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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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 Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 10:52 am Post subject: |
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No admissions by Exxon, which has known about climate change and the role of CO2 since the 1980's. As long as they have apologists seeded on forums to repeat lies, they will deny everything. I note the last comment by mrgybe--a classic that uses all of his dissembling. First, admit nothing--no comment on the unsafe practices of the oil industry when they've bought a politician or several hundred. The money they save is ten times what they spend in corrupting the system. Second, always attack and divert. Mrgybe attacks me for not cleaning up the 2,000 or so trucks that call at the Port of Oakland quickly enough--ignoring the millions that use his industry's fuels, which when used as intended, cause cancer. Third, rely on anecdotes to ignore scale. See comment 2.
| Quote: | LONDON — Ten of the world’s big oil companies, mainly from Europe, on Friday jointly acknowledged their industry’s role in global climate change and said that they agreed with the United Nations’ goals of limiting global warming.
The point, in a public declaration, was to try convincing an increasingly skeptical world that the oil companies, whose fossil fuels are a big source of greenhouse gases, are serious about delivering cleaner energy and combating climate change. But the impact of that statement might be limited.
None of the biggest American oil companies took part. And the companies that were involved — including BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Saudi Aramco and Total — made no specific commitments to helping meet the climate challenge. |
Source is the New York times. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 11:26 am Post subject: |
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And in the news today:
California shuts down dozens of oil company wells that were injecting water into potentially drinkable acquifers protected by federal law. More expected.
and
former Chevron Vice Chairman George Kirkland of Danville has been identified as the top water waster in the East Bay, using 12,578 gallons per day.
Friend of yours mrgybe? He has that oil company arrogance and scofflaw attitude down pat. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 10:37 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton voiced support Thursday for a Department of Justice investigation into whether ExxonMobil purposefully misled the American public on climate change.
When asked after a town hall event in Berlin, N.H. whether she would call for a federal probe into Exxon, Clinton replied, "Yes, yes, they should. There's a lot of evidence that they misled people."
The Clinton campaign did not respond to InsideClimate News' request for further comment.
Clinton joins a growing number of politicians—including both of her Democratic presidential challengers—calling for the Justice Department to investigate ExxonMobil for sowing doubt about climate change after the company's own scientists had confirmed and accepted the role of fossil fuels in global warming. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch earlier this month asking for a task force to investigate Exxon. Governor Martin O’Malley voiced his support for an investigation on Twitter. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 1:01 pm Post subject: |
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| In an interview on MSNBC yesterday, Charles Koch revealed that after he spends millions to influence elections, he “expects something in return.” |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 11:40 am Post subject: |
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Is it true the mrgybe is systematically deleting his e-mails on climate change?
From the New York Times:
| Quote: | The New York attorney general has begun an investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how such risks might hurt the oil business.
According to people with knowledge of the investigation, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued a subpoena Wednesday evening to Exxon Mobil, demanding extensive financial records, emails and other documents.
The investigation focuses on whether statements the company made to investors about climate risks as recently as this year were consistent with the company’s own long-running scientific research.
The people said the inquiry would include a period of at least a decade during which Exxon Mobil funded outside groups that sought to undermine climate science, even as its in-house scientists were outlining the potential consequences — and uncertainties — to company executives.
An oil platform off the coast of Thailand run by Unocal, which Chevron acquired in 2005. Chevron has been one of the companies that supported efforts to derail initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.More Oil Companies Could Join Exxon Mobil as Focus of Climate InvestigationsNOV. 6, 2015
Kenneth P. Cohen, vice president for public affairs at Exxon Mobil, said on Thursday that the company had received the subpoena and was still deciding how to respond.
“We unequivocally reject the allegations that Exxon Mobil has suppressed climate change research,” Mr. Cohen said, adding that the company had funded mainstream climate science since the 1970s, had published dozens of scientific papers on the topic and had disclosed climate risks to investors.
Mr. Schneiderman’s decision to scrutinize the fossil fuel companies may well open a new legal front in the climate change battle.
The people with knowledge of the New York case also said on Thursday that, in a separate inquiry, Peabody Energy, the nation’s largest coal producer, had been under investigation by the attorney general for two years over whether it properly disclosed financial risks related to climate change. That investigation was not previously reported, and has not resulted in any charges or other legal action against Peabody.
Vic Svec, a Peabody senior vice president, said in a statement, “Peabody continues to work with the New York attorney general’s office regarding our disclosures, which have evolved over the years.”
The Exxon inquiry might expand further to encompass other oil companies, according to the people with knowledge of the case, though no additional subpoenas have been issued to date.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about investigations that could produce civil or criminal charges. The Martin Act, a New York state law, confers on the attorney general broad powers to investigate financial fraud.
To date, lawsuits trying to hold fuel companies accountable for damage they are causing to the climate have failed in the courts, but most of those have been pursued by private plaintiffs.
Attorneys general for other states could join in Mr. Schneiderman’s efforts, bringing far greater investigative and legal resources to bear on the issue. Some experts see the potential for a legal assault on fossil fuel companies similar to the lawsuits against tobacco companies in recent decades, which cost those companies tens of billions of dollars in penalties.
“This could open up years of litigation and settlements in the same way that tobacco litigation did, also spearheaded by attorneys general,” said Brandon L. Garrett, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. “In some ways, the theory is similar — that the public was misled about something dangerous to health. Whether the same smoking guns will emerge, we don’t know yet.”
In the 1950s and ’60s, tobacco companies financed internal research showing tobacco to be harmful and addictive, but mounted a public campaign that said otherwise and helped fund scientific research later shown to be dubious. In 2006, the companies were found guilty of “a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public.”
The history at Exxon Mobil appears to differ, in that the company published extensive research over decades that largely lined up with mainstream climatology. Thus, any potential fraud prosecution might depend on exactly how big a role company executives can be shown to have played in directing campaigns of climate denial, usually by libertarian-leaning political groups.
For several years, advocacy groups with expertise in financial analysis have been warning that fossil fuel companies might be overvalued in the stock market, since the need to limit climate change might require that much of their coal, oil and natural gas be left in the ground.
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The people with knowledge of the case said the attorney general’s investigation of Exxon Mobil began a year ago, focusing initially on what the company had told investors about the risks that climate change might pose to its business.
News reporting in the last eight months added impetus to the investigation, they said. In February, several news organizations, including The New York Times, reported that a Smithsonian researcher who had published papers questioning established climate science, Wei-Hock Soon, had received extensive funds from fossil fuel companies, including Exxon Mobil, without disclosing them. That struck some experts as similar to the activities of tobacco companies.
More recently, Inside Climate News and The Los Angeles Times have reported that Exxon Mobil was well aware of the risks of climate change from its own scientific research, and used that research in its long-term planning for activities like drilling in the Arctic, even as it funded groups from the 1990s to the mid-2000s that denied serious climate risks.
Mr. Cohen, of Exxon, said on Thursday that the company had made common cause with such groups largely because it agreed with them on a policy goal of keeping the United States out of a global climate treaty called the Kyoto Protocol.
“We stopped funding them in the middle part of the past decade because a handful of them were making the uncertainty of the science their focal point,” Mr. Cohen said. “Frankly, we made the call that we needed to back away from supporting the groups that were undercutting the actual risk” of climate change.
“We recognize the risk,” Mr. Cohen added. He noted that Exxon Mobil, after an acquisition in 2009, had become the largest producer of natural gas in the United States.
Because natural gas creates far less carbon dioxide than coal when burned for electricity, the company expects to be a prime beneficiary of President Obama’s plan to limit emissions. Exxon Mobil has also endorsed a tax on emissions as a way to further reduce climate risks.
Whether Exxon Mobil began disclosing the business risks of climate change as soon as it understood them is likely to be a major focus of the New York case. The people with knowledge of the case said the attorney general’s investigators were poring through the company’s disclosure filings made since the 1970s, but were focusing in particular on recent statements to investors.
Exxon Mobil has been disclosing such risks in recent years, but whether those disclosures were sufficient has been a matter of public debate.
Last year, for example, the company warned investors of intensifying efforts by governments to limit emissions. “These requirements could make our products more expensive, lengthen project implementation times and reduce demand for hydrocarbons, as well as shift hydrocarbon demand toward relatively lower-carbon sources such as natural gas,” the company said at the time.
But in another recent report, Exxon Mobil essentially ruled out the possibility that governments would adopt climate policies stringent enough to force it to leave its reserves in the ground, saying that rising population and global energy demand would prevent that. “Meeting these needs will require all economic energy sources, especially oil and natural gas,” it said.
Wall Street analysts on Thursday were uncertain whether the case would inflict long-term damage on the company, which has already suffered from a plunge in commodity prices.
“This is not good news for Exxon Mobil or Exxon Mobil shareholders,” said Fadel Gheit, a senior oil company analyst at Oppenheimer & Company. “It’s a negative, though how much damage there will be to reputation or performance is very hard to say.”
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nw30
Joined: 21 Dec 2008
Posts: 6485
Location: The eye of the universe, Cen. Cal. coast
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| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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Big Oil and citizenship and Hillary Clinton's sticky fingers.
Everything was fine until the money dried up. An example of citizenship, crony capitalism, or corruption? Take your pick.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clinton Calls for Exxon Probe After Company Cuts Off Foundation Funding
November 2, 2015 2:14 pm
Hillary Clinton is calling for a federal investigation of ExxonMobil’s climate change activities just months after the company neglected to renew its sponsorship of the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting.
ExxonMobil, which is being accused by global warming activists of misleading the public about climate change, has given between $ 1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation and sponsored the CGI annual meeting in 2014. But this year, the oil giant was one of six major corporations that stopped sponsoring the event, according to USA Today.
Clinton said last week that the Department of Justice should investigate ExxonMobil for allegedly withholding data related to climate change, saying that there is “a lot of evidence they misled people.”
But despite Clinton’s comments, the Democratic presidential frontrunner has seemed willing to work with the oil giant until very recently, the International Business Times reports. And there is no indication that she’s planning to cut her financial ties with the company:
The Clinton Foundation has accepted at least $1 million from ExxonMobil, despite the company’s history of financing challenges to climate science. And Clinton’s State Department touted ExxonMobil as an example of how America should look at Iraq as “a business opportunity.” […]
Though ExxonMobil has stopped sponsoring the Clinton Foundation, ties between the company and the Clintons remain. Clinton’s campaign listed an ExxonMobil lobbyist as one of its top fundraisers, and the company’s employees have donated $8,900 to her 2016 campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records. Tony Podesta, the brother of Clinton’s campaign chair, has lobbied for Golden Pass Products LLC, a company part-owned by ExxonMobil. Podesta has raised$130,000 for her campaign.
The Clinton Foundation featured two ExxonMobil board members at its conference this year. The foundation has also accepted donations from other major oil firms that have a financial interest in fighting climate change legislation. Data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics shows that her presidential campaign has accepted more than $159,000 from donors in the oil and gas industry, making her one of the top five recipients of the industry’s campaign money.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-calls-for-exxon-probe-after-company-cuts-off-foundation-funding/ |
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mrgybe
Joined: 01 Jul 2008
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
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| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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| OTOH, why do people of any means at all CHOOSE to live just downwind of pollution sources? Whether it's a nuclear weapons development reservation or just a busy street intersection, why live within its immediate downwind plume when one can move just a mile or 5 and escape it? Just because we can't see, or often even smell, pollution, its existence can still be very obvious. Neither the auto industry nor a realtor can convince me it's healthy to live on the NE or SE corner of an intersection with 20 cars idling 18 hours a day at a red light 100 feet upwind, yet every day I idle just upwind of nice homes just like that. (I've wondered many times while waiting for a green light about their family's health.) The same goes for a much larger radius for living too close downwind of any obvious pollution source, from a factory to a shipyard to any busy street. The source certainly shares fault if it is negligent, but then so do people who have any choice in where they live. And, fault aside, every one of us needs to take more responsibility for our own health and depend less on mindless or even abusive business, government, and legal solutions for it. As for 2020 or later ... I'd be shagging my asthmatic butt outta there ASAP if even remotely feasible and worry about government solutions later. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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Is that the sound of whistling next to the graveyard? No comments about the security fraud aspect of the investigation tactics? I guess mrgybe only likes politically motivated witch hunts when the Clinton's are the target.
Be unrepentant, big oil, assert the free speech right to lie, even if it misrepresents the risk and company liabilities. Perhaps the courts will extend the right to lie to cheating and stealing. But keep deleting those e-mails, and maybe reformat the disk.... |
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mrgybe
Joined: 01 Jul 2008
Posts: 5180
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| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Just back from 3 hours on the water. 75 degrees, crystal clear skies, shortie, no boots or gloves. Meanwhile on the other coast, someone prefers to flail around reinforcing his own prejudices and believing that anyone else cares. |
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