By Aaron Regunberg & David Arkush<\/p>\n
This article was originally published by Truthout<\/a><\/p>\n A paper from 1992 shows the oil company anticipating how the melting of Arctic ice sheets could impact its bottom line.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cDo you believe that statement\u2019s misleading?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll the clauses in there are patently false. And I told them so.\u201d<\/p>\n So reads an exchange from the deposition of Joseph Weissman, an ExxonMobil scientist with the company\u2019s former algae biofuels program. The \u201cpatently false\u201d statement in question was a corporate press release claiming algae biofuel was a viable solution to climate change that the company would soon be producing at scale. Extensive reporting has already uncovered how ExxonMobil spent nearly half as much advertising<\/a> its algae research as it spent<\/a> on the research itself. But testimony like Weissman\u2019s shows just how clearly the company understood that this much-touted project was, in Weissman\u2019s words, a \u201cdead end.\u201d The goal was not to create a viable alternative energy source, but simply, as one internal memo put it, to make consumers \u201c[b]elieve ExxonMobil is committed to helping solve climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n Weissman\u2019s deposition was taken by the Massachusetts Attorney General\u2019s Office as part of its lawsuit against ExxonMobil alleging consumer protection violations. In an under-the-radar filing<\/a> in April, Massachusetts disclosed this deposition, as well as a range of other documents<\/a> it had uncovered, to demonstrate the relevance of additional investigative targets that ExxonMobil had been furiously attempting to shield from discovery. These newly released materials cover a range of topics and time periods, from memos on the company\u2019s more recent deceptive advertising campaigns to evidence of its decades-old climate knowledge.<\/p>\n One of the documents is a 1992 paper, \u201cClimate Change Impacts on Northern Offshore Petroleum Operations,\u201d which analyzes how Exxon\u2019s operations in the Beaufort Sea would be affected by its predictions of a \u201cmuch thinner ice sheet\u201d and other anticipated effects of global warming caused by the use of its products. The upshot for Exxon: \u201c[I]f ice conditions become less severe as predicted, then offshore petroleum operations will become easier and less costly.\u201d Papers like this, demonstrating ExxonMobil\u2019s sophisticated understanding of the realities of global warming, were produced at the same time the company was ramping up its public efforts to, in its own words<\/a>, \u201cemphasize the uncertainty in scientific conclusions\u201d on climate change in order to prevent the \u201cdevelopment of nonfossil fuel resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Needless to say, the contrast between oil companies\u2019 internal climate knowledge and external climate denial is profoundly damaging to the industry. This helps explain why it is going to such extraordinary lengths to attack these climate cases. These corporations are not just afraid of losing these lawsuits; they\u2019re also afraid of the damning evidence the suits will uncover.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is the skeleton key for understanding Suncor v. Boulder, the high-profile climate case the Supreme Court heard in early October.<\/p>\n Suncor began in 2018, when Boulder, Colorado, sued fossil fuel companies Suncor and ExxonMobil for damages from climate change and the companies\u2019 lies about their role in fueling it. After the Colorado Supreme Court rejected the defendants\u2019 motion to dismiss the case, Suncor and ExxonMobil \u2014 likely terrified of what would happen if Boulder were allowed to have its day in court \u2014 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, repeating a request the fossil fuel industry has made again<\/a> and again<\/a> in recent years, alongside parallel efforts to lobby Congress<\/a> and state legislatures<\/a> to grant it immunity from all climate-related liability.<\/p>\n There is a reason why oil and gas companies are so desperate to stop these cases by any means before they proceed any further. We have likely seen just a sliver of the evidence they have that shows they\u2019ve spent decades knowingly deceiving the public about climate science, climate harms, and their commitment to climate action. How many more reports are they sitting on like the 1992 paper laying out ExxonMobil\u2019s projected opportunities for profiting off a melting Arctic? How many more internal communications like Weissman\u2019s saying that \u201call the clauses\u201d in a 2018 press release about ExxonMobil\u2019s signature climate solution were \u201cpatently false?\u201d The current offensive isn\u2019t just about defeating the cases. It\u2019s also about preventing the public from learning the extent and severity of the industry\u2019s wrongdoing. It\u2019s about fossil fuel CEOs\u2019 profound fear of sitting in front of a jury of 12 Americans and trying to defend their companies\u2019 deceptive conduct \u2014 because they know it\u2019s indefensible.<\/p>\n Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules in Suncor, it\u2019s hard to imagine these companies can bury the evidence of their lies and escape accountability indefinitely. Whatever the onetime value of fossil fuels to the economy, their harms now massively outweigh their benefits, particularly since the vast majority of fossil fuel use can be replaced by cleaner, cheaper, safer forms of energy \u2014 and this has been true for a long time. Instead of adapting, the industry has clung tightly to a civilization-endangering business model and engaged in a massive deception campaign to do so. Along the way, its conduct has become some of the most harmful and culpable in human history. Eventually, it will be held to account.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> was originally published by Truthout<\/a> and is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)<\/a>. Please maintain all links and credits in accordance with our republishing guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Aaron Regunberg & David Arkush This article was originally published by Truthout A paper from 1992 shows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-374839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}