s reporting about climate change, and the broader debate about global warming, during the George W Bush era.Bush went on to pull the US out of the Kyoto climate change agreement, and White House officials were later found to have <a class="u-underline" href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/sep/21/usnews.georgewbush" data-component="in-body-link" data-link-name="in body link" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">played down scientists’ warnings</a> about the dangers of climate change.Randol, who left Exxon in 2003 after 25 years with the oil company, was known to have played a key role in such efforts – even before Sundt came foward.On 6 February 2001, not long after his phone call to Sundt, Randol <a class="u-underline" href="http://research.greenpeaceusa.org/?a=view&d=4384" data-component="in-body-link" data-link-name="in body link" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">wrote a memo </a>urging the Bush administration demand seek the removal of Bob Watson, a well-regarded climate scientist, as head of the UN’s climate science panel, the intergovernmental panel on climate change.Randol describes Watson as “hand-picked by Al Gore”. “Restructure the US attendance at upcoming IPCC meetings to assure that none of the Clinton/Gore proponents are involved in any decisional activities,” the memo reads.In the same memo, Randol also recommended sacking three US climate officials.The Exxon lobbyist was extraordinarily successful. At the IPCC, Watson was replaced by Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian engineer who stepped down from the science panel last year after being <a class="u-underline" href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/24/ipcc-chair-rajendra-pachauri-resigns" data-component="in-body-link" data-link-name="in body link" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">accused of sexual harassment.</a>Following Randol’s recommendations, <a class="u-underline" href="http://research.greenpeaceusa.org/?a=view&d=4382" data-component="in-body-link" data-link-name="in body link" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">a number of climate sceptics</a> were appointed to the administration, including Harlan Watson, a then Republican congressional staffer, who went on to lead the US climate negotiating team.Meanwhile, Randol sought to put Exxon’s stamp on the blockbuster US climate reports. On 22 March 2002, Randol forwarded a <a class="u-underline" href="http://file///Downloads/Internet%20Downloads/ExxonMobil%20Activities%20CEQ.pdf" data-component="in-body-link" data-link-name="in body link" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">company memo</a> to the White House council of environmental quality suggesting an overhaul of the USGRCP’s national climate assessments.The memo, which extolled Exxon’s qualifications in climate science, recommended the agency focus more on “gaps and uncertainties” in climate science.Exxon and Russol did not respond to requests for comment.However, Mike MacCracken, a former chief scientist at the USGRCP, said Sundt’s account of the phone call fits in with his recollections of Exxon’s efforts to influence government climate science research. “I don’t recall the call directly but they were objecting to all sorts of things as the new administration came in,” he said. “I guess the Republicans were sort of pushing from Congress. They were taking over and they had their views.”Author: Suzanne Goldenberg</div><div class="fusion-meta-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; overflow: hidden; margin-top: 20px; padding: 5px 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(203, 215, 228); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(203, 215, 228); border-right-color: rgb(203, 215, 228); border-left-color: rgb(203, 215, 228);"><div class="fusion-meta-info-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;">May 25th, 2016|<a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/in-the-news/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">In The News</a></div></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>=</div><div><a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxon-mobil-has-been-silent-about-climate-change-risks-to-its-operations-will-hurricane-harvey-change-that/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxon-mobil-has-been-silent-about-climate-change-risks-to-its-operations-will-hurricane-harvey-change-that/</a></div><div>anne p</div><div>
</div><div><div class="post-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;">As  detailed in the <a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxon-mobil-has-been-silent-about-climate-change-risks-to-its-operations-will-hurricane-harvey-change-that/#" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">most recent installment</a> of our ongoing investigation into how the Exxon Mobil Corporation has characterized risks to its business operations associated with climate change in its annual 10-K reports to shareholders, year after year, the company has alleged that one of the risks to its operations is the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions as a public policy to mitigate global climate change, but has failed to list climate change itself as a risk when communicating with its shareholders (See previous segments of our investigation here: <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2016/03/08/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-1993-2000" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part One (1993-2000)</a>; <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2016/05/25/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2001-2008/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part Two (2000-2008)</a>; <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2016/09/08/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2009-2015/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part Three(A) (2009)</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2016/12/01/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2009-2016-part-three-b-2010/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part Three(B) (2010)</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2017/04/03/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2009-2016-part-three-c-2011/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part Three(C) (2011)</a>, and <a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxon-mobil-has-been-silent-about-climate-change-risks-to-its-operations-will-hurricane-harvey-change-that/#" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Part Three(D) (2012)</a>). On this matter – the subject of a criminal investigation by at least two state Attorneys General for this failure – the largest publicly traded oil and gas company in the world has been silent. It has been tight-lipped even about the risks for its massive oil refinery facilities in coastal areas subject to storm surges and flooding and associated with sea-level rise and the projected increased intensity and rainfall rates of North Atlantic hurricanes.Hurricane Harvey inflicted a large amount of damage on ExxonMobil oil refining and chemical processing facilities in Baytown and Beaumont, Texas, though the full extent of the damage has not yet been fully assessed. The floating roof on an oil storage tank collected so much rainwater that the sheer weight caused it to partially collapse, resulting in a large volume of toxic air emissions. Countless other repairs are being conducted in the weeks following the unprecedented rains accompanying the hurricane and its aftermath. There is no question that climate change added extra energy and moisture to Hurricane Harvey, exacerbating its devastating effect. Will ExxonMobil change its tune and start reporting climate change impacts as potential risks to its operations, or will it continue to bury its head in the sand?Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall on August 25 near Rockport Texas with maximum sustained winds at 130 miles per hour, was the most powerful storm to hit Texas in half a century. The first of a slew of devastating, catastrophic hurricanes to haunt Atlantic waters this season, Harvey dumped a massive amount of precipitation on Southeastern Texas. The unusually slow-moving, Category 4 hurricane was the wettest ever recorded: “all-time continental US tropical cyclone rain records were broken” between August 25 and 30, according to The Weather Channel (see “<a href="https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/tropical-storm-harvey-forecast-texas-louisiana-arkansas" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Historic Hurricane Harvey’s Recap,” Sept. 2</a>). Unprecedented rainfall – more than 50 inches in some areas – flooded entire regions in and around Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast.Floodwaters rose so swiftly and powerfully that they gave new meaning to the term “flash floods.” The storm came on so fiercely that it inflicted a sense of shock-and-awe, even among Texans who had lived to see plenty of hurricanes. Many overestimated the time they had to grab their loved ones and valued possessions to escape to higher ground or a nearby emergency shelter. Virtually everyone was taken by surprise. Some drowned. As of September 14, there were 82 confirmed fatalities in Texas as a result of Hurricane Harvey, according to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/texas-officials-hurricane-harvey-death-toll-at-82-mass-casualties-have-absolutely-not-happened/2017/09/14/bff3ffea-9975-11e7-87fc-c3f7ee4035c9_story.html?utm_term=.3e7be7b184af" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Washington Post</a>, (Sept. 14).Exxon Mobil and the Oil Industry Took a Big Hit In addition to displacing over a million people and inflicting catastrophic damage and destruction to all economic sectors in the region, Hurricane Harvey had a crippling effect on the US oil industry that continues today. Harvey caused about one-fifth of the nation’s total refining capacity to shut down and temporarily ceased about one-fourth of oil production from the Gulf of Mexico (<a href="http://fortune.com/2017/08/28/hurricane-harvey-oil-refining/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Fortune</a><a href="http://fortune.com/2017/08/28/hurricane-harvey-oil-refining/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">, August 28</a>).The Exxon Mobil Corporation owns and operates two massive oil refineries in the area; one in Beaumont with a capacity of about 400,000 barrels per day, the other in Baytown, the second-largest US refinery with a capacity of about 560,000 barrels per day. Along with about a dozen other large oil refineries in the area, both were completely closed down on August 27.As referred to above, the heavy rains added so much weight to the floating roof of an oil storage tank at ExxonMobil’s Baytown facility that the roof partially sank, and caused the more volatile petroleum-based components – including known and suspected carcinogens and otherwise toxic substances – to evaporate and release harmful air emissions in sufficient quantities to require reports to be submitted to state environmental regulators. The required regulatory filings to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (<a href="http://www2.tceq.texas.gov/oce/eer/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.getDetails&target=266294" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">here</a> and <a href="http://www2.tceq.texas.gov/oce/eer/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.getDetails&target=266269" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">here</a>) listed all the air pollutants emitted and their amounts.The Exxon Mobil Corporation has stayed true to its reputation (for example, see Steve Coll’s book, “Private Empire”) for being secretive and tight-mouthed about disruptions to its operations. Through spokespersons, the corporation issued reassurance after reassurance but little detailed information, and continually downplayed the harm Harvey caused at its facilities. For example, the <a href="http://wordpress-350926-1087337.cloudwaysapps.com/food-integrity-campaign/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Houston Chronicle</a><a href="http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Harvey-causes-roof-collapse-at-Exxon-Mobil-s-12159327.php" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;"> reported on August 29</a> that ExxonMobil said the partially collapsed tank was not a threat, and described the sunken roof as “stable” and “not creating any containment issues.” The article quoted a company spokesperson:“This is an unprecedented storm, and we have taken every effort to minimize emissions and safely shut down equipment.”According to a news report by <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/28/news/companies/exxon-refinery-baytown-harvey-damage/index.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">CNN Money</a>, ExxonMobil was taking action to “minimize emissions” (though neither the nature of the damage nor the details of these actions were disclosed to the reporter), claimed the emissions caused by the damage done on Monday, August 28 would stop by the following Friday, and pledged to assess the damage “once it safe to do so.” However, there is no confirmation that air pollutant emissions did indeed cease September 1 as promised. Moreover, it is common knowledge in the oil refining business that both any intentional, rapid shutdown of an entire facility, and its restart, will result in a temporary surge of hydrocarbon emissions. Oil and gas facilities also typically wait until the last possible moment to shut down plants before major storms or other extreme weather events, in order to maximize revenue. Rushed shutdowns tend to result in greater air emissions than do slower, more orderly shutdowns.ExxonMobil is not alone. Residents living near refineries dotting the Texas landscape reported terrible smells surrounding these facilities. Some environmental groups have estimated that, overall, more than a million pounds of air pollution were released as a result of Harvey and its aftermath. Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, estimated that two million pounds of air pollutants were emitted during Harvey, compared to more than five million pounds emitted in all of 2016 (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/08/us/houston-hurricane-harvey-harzardous-chemicals.html?r=0" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">New York Times</a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/08/us/houston-hurricane-harvey-harzardous-chemicals.html?r=0" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">, Sept. 8</a>). According to several news reports (for example, by the <a href="http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2017/09/tank_failures_in_harvey_reveal.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Times Picayune</a><a href="http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2017/09/tank_failures_in_harvey_reveal.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">, Sept. 9</a>), the Associated Press collected raw data from state regulatory agencies and other sources and performed an analysis which revealed that more than 30 fuel and chemical storage tanks at facilities in the region collapsed or otherwise failed during Hurricane Harvey, releasing more than 600,000 gallons of crude oil, gasoline, and other fuels and chemicals. One report (<a href="http://wordpress-350926-1087337.cloudwaysapps.com/press-releases/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Newsworks, Sept. 14</a>) indicated that less than 20 percent of the volume spilled was recoverable; the remaining evaporated (i.e., polluted the air) or soaked into the ground (i.e., polluted the land.)Given the sheer amount of hazardous and toxic substances released to air, water, and land over such a large area along the Texas coast, it is reasonable to expect that ExxonMobil, along with other oil and gas companies affected by Harvey, will be named as defendants in a class-action suit for failing to take proper precautions to prevent these releases. It is also possible that ExxonMobil will be sued for failing to take adequate precautions to prevent its storage tank from collapsing, and to prevent other spills and air emissions from occurring in the harsh flood conditions Harvey brought. This is a problem that ExxonMobil leadership could have planned and prepared for, but did not.Poor Preparedness for Climate Change Impacts Is Much to Blame for Exxon’s Hurricane Troubles Climate scientists and scientific reports have long predicted that a warmer planet will lead to serious and harmful impacts such as sea level rise, more intense storm surges, more frequent and devastating flooding, and more extreme weather such as more powerful hurricanes.This topic has been addressed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and in multiple iterations of the National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive report of national and regional climate change impacts produced periodically by the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). For example, <a href="http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate/changes-hurricanes" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">a summary of the 2014 assessment</a> states:“The intensity, frequency, and duration of North Atlantic hurricanes, as well as the frequency of the strongest (Category 4 and 5) hurricanes, have all increased since the early 1980s. The relative contributions of human and natural causes to these increases are still uncertain. Hurricane-associated storm intensity and rainfall rates are projected to increase as the climate continues to warm.”Exxon’s Beaumont and Baytown facilities are in low-lying areas that are already prone to flooding, but will be much more so with sea level rise and more extreme storm events. Mapping of areas prone to flooding is readily available. As indicated earlier, CSPW has written extensively about ExxonMobil’s sustained silence on vulnerabilities such as this in our investigative series on the corporation’s required 10-K reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (for example, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/2016/05/25/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-2001-2008/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">here</a>), and in this <a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxon-mobil-has-been-silent-about-climate-change-risks-to-its-operations-will-hurricane-harvey-change-that/#" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">July 2016 piece</a> about ExxonMobil vulnerabilities to climate change impacts such as out-of-control wildfires and extreme flooding.Oil and chemical storage tanks located in the path of hurricanes and in areas prone to flooding are just one example of the many ways the US remains in a state of abysmally poor preparedness for a climate-changed world. Excellent coverage of this particular problem appears in the Washington Post (Sept. 9), “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/tank-failures-in-harvey-reveal-vulnerabilities-in-storm/2017/09/09/c3aa4068-9588-11e7-8482-8dc9a7af29f9_story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Tank failures in Harvey reveal vulnerabilities in storm</a>.” Although we do have federal regulations that require oil and gas companies to be prepared for and to respond effectively to accidental spills, we do not have any public policies in place that address the vulnerabilities associated with storage tanks prone to breach during major floods. A strong national preparedness initiative for dealing with climate impacts could require oil, fuel, and chemical storage tanks to be built differently to be able to withstand the heavy downpours that accompanied Harvey. It is quite likely that the engineers who designed and built these tanks assumed the weather conditions of the past were a reliable guide to the future weather conditions under which their facilities would operate. That approach is no longer valid. It’s time to go back to the drawing board.Meteorologist Eric Holthaus writes in <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/28/climate-change-hurricane-harvey-215547" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Politico</a> (August 28, 2017, emphasis our own):“In all of US history, there’s never been a storm like Hurricane Harvey. That fact is increasingly clear, even though the rains are still falling and the water levels in Houston are still rising. But there’s an uncomfortable point that, so far, everyone is skating around: We knew this would happen, decades ago. We knew this would happen, and we didn’t care. Now is the time to say it as loudly as possible: Harvey is what climate change looks like. More specifically, Harvey is what climate change looks like in a world that has decided, over and over, that it doesn’t want to take climate change seriously.”The fact of the matter is that many Americans do take climate change seriously, and are serious about wanting to do something meaningful about it – including people who own Exxon stock. Over the past decade, ExxonMobil shareholders have offered resolution after resolution calling for the oil and gas company to take positive steps toward reducing carbon dioxide emissions and to be more open and transparent regarding the effect its products have on our global climate system. Just about all of these resolutions have been summarily rejected by ExxonMobil corporate leadership, and voted down.Recovery Will Be Slow and Expensive, But Will ExxonMobil Change Its Tune on Climate Impacts? Several weeks after Harvey hit, on September 14, ExxonMobil announced it was developing plans for restarting the Beaumont refinery and chemical plant, according to the <a href="http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Exxon-Mobil-working-on-restarts-in-Beaumont-12198499.php" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Beaumont Enterprise</a>, but gave no timeline for the restarts. (As of this writing, neither facility has resumed normal operations.) The same article in the local newspaper quoted ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods praising employees who “pored over technical blueprints” of the facilities “while floodwaters poured through their kitchens” at home, and noted that while many workers did all they could to provide expert help from their homes, many others had been stranded at work and forced to set up temporary living quarters.“It’s very difficult to predict exactly when all those units will be back up and we’ll be back on our full load,” <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/exxon-mobil-ceo-darren-woods-we-are-making-good-progress-on-harvey-prepared-for-irma.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Woods told CNBC</a>.It is not known yet precisely how much damage Hurricane Harvey and the associated flooding inflicted on the Exxon Mobil Corporation’s Baytown and Beaumont facilities; a full damage assessment has yet to take place. We therefore don’t yet know what this will cost the corporation or how it will affect the company’s bottom line. CEO Darren Woods has assured investors that the capital spending plans of ExxonMobil will not be affected.But, then again, Darren Woods, like Rex Tillerson and so many of his predecessors at ExxonMobil, say a lot of things that turn out not to be true, especially where environmental impacts are concerned. But the problem here is that Darren Woods is failing to say certain things that are true, things like, “climate change and related impacts present a significant risk to our operations.”Whether a statement like this appears in future 10-K and other reports to shareholders is yet to be seen. CSPW Senior Climate Policy Analyst Anne Polansky has 30 years of experience in public policies relating to energy and the environment, with a strong focus on climate change and renewable energy. She is a former Professional Staff Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.</div><div class="fusion-meta-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; overflow: hidden; margin-top: 20px; padding: 5px 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(203, 215, 228); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(203, 215, 228); border-right-color: rgb(203, 215, 228); border-left-color: rgb(203, 215, 228);"><div class="fusion-meta-info-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;">September 25th, 2017|<a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-research-and-assessment/assessments-of-climate-impacts-and-adaptation/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-education-and-communication/climate-change-education-and-communication/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Change Education and Communication</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/policy-responses-to-climate-change/climate-change-mitigation/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Change Mitigation</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/policy-responses-to-climate-change/climate-change-preparedness/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Change Preparedness</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/general/climate-science-watch/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Climate Science & Policy Watch</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/energy/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Energy</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/general/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">General</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-research-and-assessment/global-climate-disruption-and-impacts/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Global Climate Disruption and Impacts</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/politicization-of-climate-science/global-warming-denial-machine/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Global Warming Denial Machine</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/climate-education-and-communication/science-communication/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Science Communication</a>, <a href="https://whistleblower.org/category/policy-responses-to-climate-change/science-policy-interaction/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: linear;">Science-Policy Interaction</a></div></div></div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div>ref guk electric car</div><div>
</div><div><div>no lnx few</div><div>
</div><div>Oil company records from 1960s reveal patents to reduce CO2 emissions in cars</div><div>ExxonMobil and others pursued research into technologies, yet blocked government efforts to fight climate change for more than 50 years, findings show</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon Mobil</div><div>The patent records were among a new trove of documents published by the Center for International Environmental Law, and deepen the public relations challenge for Exxon. </div><div>
</div><div>Suzanne Goldenberg</div><div>@suzyji</div><div>Fri 20 May 2016 </div><div>
</div><div>The forerunners of ExxonMobil patented technologies for electric cars and low emissions vehicles as early as 1963 – even as the oil industry lobby tried to squash government funding for such research, according to a trove of newly discovered records.</div><div>
</div><div>Patent records reveal oil companies actively pursued research into technologies to cut carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change from the 1960s – including early versions of the batteries now deployed to power electric cars such as the Tesla.</div><div>
</div><div>Scientists for the companies patented technologies to strip carbon dioxide out of exhaust pipes, and improve engine efficiency, as well as fuel cells. They also conducted research into countering the rise in carbon dioxide emissions – including manipulating the weather.</div><div>
</div><div>Esso, one of the precursors of ExxonMobil, obtained at least three fuel cell patents in the 1960s and another for a low-polluting vehicle in 1970, according to the records. Other oil companies such as Phillips and Shell also patented technologies for more efficient uses of fuel.</div><div>
</div><div>However, the American Petroleum Institute, the main oil lobby, opposed government funding of research into electric cars and low emissions vehicles, telling Congress in 1967: “We take exception to the basic assumption that clean air can be achieved only by finding an alternative to the internal combustion engine.”</div><div>
</div><div>This 1970 patent, assigned to Esso (now ExxonMobil), is a design for a low-polluting engine system.]</div><div>
</div><div>And ExxonMobil funded a disinformation campaigned aimed at discrediting scientists and blocking government efforts to fight climate change for more than 50 years, before </div><div>
</div><div>The patent records were among a new trove of documents published on Thursday by the Center for International Environmental Law, and deepen the legal and public relations challenge for Exxon.</div><div>
</div><div>“What we saw was an array of patent technologies that demonstrated that these companies had the technologies they needed and could have commercialised to help address the problem of C02 pollution,” said Carroll Muffett, president of the Ciel. “They then turned to Congress and said you don’t need to invest in electrical vehicle research because the research is ongoing and it’s robust.”</div><div>
</div><div>The findings echo those in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, which explored the deliberate destruction of GM’s first electric vehicles.</div><div>
</div><div>Alan Jeffers, an Exxon spokesman, insisted he could not comment directly on the documents as he was unable to access the Center for International Environmental law website on which they were published on Thursday morning.</div><div>
</div><div>In an emailed statement, Jeffers said: “The Guardian gave us only a few hours to comment on documents from four decades ago.”</div><div>
</div><div>Jeffers went on: “This further illustrates the Guardian’s well-established bias on climate change issues which has been demonstrated previously through its keep it in the ground campaign.”</div><div>
</div><div>He said the company believed the risks of climate change were real, was researching lower emission technologies, and engaged in “constructive dialogue” with policy makers about energy and climate change.</div><div>
</div><div>Researchers discovered more than 20 such patents filed by oil companies from as early as the 1940s for technologies that could help in the development of electric cars.</div><div>
</div><div>However, Ron Dunlop, president of Sun Oil and API chairman, told a joint hearing of the commerce committee in 1967 that government funding of research into electric cars would be misplaced – because the oil companies were so advanced in their research of cleaner cars. “We in the petroleum industry are convinced that by the time a practical electric car can be mass produced and marketed, it will not enjoy any meaningful advantage from an air pollution standpoint,” he told Congress. “Emissions from internal-combustion engines will have long since been controlled.”</div><div>
</div><div>Muffett said the findings were the result of three years of research and were not exhaustive.[npi]</div><div>
</div><div>“The question is what did they do to try to commercialise these technologies, knowing what they did about climate change,” he went on.</div><div>
</div><div>The revelations, the second set of documents released by Muffett’s organisation, reinforce charges by campaigners that Exxon was well aware that the burning of fossil fuels was a main driver of climate change – despite its public posture of doubt.</div><div>
</div><div>In addition to the technologies with potential for electric cars, Exxon and other oil companies were actively researching methods to cut emissions of carbon dioxide – the main greenhouse gas.</div><div>
</div><div>In another historic document that surfaced last month, a Canadian subsidiary of Exxon admitted the company had the technology to cut carbon emissions in half. However, the corporate memo dating from 1977 said it would be prohibitively expensive – doubling the cost of electricity generation, according to the documents obtained by Desmog blog.</div><div>
</div><div>New York and 17 other attorneys general, including DC and the US Virgin Islands, are investigating whether the oil company lied to investors and the public about the threat of climate change.</div><div>
</div><div>Campaigners plan to further turn up the heat on the company next week when Exxon holds its annual shareholder meeting in Dallas.</div><div>
</div><div>Campaigners have argued for more than a decade that Exxon bankrolled a network of front groups and conservative think tanks aimed at discrediting well-established science – confusing the public and delaying governments efforts to cut the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for warming.</div><div>
</div><div>Those efforts to put Exxon on the spot gathered pace after Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times reported that the company’s own scientists knew as early as the 1970s that greenhouse gases caused climate change.</div><div>
</div><div>Tell the truth, ExxonMobil: a low-carbon future is affordable – and necessary</div><div>Read more]</div><div>
</div><div>The attorney general of the US Virgin Islands has subpoenaed Exxon to turn over email, documents and statements over the last decades.</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon has dismissed the investigations as politically motivated.</div><div>
</div><div>However, the company has reversed its opposition to fuel cell technology. Earlier this month, the company announced it had been conducting a joint research effort on fuel cell power plants with FuelCell.[results?]</div><div>
</div><div>The initiative, which got underway in 2011, aims to route the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning power plants into fuel cells, producing low emissions electricity. The company has estimated it can cut 90% of carbon dioxide emissions.</div><div>
</div><div>“At ExxonMobil, we share the view that the risks of climate change are serious and warrant thoughtful action,” Rex Tillerson, Exxon’s chief executive, told the US Energy Association after receiving its annual award.</div></div><div>=</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>===</div><div><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/fossil-fuel-new-evidence-sb-1161" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/fossil-fuel-new-evidence-sb-1161</a></div><div>
</div><div><div id="block-ucstheme-page-title" class="block block-core block-page-title-block hero-default" style="border-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: var(--border-color); border-image: initial; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 3rem 1rem 0px; box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; width: 640px; max-width: 32rem; text-align: center; z-index: 1;"><h1 class="page-title" style="text-align: left; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.16667; margin: 0px 0px 1.6rem; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.002em;"><span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit;">New Evidence of Fossil Fuel Industry Climate Science Deception Underscores Need for SB 1161 (Allen), “California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act”</h1><p class="page-subtitle" style="margin: -1rem 0px 1.6rem; text-align: left; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.001em;">Statement by Adrienne Alvord, California and Western States Director, Union of Concerned Scientists<p class="dates" style="margin: 0.5em 0px; text-align: left; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.001em;"><span class="date-published" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit;">Published Apr 13, 2016....</div></div></div></div>