^^^^ My using "insipid" was intended as "lacking substance" or any of these synonyms: unimaginative, uninspired, uninspiring, characterless, flat, uninteresting, lackluster, dull, drab, boring, dry, humdrum, ho-hum, monochrome, tedious, uneventful, run-of-the-mill, commonplace, pedestrian, trite, tired, hackneyed, stale, lame, wishy-washy, colorless, anemic, lifeless.
The greased pigs gave me the slip.
This is a bit dated, but still of importance. I pulled it before I took some time away.
Pressure on Exxon Over Climate Change Intensifies With New DocumentBy JOHN SCHWARTZ APRIL 14, 2016
An aerial view of Exxon Mobil’s refineries in Torrance, Calif. State attorneys general are inquiring the company over its climate claims.
Credit Jeffrey Milstein/REX, via Associated PressPressure on Exxon Mobil and the energy industry increased on Wednesday with the release of a new cache of decades-old industry documents about climate change, even as Exxon pushed back against efforts to investigate the company over its climate claims through the years.
The new documents were released by an activist research organization, the
Center for International Environmental Law, which published
the project on its website.
The documents, according to the environmental law center’s director, Carroll Muffett, suggest that the industry had the underlying knowledge of climate change even 60 years ago.
“From 1957 onward, there is no doubt that Humble Oil, which is now Exxon, was clearly on notice” about rising CO2 in the atmosphere and the prospect that it was likely to cause global warming, he said.
What’s more, he said, the documents show the industry was beginning to organize against regulation of air pollution.
The American Petroleum Institute, energy companies and other organizations had created a group, the Smoke and Fumes Committee, to monitor and conduct pollution research, and to “use science and public skepticism to prevent environmental regulations they deemed hasty, costly and unnecessary,” according to the center’s description of the documents on its website.
Those actions, Mr. Muffett suggested, would be echoed in later efforts to undermine climate science.
The center’s work was first reported by
Inside Climate News, which has published stories, as did
The Los Angeles Times, suggesting that Exxon Mobil understood the risks of climate change from its own research, which it used to plan activities such as drilling in the Arctic, while it funded groups into the mid-2000s that denied serious climate risks.
Those earlier investigations led to a surge in activism against the company and the energy industry, using the hashtag #exxonknew. The investigations also have been cited by attorneys general, including Eric T. Schneiderman of New York, who have demanded information from Exxon about its internal research and its funding of climate denial.
Inside Climate News announced that
Wednesday’s article is the first of a series based on the work of the environmental law center and documents it has amassed on its own.
Alan Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon Mobil, called the new allegations absurd.
“To suggest that we had definitive knowledge about human-induced climate change before the world’s scientists is not a credible thesis,” he said.
Four attorneys general are investigating Exxon Mobil’s public statements and private scientific knowledge over the years, and the company struck back on Wednesday in a filing in Texas against Claude Earl Walker, the attorney general of the United States Virgin Islands, and a private law firm working with his office on the investigation.
The filing called Mr. Walker’s actions a “flagrant misuse of law enforcement power” that “violate Exxon Mobil’s constitutionally protected rights of freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and due process of law and constitute the common law tort of abuse of process.”
The company, it noted, has no “physical presence” in the Virgin Islands, and its courts have no jurisdiction over the company.
In addition, the company stated, it has “widely and publicly confirmed” that it recognizes “that the risk of climate change and its potential impacts on society and ecosystems may prove to be significant.”
Kert Davies, the director of the Climate Investigations Center, a group funded by foundations seeking to limit the risks of climate change, said Mr. Muffett’s project “has pulled back the curtain on any plausible deniability that Big Oil might have pretended they had on the dangers of climate change.” And, he added, “the naked truth is pretty ugly.”
But Michael B. Gerrard, the director of the
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, said that the early stirrings of climate science have already been well documented.
“It has been known for years that scientists in that era were talking about climate change,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/science/pressure-on-exxon-over-climate-change-intensifies-with-new-documents.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-3&action=click&contentCollection=Science®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
seemslikeadream
posted about this at the time.
A Range of Opinions on Climate Change at Exxon MobilBy THE NEW YORK TIMES NOV. 6, 2015
An Exxon Mobil refinery in Baytown, Tex.
Credit Jessica Rinaldi/ReutersThe New York attorney general’s
investigation of Exxon Mobil will seek to determine whether the company lied to the public and investors about the risks of climate change. The investigation will focus on whether statements the company made to the public about climate risks were consistent with its own long-running scientific research. Here are some examples of statements made by the company – including executives and its own scientists – over the years.
1980
Internal Exxon Document From a paper titled, “Exxon Research and Engineering Company’s Technological Forecast CO2 Effect,” by H. Shaw and P.P. McCall:
“Projections of scientists active in the area indicate that the contribution of deforestation, which may have been substantial in the past, will diminish in comparison to the expected rate of fossil fuel combustion in the future. A number of scientists have postulated that a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could occur as early as 2035. Calculations recently completed at Exxon Research indicate that using the energy projections from the CONAES (Committee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Systems) study and the World Energy Conference, a doubling of atmospheric CO2 can occur at about 2060.
1989
Duane G. Levine, Exxon’s Manager of Science and Strategy Development A year after the NASA climate scientist James Hansen
warned Congress that global warming was already occurring, an Exxon scientist made a presentation on the topic to the company’s board of directors. His notes included the following language:
“In spite of the rush by some participants in the greenhouse debate to declare that the science has demonstrated the existence of [global warming] today, I do not believe such is the case. Enhanced greenhouse is still deeply imbedded in scientific uncertainty, and we will require substantial additional investigation to determine the degree to which its effects might be experienced in the future.”
1995
Lenny Bernstein, Exxon Mobil Chemical Engineer and Expert on Climate Change An email by Mr. Bernstein to Ohio University’s Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics shows that Exxon (before its merger with Mobil) was aware of climate change science years before it became a political issue.
In his note, Mr. Bernstein refers to a giant natural gas field in Indonesia that Exxon did not ultimately develop:
“Exxon first got interested in climate change in 1981 because it was seeking to develop the Natuna gas field off Indonesia. ”
“When I first learned about the project in 1989, the projections were that if Natuna were developed and its CO2 vented to the atmosphere, it would be the largest point source of CO2 in the world and account for 1 percent of projected global CO2 emissions.”
1997
Lee Raymond, Exxon Chief Executive Mr. Raymond, in a speech to the 15th World Petroleum Congress in Beijing, addressed the issue:
“It is highly unlikely that the temperature in the middle of the next century will be affected whether policies are enacted now or 20 years from now.”
2000
Exxon Mobil Newspaper Ad In response to the Clinton Administration’s report on the potential effects of climate change on different regions and industries in the United States, the company took out a lengthy ad. Excerpts include:
“The report’s language and logic appear designed to emphasize selective results to convince people that climate change will adversely impact their lives.”
“The report is written as a political document, not an objective summary of the underlying science. Climate change is an important public issue. That is why we support emphasis on further climate research, the development and encouragement of promising technology, the promotion of more efficient use of energy, the removal of barriers to innovation, and cost-benefit assessments of proposed policies.”
2002
Bob B. Peterson, Chief Executive of Imperial Oil, Exxon Mobil’s Subsidiary in Canada Mr. Peterson told the Canadian Press news service that “Kyoto is an economic entity,” referring to the Kyoto Protocol initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions:
“It has nothing to do with the environment. It has to do with world trade. This is a wealth-transfer scheme between developed and developing nations.”
2004
Exxon Mobil Newspaper Ad “Scientific uncertainties continue to limit our ability to make objective, quantitative determinations regarding the human role in recent climate change or the degree and consequences of future change.”
2007
Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil’s Chief Executive Mr. Tillerson changed course in a speech before a conference in Houston organized by the energy consulting firm Cambridge Energy Research Associates:
“The risks to society and ecosystems from climate change could prove to be significant. So, despite the uncertainties, it is prudent to develop and implement sensible strategies that address these risks.”
“A range implies a certain degree of uncertainty. Policy decisions need to accommodate that uncertainty.”
2008
J. Stephen Simon, an Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President Testifying before a Senate Judiciary Committee on May 21, 2008, Mr. Simon was pressed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, who suggested that fringe views on climate change were being endorsed and espoused by oil companies. Mr. Simon responded:
“In other words, that we are supporting junk science and trying to make people think that this is not an issue. I think all of us recognize it is an issue. It is how we deal with it – and I think we are dealing with it, and we are doing so in a responsible fashion.”
2010
Exxon Mobil Annual Report “Because we want to ensure that today’s progress does not come at the expense of future generations we need to manage the risks to our environment. This includes taking meaningful steps to curb global greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, while also utilizing local resources to help maintain secure supplies. Energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions represent close to 60 percent of global GHG emissions attributed to human activities, and are expected to increase about 25 percent from 2005 to 2030. This increase is substantially lower than the projected growth in energy demand over the period, reflecting improved energy efficiency, as well as a shift to a significantly less carbon-intensive energy mix – mainly natural gas, nuclear and wind gaining share as fuels for power generation.”
2014
Exxon Mobil Annual Report The company commented on various countries’ consideration of rules for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to control climate change:
“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.”
2015
Ken Cohen, Exxon Mobil Vice President for Public and Government Affairs Mr. Cohen,
in a blog post entitled “Exxon Mobil’s commitment to climate science,” wrote:
“What we have understood from the outset – and something which over-the-top activists fail to acknowledge — is that climate change is an enormously complicated subject.
“The climate and mankind’s connection to it are among the most complex topics scientists have ever studied, with a seemingly endless number of variables to consider over an incredibly long timespan.”
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-global-warming-statements-climate-change.html
