CIEL ctr int'l env law

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">see muffet main</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EID 2 BS attack</font></p><p class="docDate" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SEE EID 2 BS</font></p><p class="docDate" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ciel.org/news/ciel-statement-api-afpms-motions-withdraw-landmark-childrens-trust-case-api-afpm-demanded-right-defend-court-now-must/">https://www.ciel.org/news/ciel-statement-api-afpms-motions-withdraw-landmark-childrens-trust-case-api-afpm-demanded-right-defend-court-now-must/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">may 26, 2017</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Late <span data-term="goog_1671868276" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Thursday</span> evening, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Fuel & Petrochemicals Manufacturers (AFPM) filed unilateral motions to withdraw as Intervenor Defendants in the landmark <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Juliana v. United States </em>climate case. This follows a similar move to withdraw by intervenor defendant National Association of Manufacturers last Monday.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Carroll Muffett, President of the Center for International Environmental Law, issued the following statement.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 10px 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“API and AFPM, in their attempt to withdraw as intervenor defendant from <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Juliana v. United States</em>, demonstrate precisely the kind of belligerent disregard for consequences that gives rise to the climate crisis underlying the case. The oil and gas industry groups, along with the National Association of Manufacturers, demanded to be joined as defendants against the youth plaintiffs when they thought they could win easily and keep the case from ever being considered on its merits. They argued that the case could not be resolved without addressing the role of oil and gas in climate change—and in the economy. And after forcing their way into the litigation, API and AFPM deployed their immense legal and financial resources to quashing it. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Unfortunately for the oil and gas industry—and fortunately for the rest of us—its gambit backfired. Now that discovery, legal consequences, and public accountability are all on the table, API and AFPM are looking for an escape route, days after NAM sought the same.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The fact that the industry groups would </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">so brazenly seek to withdraw without responding to a single discovery</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> request speaks volumes about the potential significance of this case and the oil and gas industry’s reluctance to expose its climate secrets.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The court should not allow these industry actors to<b> cut and run now that they must engage substantively on issues dealing with their own history of complicity in exacerbating the climate crisis. The plaintiffs and the public have a right to see this case brought to its conclusion. API and AFPM demanded the right to defend themselves in court; now they must do so.”</b></font></p></blockquote></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.energyindepth.org/exxonknew-attempts-to-reset-flailing-campaign-witha-billboard/?154">https://www.energyindepth.org/exxonknew-attempts-to-reset-flailing-campaign-witha-billboard/?154</a></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[[eid a pjt of ipaa it says</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx pix</font></font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">twt</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NATIONAL</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">#EXXONKNEW ATTEMPTS TO RESET FLAILING CAMPAIGN WITH…A BILLBOARD?</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BY </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SPENCER WALRATH</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">OCT. 25, 2017 </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Leave a Comment</span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">   </div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Public Citizen and a new project called the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) have launched a new campaign targeting oil and gas companies in the wake of recent hurricanes</b>. The groups have put up two billboards in Houston asking when “climate polluters” will “pay their fair share” and directing people to visit WhoPaysForHarvey.com. But a <b>peek behind the curtain</b> reveals that this campaign is<b> organized by the same key players behind the #ExxonKnew campaign</b> and is just the latest attempt to reset their struggling effort to attack the oil and gas industry.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As a refresher, Public Citizen has been active in the #ExxonKnew campaign for nearly two years. Rob Weissman, Public Citizen’s president, attended a secret closed-door meeting in January 2016 at the offices of the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF), which has bankrolled the #ExxonKnew campaign. Activists at that meeting included Kert Davies, Matt Pawa, 350.org’s Bill McKibben, and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) president Carroll Muffett</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, among others.</span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The purpose of the meeting was “to establish in public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution,” and “to delegitimize them as a political actor.” After a quick break for lunch, the group reconvened to ask:</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Does this group want to establish a rapid response and coordination structure to react to new research, revelations and legal developments as they happen? A higher level of coordination with a war room, joint social media, and coordinated organizing and media pushes?”</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nearly two years later, we’ve seen the degree to which these groups have <b>actively coordinated</b> with each other and their allies.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CCI launched last month as a project of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD). IGSD was founded by Durwood Zaelke, who was the co-founder and president of CIEL from 1989-2003. Richard Wiles is the director of what is now CCI and is also the publisher of a new climate liability website, Climate Liability News (CLN), which launched in July. CLN has paid particularly close attention to developments in the investigations of and lawsuits against ExxonMobil, devoting a unique page on its website to the issue. Kert Davies, who attended the January 2016 RFF meeting, is listed as a member of CLN’s board, alongside Wiles and Alyssa Johl, a former CIEL attorney.</span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Matt Pawa, </b>a trial lawyer who attended the <b>January 2016 RFF meeting</b> and serves on the board of CIEL, recently spoke at a conference with Public Citizen’s Weissman. Pawa has chased big payouts from companies for their contributions to climate change for years and is currently leading a climate change lawsuit filed by San Francisco and Oakland against five oil and gas companies.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Following the RFF group’s plan to “establish a rapid response and coordination structure to react to new…developments,” Bill McKibben, a top promoter of the #ExxonKnew campaign, tweeted a photo of one of the Houston billboards as soon as they went up.</span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Adrian Shelley, the director of Public Citizen Texas, told the Houston Chronicle that the billboards and website are “just the beginning of a larger national campaign.” WhoPaysForIrma.com has already been registered, though that site has not yet launched.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And while the</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> slick website</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> at WhoPaysForHarvey.com features all of eight sentences blaming oil and gas companies for Hurricane Harvey, it does not link to additional information or resources and </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">offers no way to help the victims of Harvey and no solutions to address climate change.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry pledged over $32.3 million to Harvey relief efforts. [ASKED FOR BILLIONS$ TO FORTIFY SHIP CHANNEL?]It remains to be seen how this new campaign’s billboards and barebones website will help address climate change.</span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What is clear is that these various efforts to attempt to bring climate litigation against oil and gas companies are being perpetrated by the same handful of activists who have been pursuing these companies for years.<b> The goal isn’t to win the cases; it’s to generate publicity </b>– a goal shared by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman with his investigation of ExxonMobil.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Activists are trying to create a public narrative that oil and gas companies deserve all of the blame for climate change, thereby shifting the blame from the individuals who rely on fossil fuels (including these activists) to the companies providing fossil fuels. The goal, as laid out in their memo nearly two years ago, is to “delegitimize them” and convince the public that oil and gas companies are corrupt. Or, as that memo’s author put it:</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">TAGS: 350.org, Alyssa Johl, Bill McKibben, Carroll Muffett, CCI, Center for Climate Integrity,</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Center for International Environmental Law, CIEL</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, Climate Litigation News, CLN, Durwood Zaelke, Eric Schneiderman, Exxon, ExxonKnew, ExxonMobil, Harvey, IGSD, Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, Irma, Johl, Kenny Bruno, Kert Davies, Matt Pawa, Matthew Pawa, McKibben, Pawa, Public Citizen, RFF, Richard Wiles, Rob Weissman, Rockefeller Family Fund, Schneiderman, Weissman, Wiles, Zaelke</span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">---</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LNX</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">public Citizen and a new project called the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) have launched a new campaign targeting oil and gas companies in the wake of recent hurricanes. The groups have put up two billboards in Houston asking when “climate polluters” will “pay their fair share” and directing people to visit <a href="http://whopaysforharvey.com/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">WhoPaysForHarvey.com</a>. But a peek behind the curtain reveals that this campaign is organized by the same key players behind the #ExxonKnew campaign and is just the latest attempt to reset their struggling effort to attack the oil and gas industry.</div><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As a refresher, Public Citizen has been active in the #ExxonKnew campaign for nearly two years. Rob Weissman, Public Citizen’s president, attended a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> <a href="https://energyindepth.org/national/secret-memos-laying-out-activists-plans-to-target-exxon/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">secret closed-door meeting</a> in January 2016 at the offices of the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF),</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> which has bankrolled the #ExxonKnew campaign. Activists at that meeting included </span><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px;">Kert Davies</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px;">Matt Pawa</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, 350.org’s </span><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px;">Bill McKibben</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and</span><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px;"> Center for International Environmental Law</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px;">(CIEL)</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> president Carroll Muffett, among others.</span></font></p><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="https://www.energyindepth.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/guest-list.png" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-35841 size-full" src="https://www.energyindepth.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/guest-list.png" alt="" width="384" height="126" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; border: none; clear: both; display: block; margin: 10px auto;" /></font></a></p><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Entire-January-meeting-agenda-at-RFF-1-1.pdf" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">purpose</a> of the <a href="http://freebeacon.com/issues/memo-shows-secret-coordination-effort-exxonmobil-climate-activists-rockefeller-fund/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">meeting</a> was “to establish in public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution,” and “to delegitimize them as a political actor.” After a quick break for lunch, the group reconvened to ask:</font></p><blockquote style="background: rgba(187, 187, 188, 0.21); border-width: 0px 0px 0px 4px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(247, 148, 30); border-image: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; quotes: none; position: relative;"><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Does this group want to establish a rapid response and coordination structure to react to new research, revelations and legal developments as they happen? A higher level of coordination with a war room, joint social media, and coordinated organizing and media pushes?”</font></p></blockquote><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nearly two years later, we’ve seen the degree to which these groups have actively coordinated with each other and their allies.</font></p><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CCI <a href="http://www.igsd.org/the-center-for-climate-integrity/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">launched</a> last month as a project of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD). IGSD was founded by <a href="http://www.igsd.org/about/people/durwood-zaelke/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">Durwood Zaelke</a>, who was the co-founder and president of CIEL from 1989-2003. <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/about-us/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">Richard Wiles</a> is the director of what is now CCI and is also the <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2017/07/13/news-site-dedicated-to-climate-and-law-launches/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">publisher</a> of a new climate liability website, Climate Liability News (CLN), which launched in July. CLN has paid particularly close attention to developments in the investigations of and lawsuits against ExxonMobil, devoting a <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/category/exxon-climate-investigation/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">unique page</a> on its website to the issue. Kert Davies, who attended the January 2016 RFF meeting, is listed as a member of <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/about-us/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">CLN’s board</a>, alongside Wiles and Alyssa Johl, a former CIEL attorney.</font></p><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Matt Pawa, a trial lawyer who attended the January 2016 RFF meeting and serves on the <a href="http://www.ciel.org/about-us/environmental-law-board-of-trustees/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">board of CIEL</a>, recently spoke at a <a href="https://www.breakingthroughpower.org/speakers/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">conference</a> with Public Citizen’s Weissman. Pawa has chased big payouts from companies for their contributions to climate change for years and is currently <a href="https://energyindepth.org/national/exxonknew-lawyer-leads-san-francisco-lawsuit-against-oil-gas-companies/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">leading a climate change lawsuit</a> filed by San Francisco and Oakland against five oil and gas companies.</font></p><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Following the RFF group’s plan to “establish a rapid response and coordination structure to react to new…developments,” Bill McKibben, a top promoter of the #ExxonKnew campaign, <a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/920029596854210560" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">tweeted</a> a photo of one of the Houston billboards as soon as they went up/</font></p><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[tet pix]</font></p><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">adrian Shelley, the director of Public Citizen Texas, told the <a href="http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/New-billboard-effort-asks-climate-polluters-to-12274076.php" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;"><span style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px;">Houston Chronicle</span></a> that the billboards and website are “just the beginning of a larger national campaign.” WhoPaysForIrma.com has already been registered, though that site has not yet launched.</font></p><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And while the slick website at <a href="http://whopaysforharvey.com/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">WhoPaysForHarvey.com</a> features all of eight sentences blaming oil and gas companies for Hurricane Harvey, it does not link to additional information or resources and offers no way to help the victims of Harvey and no solutions to address climate change. Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry pledged over <a href="https://www.txoga.org/texas-oil-natural-gas-companies-contribute-25-7-million-hurricane-harvey-relief-efforts/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">$32.3 million</a> to Harvey relief efforts. It remains to be seen how this new campaign’s billboards and barebones website will help address climate change.</font></p><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is clear is that these various efforts to attempt to bring climate litigation against oil and gas companies are being perpetrated by the same handful of activists who have been pursuing these companies for years. The goal isn’t to win the cases; it’s to generate publicity – a goal shared by New York Attorney General <a href="https://energyindepth.org/national/exxon-filing-puts-spotlight-on-schneidermans-pr-campaign/" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">Eric Schneiderman</a> with his investigation of ExxonMobil.</font></p><p style="overflow-wrap: break-word; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Activists are trying to create a public narrative that oil and gas companies deserve all of the blame for climate change, thereby shifting the blame from the individuals who rely on fossil fuels (including these activists) to the companies providing fossil fuels. The goal, as laid out in their <a href="http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Entire-January-meeting-agenda-at-RFF-1-1.pdf" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">memo</a> nearly two years ago, is to “delegitimize them” and convince the public that oil and gas companies are corrupt. Or, as that memo’s author <a href="https://twitter.com/greenwashbuster/status/715152002209153026?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer;">put it</a>:</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">spencer walrath</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://eidclimate.org/obscure-activist-emerges-as-key-player-in-climate-litigation-campaign/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">
</a></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://eidclimate.org/obscure-activist-emerges-as-key-player-in-climate-litigation-campaign/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://<b>eid</b>climate.org/obscure-activist-emerges-as-key-player-in-climate-litigation-campaign/</a></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ref</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">aug 2018 obscure...</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In recent months, a new<b> controversial climate activist </b>has surfaced in the media. <a href="https://goop.com/goop-authors/richard-wiles/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Richard Wiles</a> has quickly become the go-to <a href="https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/07/baltimore-is-suing-big-oil/565802/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">commentator</a> for news <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/26/judge-tosses-out-climate-change-lawsuit-sf-oakland-filed-against-big-oil/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">stories</a> surrounding a series of copycat lawsuits seeking to hold fossil fuel companies liable for the effects of climate change. On the surface, Mr. Wiles appears to be a well-meaning climate expert.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> But an Energy In Depth investigation reveals his involvement in the larger coordinated <a href="https://eidclimate.org/judges-bombshell-filing-confirms-climate-conspiracy-against-energy-industry/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">scheme</a> to attack energy companies and force the industry to pay for global warming.[WHICH IS REAL?]</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wiles is involved in all aspects of the climate litigation campaign – from running a news outlet dedicated to promoting the lawsuits and coordinating a social media effort to attack the industry, to overseeing the research utilized in many of the lawsuits and pressuring additional cities to bring cases of their own.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Wiles heads <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/about-us/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Climate Liability News</a> (CLN), a dark-money “news” site set up in 2017 to promote climate lawsuits across the country. Though CLN doesn’t disclose its funders, its founding editor is Lynn Zinser, a transplant from InsideClimate News who worked on the original #ExxonKnew articles, which were <a href="https://www.energyindepth.org/confirmed-rockefellers-admit-funding-pay-to-play-attack-journalism-against-exxon/?154" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">paid for</a> by the Rockefeller Family Fund and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The Rockefellers are <a href="https://eidclimate.org/an-orchestrated-campaign/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">key players</a> behind both the #ExxonKnew and climate litigation campaigns. <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Coincidentally</span>, CLN just happens to have a <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/category/exxon-climate-investigation/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">unique page</a> on its website dedicated to advancing this <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">fringe environmentalist effort.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><a href="https://www.energyindepth.org/exxonknew-attempts-to-reset-flailing-campaign-witha-billboard/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Kert Davies</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and Alyssa Johl, a former attorney for the</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">)</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, serve alongside Wiles on the CLN board of directors</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Davies and members of CIEL </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="https://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/scan0003.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">attended</a> a <a href="https://freebeacon.com/issues/memo-shows-secret-coordination-effort-exxonmobil-climate-activists-rockefeller-fund/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">secret meeting</a> at the Rockefeller Family Fund in January 2016, which sought to “delegitimize” ExxonMobil and <a href="https://eidclimate.org/wait-till-you-see-these-secret-memos-laying-out-activists-plans-to-target-exxon/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">portray</a> it as a, “corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Behind the scenes, Wiles facilitates this “news” site through a 501(c)3 organization called <a href="https://www.taxexemptworld.com/organization.asp?tn=2526018" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Climate Communications & Law</a></span>. Established in 2017, the organization has no website and no publicly available financial disclosures to the IRS (form 990s). It appears to serve as a shell organization for other powerful players to funnel undisclosed funds to CLN, which means it serves as a de facto public relations component of #ExxonKnew. CC&L is <a href="https://www.taxexemptworld.com/organization.asp?tn=2526018" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">operated</a> out of Wiles’ own home.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Wiles also directs the</span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> </span><a href="http://www.igsd.org/initiatives/the-center-for-climate-integrity/" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Center for Climate Integrity</a><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">,</span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> a project that “supports meritorious climate cases aimed at holding fossil fuel companies and other climate polluters liable for the damages they have caused.” This support includes coordinated social media posts with <a href="https://exxonknew.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">#ExxonKnew</a>, an initiative by 350.org, and a <a href="http://www.payupclimatepolluters.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">PR campaign</a> that is pressuring other cities like <a href="http://www.payupclimatepolluters.org/campaigns/harvey/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Houston</a> and <a href="http://www.payupclimatepolluters.org/campaigns/florida/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Miami</a> to bring lawsuits of their own. These tactics seem to stem directly from the agenda at the aforementioned Rockefeller Family Fund <a href="https://eidclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Rockefeller-ExxonKnew-Strategy-Meeting-Memo-Jan-2016.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">meeting</a> in 2016:[doc wiget?]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not only is Wiles leading a PR campaign in support of these lawsuits, he also oversaw the research <a href="https://www.sheredling.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Bond-Analysis-Report-and-Letter-to-SEC-FINAL-042718-002.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">utilized</a> in many of the cases seeking damages from fossil fuel companies. Wiles is the founder of <a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Climate Central</a>, a <a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/what-we-do/funding" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Rockefeller-funded</a> organization that researches and reports on the impacts of climate change. Between 2008-2017, Wiles served as the organization’s Sr. Vice President for Strategic Communications and Research, where he supervised numerous studies cited in the lawsuits represented by Sher Edling.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Climate Central has been involved in the conspiracy</b> to delegitimize the fossil fuel industry from the very beginning: <a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/what-we-do/people/claudia_tebaldi" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Claudia Tebaldi</a>, a climate statistician for Climate Central, <a href="https://eidclimate.org/calif-communities-suing-energy-companies-climate-change-may-misled-investors/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">attended</a> the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b> now infamous </b><a href="http://www.climateaccountability.org/pdf/Climate%20Accountability%20Rpt%20Oct12.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">La Jolla conference</a> on behalf of the organization in 2012.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Portrayed by the media as a dispassionate expert, Richard Wiles is a deeply ingrained collaborator in the climate conspiracy against the energy industry. He is facilitating a coordinated PR campaign and running a “news” organization to further these baseless attacks, alongside some of the most well-documented #ExxonKnew conspirators. He even oversaw research conducted after the La Jolla Conference that was later used in the very lawsuits he continues to <a href="https://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/01/its_time_for_climate_polluters_to_pay_their_fair_s.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">promote</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wiles has managed to operate multiple facets of the campaign to undermine the industry, while maintaining a public perception as an outside expert. It’s unclear if Mr. Wiles has any other notable affiliations with the climate litigation campaign, but additional investigation may yet reveal more to this story.</font></p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref guk electric car</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><b>Oil company records from 1960s reveal patents to reduce CO2 emissions in cars</b></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<b> May 2016 </b></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><b>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.</b>”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">This 1970 patent, assigned to Esso (now ExxonMobil), is a design for a low-polluting engine system.]</span></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><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">“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<b> Carroll Muffett, president of the Ciel</b>. “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.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The findings echo those in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, which explored the deliberate destruction of GM’s first electric vehicles.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>Alan Jeffers, an Exxon spokesman</b>, 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><b>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.”</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>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.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">However, <b>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 </b>– 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.”</span></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><b>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.</b></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><b>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.</b></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<b> annual shareholder meeting in Dallas.</b></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><b>
</b></div><div><b>Exxon has dismissed the investigations as politically motivated.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">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?]</span></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><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/fossil-fuel-new-evidence-sb-1161">https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/fossil-fuel-new-evidence-sb-1161</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">New Evidence of Fossil Fuel Industry Climate Science Deception Underscores Need for </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">SB 1161 (Allen), “California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act”</span></font></span></h1><p class="page-subtitle" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: -1rem 0px 1.6rem; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.001em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Statement by Adrienne Alvord, California and Western States Director, Union of Concerned Scientists</font></p><p class="dates" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px; 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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Published Apr 13, 2016</font></span></p></div><article role="article" class="node node--type-press-release node--view-mode-full" style="border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="nodecontent" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="column-general" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="main-region" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px 1rem; box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; width: 640px; max-width: 32rem;"><div class="block block-layout-builder block-field-blocknodepress-releasebody" style="border-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: var(--border-color); border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden fielditem" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both;"><p style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6rem; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.001em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: inherit;">OAKLAND, Calif. (April 13, 2016)— A </span><a href="https://www.smokeandfumes.org/#/" style="font-weight: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 174, 235); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">trove of documents</a><span style="font-weight: inherit;"> released today by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) reveals that the oil industry was well aware of the potential climate risks of fossil fuels decades earlier than was widely believed. The uncovered industry communications, scientific papers and oral histories demonstrate that th</span><b>e petroleum industry was conducting climate research as early as 1957 and knew about the potential for catastrophic climate risks by 1968 at the latest.</b></font></p><p style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6rem; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.001em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="font-weight: inherit;">The documents include a 1957 study, “Radiocarbon Evidence on the Dilution of Atmospheric and Oceanic Carbon by Carbon from Fossil Fuels,” published by </span><b>scientists working for Humble Oil</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;">, a precursor of ExxonMobil. The study looked at how carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion accumulates in the atmosphere and oceans and indicates that scientists affiliated with the fossil fuel industry were not just aware of what happens to the climate when we burn fossil fuels, but were at the leading edge of our understanding of it.</span></font></p><p style="font-weight: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6rem; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.001em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Below is a statement by Adrienne Alvord, California and Western States Director, Union of Concerned Scientists:</font></p><p style="font-weight: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6rem; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.001em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It is shocking and disheartening to see that the fossil fuel industry apparently had knowledge of climate risks from the burning of fossil fuels even earlier than previously believed. Their subsequent public deception campaign in the interest of profit has led to confusion and uncertainty about the consequences of burning oil, gas and coal. </font></p><p style="font-weight: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6rem; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.001em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, concentrations of greenhouse gases have doubled over the past three decades, exacerbating the costly, damaging effects of climate change that California already is experiencing. The California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act would help ensure that California can hold fossil fuel companies fully accountable for their decades of deception and the damages they have caused to public health, property and the environment in California. We need to ensure that fossil fuel companies won’t be let off the hook for their decades-long campaign of intentional deception about the harmful effects of their products.”</font></p></div></div></div></div></div></article></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/jason-barbose/climate-science-truth-and-accountability-act-sb-1161">https://blog.ucsusa.org/jason-barbose/climate-science-truth-and-accountability-act-sb-1161</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><h1 style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 63px 5px 0px; font-weight: lighter; line-height: 1.2em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Five Reasons to Pass the Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act (SB 1161)</font></h1><div class="username" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="jason-barbose" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/author/jason-barbose" title="Posts by Jason Barbose" rel="author" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">JASON BARBOSE</a>,</span> WESTERN STATES POLICY MANAGER | <b>MARCH 29, 2016, </b></font></div><div class="php-widget-top" data-user="jason-barbose" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div id="custom_html-4" class="widget_text widget widget_custom_html" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><div class="textwidget custom-html-widget" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="the_author_nickname" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="article-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 657.219px; clear: both;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sometimes the truth hurts. And when it does, it can be tempting to try to cover up the facts. But ultimately it’s better to face them honestly because eventually the facts catch up to you. While I learned that lesson a long time ago, the fossil fuel industry seemingly has not.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After all, they have spent millions over decades to convince the public that consumption of their product would not lead to dire consequences for the planet. To date, they have yet to fully reckon with that, but I’m hopeful that the truth is catching up to the fossil fuel industry and 2016 will be a turning point.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This year there is an opportunity for the California Legislature to help redress this long-standing deception by passing the<b> </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/03/SB-1161-%28Allen%29-Climate-Science-Truth-Accountabiliy-Act.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act of 2016</a> (SB 1161).</b> This legislation, authored by<b> Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica)</b> and sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists, help law enforcement hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their actions. Specifically, it would extend the statute of limitations of California’s Unfair Competition Law to 30 years for deceptive behavior relating to the scientific evidence of climate change.</span></font></p><div id="attachment_42372" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; max-width: 860px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Why should the California legislature pass this bill? Here are my top five reasons:</b></font></p><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1) Some fossil fuel companies have long known about the risks of climate change.</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recent reports by <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Inside Climate News</em></a> and the <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Los Angeles Times</em></a> show that by the 1980s the fossil fuel industry was well aware of the emerging scientific consensus that emissions from the burning of fossil fuels were increasing global temperature.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, many companies engaged in their own climate change research and shared some of this research with others in the industry. Exxon’s own climate scientists, for example, conducted cutting-edge climate change research in the late 1970s and early 1980s.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>There is also evidence that companies began factoring projected climate change into their own business decisions and operations, such as designing new infrastructure to withstand rising sea levels and <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">increased storm severity</span></b>. In short, fossil fuel companies have long known about the risks and likely consequences of processing and burning their products.</font></p><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2) The fossil fuel industry has spent decades deceiving the public about the science of climate change.</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The realization that use of your company’s product (i.e., oil, gas and coal) as intended (i.e., burning it) is affecting life on earth in profound and potentially catastrophic ways for centuries to come (i.e., climate change) is about as hard a truth a corporation can be forced to face.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But that is exactly what confronted fossil fuel companies as the science of global warming was gaining wide recognition in the scientific community and making front-page headlines in the late 1980s and the broader public began to seriously consider whether, and how, to respond to climate change.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Here is where things get ugly: rather than owning up to the scientific reality of global warming, fossil fuel companies decided to develop and participate in a concerted campaign to sow confusion in the public about the scientific evidence linking fossil fuel emissions to rising global temperatures.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How do we know? UCS scoured collections of internal company and trade association documents that have been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information Act requests and <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">complied a report on our findings called <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/fight-misinformation/climate-deception-dossiers-fossil-fuel-industry-memos" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Climate Deception Dossiers</em></a>.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the report we describe, for example, a <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/Climate-Deception-Dossier-2_API-Climate-Science-Communications-Plan.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">memo</a> leaked to the <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">New York Times</em> that shows how the American Petroleum Institute—the country’s largest oil trade association whose member companies include BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell—convened a team in <b>1998 to create a public communications plan</b> with the goal of convincing average citizens that the realities of climate science were uncertain. Other examples are in plain sight, such as a <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/UncertainAds1058px_final.png" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">series of newspaper ads</a> that Exxon ran in the late 1990s and early 2000s that overemphasized the scientific uncertainties of climate change.</font></p><div id="attachment_42356" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; max-width: 810px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">3) There are real costs to fossil fuel industry deception.</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Since 1988—around the time that fossil fuel companies began to systematically undermine the public’s understanding of the scientific evidence of global warming—<a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/images/2015/06/gw-graphic-graph-half-carbon-emissions-released-since-1988.jpg" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">743 gigatons of carbon dioxide have been emitted</a> to the atmosphere. This represents <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">more than half of all</em> industrial carbon pollution emitted over the last 250 years.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Imagine an alternate world where fossil fuel companies had faced the facts of climate change head on and invested heavily in transforming themselves to provide low carbon sources of energy, leaving most of the fossil fuels consumed over the last two decades in the ground. <b>We would live in a world with a far safer climate and Californians would face fewer <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/regional_information/ca-and-western-states.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">threats from wildfires, drought, heat waves, and coastal flooding</a>.</b></font></p><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4) Deceiving the public is morally wrong.</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most of us expect businesses to look out for their bottom lines ahead of the public good. But there are limits to acceptable corporate behavior, and there is a difference between being amoral and immoral.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By constructing a decades-long campaign to misinform the public about the scientific realities of climate change, the fossil fuel industry crossed a moral Rubicon. By lying to the public, the industry has distorted the truth, denying the public a complete picture of the risks associated with using their products.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many others have recognized the fundamental impropriety of this behavior as well. Most recently, <a href="http://www.rffund.org/divestment" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">the Rockefeller Family Fund announced</a> its intent to divest from fossil fuels, citing ExxonMobil’s “morally reprehensible conduct” to confuse the public about climate change. This action is all the more notable given that John D Rockefeller Sr. was a co-founder of Standard Oil, a precursor to ExxonMobil. And <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press-release/SEC-Exxon-Chevron-0682" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">a ruling last week by federal regulators</a> cleared the way for ExxonMobil shareholders to grapple for the first time with the <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/guest-commentary/why-two-degrees-is-so-important-fossil-fuel-companies-can-no-longer-ignore-the-need-to-act" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">moral and justice implications of climate change</a> as it relates to the company’s business.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There should be consequences any time a company lies to the public, but particularly for deceiving the public systematically for decades about an issue as serious and consequential as global warming. This legislation is an important way to hold them accountable.</font></p><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5) A movement is building. California can stay at the forefront.</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you have been following this issue in the news, then you know that a movement is building to more fully uncover the truth about the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long effort to deny and deceive the public about climate change—and to hold these companies accountable for their actions.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Following the release of <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Inside Climate News</em>’ <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">eight-month investigation</a> of Exxon and new reporting from the <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Los Angeles Times</em></a>, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-under-investigation-in-new-york-over-climate-statements.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">announced in November</a> that his office was beginning an investigation of ExxonMobil to determine whether the company lied to the public and shareholders. This was quickly followed in January with <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-exxon-global-warming-20160120-story.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">reports</a> that <b>California Attorney General Kamala Harris was beginning to investigate ExxonMobil as well.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While attention to ExxonMobil’s history of misdeeds is welcome, it is important to remember that they were not alone in fomenting disinformation about climate change—and that the campaign of deception continues today. In light of the evidence that has emerged so far, <b>California congressman Ted Lieu has requested the U.S. Attorney General to launch investigations of both <a href="http://lieu.house.gov/sites/lieu.house.gov/files/TED_LIEU_SHELL.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">Shell</a> and <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2461620-2015-10-15doj-exxonmobil.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">ExxonMobil</a>.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Whether these companies have actually broken the law is something for the courts to decide—SB 1161 is not making that judgment. What SB 1161 is doing is giving law enforcement the opportunity to ensure that justice is served for the full weight of any violations that may have been committed.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wherever these investigations lead, it is important that the California legislature—and by extension, the people of California—signal their intent to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its many decades of spreading disinformation.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Learn more:</font></strong></p><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/03/backgrounder-fossil-fuel-industry-climate-science-deception.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Background Information on Fossil Fuel Industry Climate Science Deception (PDF)</font></a></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/03/backgrounder-fact-sheet-california-climate-impacts.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Background Information on Climate Change and Costly Damages in California</span> (PDF)</font></a></li></ul><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Update (April 1, 4:15pm)</span><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">: </em>A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that the bill would “give explicit authority to public prosecutors” to bring actions against those who have deceived with regards to climate change. The post has been updated to reflect the fact that the bill only extends the time period for bringing such actions based on existing law. The post also used the word “crimes,” but this is not a criminal statute. Instead, it is related to violations of California’s Unfair Competition Law, which is a civil statute.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Posted in: <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/category/global-warming" rel="category tag" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">Global Warming</a> Tags: <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/tag/california" rel="tag" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">California</a>, <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/tag/climate-science-truth-and-accountability-act" rel="tag" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act</a></font></p></div></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">joe romm apr 2014</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://archive.thinkprogress.org/50-years-ago-big-oil-bragged-about-being-able-to-melt-glaciers-while-they-knew-about-climate-change-728efe887daa/">https://archive.thinkprogress.org/50-years-ago-big-oil-<b>bragged-about-being-able-to-melt-glaciers</b>-while-they-knew-about-climate-change-728efe887daa/</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><div class="postcontent" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 2.2rem; margin-bottom: 2em;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Newly-released oil industry documents push back the start date of the world’s most successful disinformation campaign to the 1960s, if not earlier.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The must-read documents, <a href="https://www.smokeandfumes.org/#/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">published by </a>The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), strengthen the hand of the <a href="http://archive.thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/11/05/3719767/investigate-exxon-new-york-attorney-general/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">numerous</a> <a href="http://archive.thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/29/3764399/climate-change-attorneys-general/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">attorneys general</a> investigating whether ExxonMobil engaged in a cover-up to mislead the public and investors about the dangers of human-caused climate change.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/science/pressure-on-exxon-over-climate-change-intensifies-with-new-documents.html?r=1" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">quotes</a> CIEL director Carroll Muffett on the stunning implications of these documents:</font></p><blockquote name="f1c5" id="f1c5" class="graf graf--blockquote graf--startsWithDoubleQuote graf-after--p" style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; margin: 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; position: relative; border-left: 3px solid rgb(87, 87, 206);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; padding-left: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“<strong style="box-sizing: inherit;">From 1957 onward, there is no doubt that Humble Oil, which is now Exxon, was clearly on notice</strong>” about rising CO2 in the atmosphere and the prospect that it was likely to cause global warming, he said.</font></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The first thing that quote made me think of is a story I wrote <a href="http://archive.thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/11/19/204985/oil-ad-lifemelt-glaciers/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">years ago</a> about a ridiculously ironic ad that Humble oil published in a 1962 edition of Life Magazine found on <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=k00EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA86-IA3&dq=glacier%20humble&pg=PA86-IA2#v=onepage&q=glacier%20humble&f=false" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">Google Books</a> (for larger version, <a href="http://archive.thinkprogress.org/uploads/2009/11/19195428/humble-oil.jpg" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">click here</a>). The headline: “EACH DAY HUMBLE SUPPLIES ENOUGH ENERGY TO MELT 7 MILLION TONS OF GLACIER!”:</font></p><figure class="postfigure postfigure--format-title-width" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2rem; padding: 0px; max-width: 100%;"><div class="postthumbnail" style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow: hidden; position: relative;"><picture id="picture-343073" class="wp-image-343073 size-full " data-id="343073" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/0236WZUD6RuLTFR2D.jpg?w=638&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C396px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 1920px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/0236WZUD6RuLTFR2D.jpg?w=638&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C396px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 1024px) and (max-width: 1920px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/0236WZUD6RuLTFR2D.jpg?w=638&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C396px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1024px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/0236WZUD6RuLTFR2D.jpg?w=638&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C396px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 512px) and (max-width: 1024px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/0236WZUD6RuLTFR2D.jpg?w=638&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C396px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 512px) and (max-width: 768px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/0236WZUD6RuLTFR2D.jpg?w=512&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C318px&ssl=1" media="(max-width: 512px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/0236WZUD6RuLTFR2D.jpg?w=638&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C396px&ssl=1" media="(max-width: 768px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/0236WZUD6RuLTFR2D.jpg?w=638&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C396px&ssl=1" media="all" style="box-sizing: inherit;">[img]</source></source></source></source></source></source></source></source></font></picture></div></figure><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries,” the ad begins without a trace of irony. “Yet, the petroleum energy Humble supplies — if converted into heat — could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second! To meet the nation’s growing needs for energy, Humble has supplied science to nature’s resources to become America’s Leading Energy Company….”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the time, I noted the scientific reality that “<b><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28249708#.Vw-9yTYrJko" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">More than 2 trillion tons</a> of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica, and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data</b> that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.” But what we now know is that by 1962, the phrase “Humble has supplied science to nature’s resources” also included supplying some of the early science on global warming and its impacts.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CIEL documents that back in 1946, the leading oil companies created a “Smoke and Fumes Committee” to back scientific research into air pollution issues and use their findings to shape the public debate about the environment. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CIEL explains, “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The express goal of their collaboration was to use science and public skepticism to prevent environmental regulations they deemed hasty, costly, and unnecessary.” The Committee, which perhaps should have been named “Smoke and Mirrors,” was l<b>ater folded into the American Petroleum Institute (API).</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The scientific understanding that certain gases trap heat and warm the planet dates back at least to Irish physicist John Tyndall in 1820, as NASA has <a href="http://climate.nasa.gov/blog/143" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">explained</a>. By the turn of the 19th century, Svante August <b>Arrhenius was quantifying how CO2 contributed to the greenhouse effect and <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/blog/2010/12/unchained-goddess-frank-capra-knew" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">later made</a> the connection between global warming and fossil fuels combustion.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 1955, as CIEL notes, Hans Suess, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) scientist, “demonstrated that naturally occurring carbon-14 in the atmosphere was being ‘diluted’ by depleted carbon-12 derived from fossil fuels.” In 1957, <a href="https://www.smokeandfumes.org/#/documents/document8" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">a paper</a> by SIO’s Roger Revelle and Hans Suess determined that “far more CO2 would remain in the atmosphere than previously assumed, potentially accelerating the impact of global climate change.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two months later, scientists with the Humble Oil and Refining Company Production Research Division published — under the company name — <a href="https://www.smokeandfumes.org/#/documents/document7" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">a study</a> called “Radiocarbon Evidence on the Dilution of Atmospheric and Oceanic Carbon by Carbon from Fossil Fuels.” <b>In other words, by 1957 the precursor company to Exxon knew that burning fossil fuels was boosting CO2 levels in the air.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As an aside, you may recall that the very next year, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">1958, the American public saw the first televised warning about the dangers of CO2, global warming, and sea level rise. In a TV episode, “<a href="http://archive.thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/12/3749275/frank-capra-1958-global-warming/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">Unchained Goddess</a>,” written and produced by three-time Oscar winner Frank Capra, viewers learn that unrestricted CO2 emissions could “melt the polar ice caps” leading to a world where “Tourists in glass bottom boats would be viewing the drowned towers of Miami.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By February 1968, Stanford Research Institute (SRI) scientists had completed their Final Report to the API on “<a href="https://www.smokeandfumes.org/#/documents/document16" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">Sources, abundance, and fate of gaseous atmospheric pollutants</a>.” The<b> SRI report notes that the best explanation for rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere is the “fossil fuel emanation theory”!</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The researchers explicitly warn the API that because of rising CO2 levels, “Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000,” and “there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe.” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The report points out:</span></font></p><blockquote name="f650" id="f650" class="graf graf--blockquote graf--startsWithDoubleQuote graf-after--p" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; margin: 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; position: relative; border-left: 3px solid rgb(87, 87, 206);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; padding-left: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If the Earth’s temperature increases significantly, a number of events might be expected to occur, including the <b>melting of the Antarctic ice, a rise in sea levels</b>…”</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The researchers go on to make “Estimates of the possible rate at which the Antarctic ice cap might melt,” ranging from 4000 years down to a beyond-alarming 400 years! Indeed, they make a simple calculation that <b>if the ice cap melted in 1000 years, “the resulting 400 foot rise in sea level would occur at a rate of 4 feet per 10 years. This is 100 times greater than presently observed changes.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">You’ll be happy to know that their math was off by a factor of 2.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The melting of all of the land-locked ice on the planet, of which the vast majority is on Antarctica, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">would “only” raise sea level some 230 feet. Ironically, or tragically, SRI’s crude 1968 estimate of the possible rate of sea level rise if we kept burning fossil fuels isn’t that much different from the worst-case scenario laid out by James Hansen and 18 leading climate experts in a <a href="http://archive.thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/22/3762111/climate-scientists-global-emergency/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">peer-reviewed paper</a> last month.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We may never know whether the PR geniuses who came up with the 1962 melting glacier ad — and the corporate executives who approved it — had any idea of just how tragically ironic it was. But thanks to CIEL — and <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/13042016/climate-change-global-warming-oil-industry-radar-1960s-exxon-api-co2-fossil-fuels" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">Inside Climate News</a> and the <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">L.A. Times</a> — we know that <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/exxonknew" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">#ExxonKnew</a> a half century ago about the very serious dangers their product would some day inflict on humanity.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And yet Exxon chose to lie to its investors and spread disinformation to the general public about those dangers. The courts will decide whether Exxon broke the law. But considering that the Pope laid out in great detail in his <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">climate encyclical</a> why climate inaction is morally wrong — it’s quite safe to say that knowingly spreading disinformation for the purpose of delaying action on preventing catastrophic global warming is uniquely immoral.</font></p></div></div></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">icn bare knuckles</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 117.438px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Exxon initially cooperated with New York, surrendering more than two million pages of records. But the company balked at a documents request from Healey and took its argument to Kinkeade, who allowed Exxon to question attorneys general and climate activists in its search for evidence of a conspiracy.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 117.438px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">When Kinkeade, a Republican appointed by President George W. Bush, sent the case to New York, he laid out Exxon's allegations in detail, presumably a road map for his successor to follow.  But Caproni, appointed by President Barack Obama, said at a hearing, "I have a different view of this case than Judge Kinkeade." When one of Exxon's lawyers sought a discovery order like the one Kinkeade granted to allow the company to try to prove that the attorneys general were improperly colluding, Caproni shut him down. "Gimme a break," she said. </p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 117.438px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="http://www.ciel.org/about-us/ciel-staff/carroll-muffett-president-and-ceo/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(131, 190, 68); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Carroll Muffett</a>, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Center for International Environmental Law, was one of those subpoenaed by Exxon. </p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 117.438px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">"I knew from the very beginning that Exxon would eventually come after us hard and it would be a dirty fight," Muffett said. "They are fabricating conspiracy theories to deflect attention from the truth."</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 117.438px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">
To defend itself, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3519886-ExxonMobil-Subpoena-to-Muffett.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(131, 190, 68); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Exxon argued in the subpoena</a> that it needed to know whether Muffett's and other non-governmental organizations influenced the attorneys general's decisions to open investigations.The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Rockefeller Family Fund, philanthropic organizations that promote environmental causes among their numerous programs, also were <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07122016/exxonmobil-climate-change-investigation-350-bill-mckibben-rex-tillerson-lamar-smith-science" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(131, 190, 68); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">the targets of Exxon subpoenas</a>. Both organizations are among donors that support ICN.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 117.438px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">That legal strategy prompted Sarah Labowitz, a New York University scholar who served nearly three years on <a href="http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/community/corporate-citizenship-report/about-this-report" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(131, 190, 68); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Exxon's External Citizenship Advisory Panel</a>, to resign.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 117.438px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Labowitz, who until recently was co-director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at the NYU Stern School of Business, said she had enough when the company went after Muffett and others unrelated to the two state investigations.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 117.438px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">"I am disappointed that instead of examining its own record and seeking to restore a respected place for itself in the public debate, Exxon has chosen to turn up the temperature on civil society groups," <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3521602-Labowitz-ECAP-Feb-6-2017.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(131, 190, 68); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Labowitz wrote in her resignation letter</a>.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 117.438px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Watching the New York and Massachusetts investigations being sucked into a legal quagmire are the other attorneys general who were part of the coalition.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/12/trumps_war_on_science_exxon_ceo" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/12/trumps_war_on_science_exxon_ceo</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">RROLL</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MUFFETT</span>:</strong> I’ll say that when the news first came out, I assumed it was a grim practical joke. As it became more real, our response is that it is irresponsible, and it’s unconscionable. It poses a threat not only to the planet, but to human rights. To put—to put the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">CEO</span> of Exxon in charge of our negotiations on climate change, our negotiations on oil, on energy, on human rights, with countries around the world where this company has interests, where it has a track record of abuses, is patently irresponsible.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Now, what is your personal involvement here? Why was—<b>why were you subpoenaed?</b></font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">CARROLL</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MUFFETT</span>:</strong> You would have to ask Exxon that. Our best guess is that Exxon subpoenaed me because of the work that my organization, the Center for International Environmental Law, has done to expose Exxon’s history of climate research and its history of climate denial.</span> Our research, published last summer, demonstrated that Exxon and its oil industry allies were actually doing climate research as early as 1957 and that they had been warned by no later than 1968 that fossil fuels were directly linked to climate change.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> And so, what do you have to do?</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">CARROLL</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MUFFETT</span>:</strong> We have filed objections to the subpoena, noting that the subpoena is nothing more than a fishing expedition, that I’m not a party to the case, and that if you look at the subpoena that Exxon has filed, it’s clear that it goes far beyond any issues in the case and is a clear effort to intimidate and suppress those who have criticized the company.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> That’s interesting, because at the same time—and I want to ask Erich Pica this question, of Friends of the Earth—you have this questionnaire, Donald Trump’s transition team circulating a 74-part questionnaire at the Department of Energy that requests the names of employees who have attended climate talks over the last five years. From these subpoenas to a kind of—well, would you call it an <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">enemies list?</span></font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ERICH</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PICA</span>:</strong> Absolutely. I mean, this dates back to the red-baiting and McCarthyism. This is like—you know, the head of the transition team, Myron Ebell, who is head of the energy and climate transition team, he’s with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He’s been a funded ExxonMobil climate denier, and now he’s using that position to go out and find the climate change enemies list in the Department of Energy—and who knows how far it’s going to go into the Environmental Protection Agency, <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">NASA</span>? All these agencies that have something to do with climate change, you see both the appointees, the proposed appointees, as well as the transition team trying to undermine the trust, undermine the capacity of these civil servants, who are doing really good work on behalf of the American people, undermining their capacity to address what is scientifically proven and what they were doing on behalf of the Obama administration.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Well, let’s back up, and let me get your reaction, Erich Pica, to the possible nomination. Donald Trump is not denying that he is his first pick but hasn’t actually made that choice yet, maybe kind of floating this to see how people respond to Exxon <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">CEO</span> Rex Tillerson being nominated as secretary of state.</font></p></div>