That’s one reason, but also just the impracticality of jailing everyone who was a shareholder at the time. Diffuse responsibility is also a very strong insulator.
In what contexts is lying to the public a crime? The closest are laws against lying in police investigations or official proceedings, but otherwise it's not a jailable offense.
And all of this is before you get into the question of whether they lied or were engaging in motivated reasoning. During COVID we had anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, seemingly without clear commercial reasons to lie. Should those people be thrown in jail as well?
> In what contexts is lying to the public a crime?
This feels like a disingenuous question. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that claiming X isn't toxic, when you know that it is dangerous. Public health, frequency, scale of impact (more often, who is impacted that has resources to compete in court) et al are all considerations.
Humans act in their own self interest. Relying purely on individual self interest is a degenerate approach in public health issues. One of the many purposes of government, is to act in the collective interest. eg Typhoid Mary
>This feels like a disingenuous question. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure [...]
If all you have is vibes, then it's a pretty legitimate question.
>Public health, frequency, scale of impact (more often, who is impacted that has resources to compete in court) et al are all considerations.
That's exactly not how the legal system is supposed to work. Bending the rules just because some defendant is particularly unsympathetic is exactly how you get politically motivated prosecutions and kangaroo courts.
> That's exactly not how the legal system is supposed to work.
It is. This is a misunderstanding of how justice works. People (judges, juries, et al) determine the impact of situations, not machines following abstract rules.
Find a case of someone found criminally liable for something that normally can't be held criminally liable for, and whose trial isn't considered by legal experts to be a legal farce by international legal experts? The latter might sound like me trying to do a no true scotsman, but it's needed to weed out stuff like struggle sessions in communist regimes.
Suppose that we hit the body with a tremendous, whether its ultraviolet or just very powerful light. Supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can either through the skin or in some other way… It’s a great thing to look at.
>If you take the post-mortems on the psyops campaigns from our national adversaries at face-value
Which is a bad premise, because despite how much "russian troll farms" (and now "chinese AI troll farms") is bandied around in the media, it's entirely unclear how big their impact is, if any.
Nobody will go to jail. The gubmint will give them trillions of dollars for carbon removal (PR campaign that the benevolent oil companies and Govt are working for them). They will give themselves awards for saving the planet and everyone else.
The captured carbon will be used for Enhanced Oil Recovery. Fossil fuel companies add a few trillion dollars in govt money, in addition to the $7T dollars in subsidies today (yale).
So this 1000 metric ton CO2 DAC plant could offset the activities of 100-400 vehicles in a year... minus the activities of the employees to get to the plant. That's what I wanna know. When are the workers going to stop driving 60 miles round trip to work? And how many need to be at work everyday at the plant? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237920
Big Oil Helped Shape Stanford’s Latest Climate-Research Focus. Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability recently unveiled its first institutionwide research focus: greenhouse-gas removal. Taking tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere will be “essential” to limiting global warming, as a news release last month explained, and ideas will be marshaled from across the school to get it done. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35829500
The current party which holds 3 of 3 branches of the government that would be responsible for prosecuting such a crime is entirely behind the idea that climate change is a hoax.
And the party that's held 3 of 3 branches for twice as long over the past ~20 years, and at least 2 for 6/10 of those Congresses?
I'm not saying they're the bad guys. I'm saying that they had chances to do something, and didn't. They didn't care about implementing "The green dream or whatever they call it," even when they had a mandate, let alone punishing the people who made it a necessity by manipulating the public for several decades.
The IRA committed $400 billion and was the biggest piece of clean energy legislation ever made, and yet the Democrats were swept out of power 2 years later.
If your essay prompt is 10 pages on methods to preempt climate change, and you write 1 page on how to funnel money to your donors in industry, you should not be surprised when you fail out.
I know this will be an unpopular opinion, but the number of politicians and other officials who would benefit from a successful case against one of these companies or even one of their executives is a mile long.
I don’t mean generic “throw someone in jail because we all agree they’re evil amirite” posturing, but actual cases against someone based on evidence of breaking a law. Any law. It doesn’t even have to result in jail time to be a political career builder. Saying you’ve pursued and won cases against a “bad” company or executives is a huge boon to anyone in this current political environment that is highly against establishments. It’s universal, from Elizabeth Warren campaigning on her actions against Wall St to the entire “drain the swamp” phenomenon.
Reading the actual memo, not the journalists trying to make articles out of it, reveals a little more about why there isn’t the classic smoking gun here, which is a much simpler explanation for why nobody is going to jail than assuming that money has bribed, paid off, and outlawyered everyone in the country who stands to benefit politically from going after a real crime.
Of course it is retorical, because you're placing the wrong intent on both sides of the argument. This is an argument about who pays for externalities with BOTH sides planning to:
1) avoid paying
2) get money from this conflict, and use it for something else (EU countries will use it to stop austerity)
For example, France has use the windfall tax from oil company Total ... to pay for road repair. Clearly, people, let's just stop this whole madhouse now. France has taxed oil companies and repaired its roads with the money, clearly climate change is solved now! Is there anyone here who believes it will be different in other countries? I don't.
I don't understand people who seem to think that taxing the oil companies will then result in massive climate protection programs ... it won't. No matter the outcome. Nobody wants that.
And, of course, the biggest externality for the EU, by far, is the need to (partially) rebuild their fossil fuel infrastructure to move away from the gas distribution network they built to consume Russian natural gas. There is zero discussion about replacing this with renewables, it doesn't make sense. That's another reason nobody will go to jail: this was 100% a political choice, and the main responsible persons for this unforced serious error are Angela Merkel and Gerhard Schroder, the German CDU and the European EVP. Obviously they will not be sent to jail, despite Schroder personally benefitting greatly from the decision, being the chairman of the board at Rosneft and Nord Stream AG, and being appointed chairman of the board at Gazprom ...
Just so we're clear: I like Angela Merkel and her party (and my opinion whether she and her party are superior to both "alternatives", Alternative Fur Deutschland or Die Linke, is simple: YES!). But it doesn't change that these 2 people are responsible, could realistically have chosen differently, and that their mistake is costing every European on average about 5000 euro per year now, and had these 2 people chosen differently, there would not be an interest rate crisis in either the US or EU right now.
EU is compensating with Canadian LNG, Qatarese LNG and US LNG+Diesel for now (not with solar), but unless the Ukraine war stops soon-ish that plan will fail and massive investment will be required. And yes, the Ukraine war is what matters. Though, of course, if the Iran war stops or the strait of Hormuz somehow reopens the timeframe where a solution is needed will be extended greatly.
Solar will still remove more and more the need for oil. But let's face facts here: you want to do something for the climate? Figure out how to build $0.1/Watt solar panels in the US and EU. Hell, figure out how to make flexible ones.
Why would anyone go to jail? I know eating beef is bad for the environment and I eat beef. I wouldn't even mind if there was an externality tax I had to pay, but I don't see why anyone should be obligated to take into account every possible indirect harm their action might cause that is not regulated. Did Chevron break any specific existing rules?
Somebody could decide retroactively that you circling a parking lot to find a better spot knowing you release CO2 was unjustified and you need to be punished. These lawsuits are exactly that - arbitrary petsonalistic extortion.
It sounds like you started from an ideological premise, built a shallow facsimile of a justification around it and then projected partisan outrage onto your creation.
It is because of coping mechanisms like yours we are unable to address this existential threat.
The fact the website you call "not serious" literally won a Pulitzer for its reporting at least adds some comedic relief to this otherwise rather irritating behavior.
Ah yes, the "it's your fault I'm acting irrational and behaving badly" attitude.
"You didn't present this in just the right way to appeal to me, so I'm angry at you." Forgetting that of course there is no way to present this sort of information that you could accept, because the cognitive dissonance biases you against any of the actual facts.
This act is tired. You will continue to fool yourself, but nobody else is fooled by this transparent tantrum.
Shocking. The people who aim to benefit the most have done something to benefit? I would be surprised if any of the big fossil fuel industries have not been doing this for decades.
Sprow also recommended monitoring alternative energy technologies, including nuclear, solar and biofuels, to understand their viability as alternatives to fossil fuels or, eventually, for possible business development. Finally, he added, Exxon could look for “a research breakthrough” in one of these areas that would align with the company’s business.
Would you also like to know if there was an EV company or environmental group financed or sponsored astroturf campaign against ICE vehicles?
Frankly, I hope that both of those things happened, so that people could make their own minds up after an adversarial process.
It’s not like you can squash only PR campaigns that you happen to be misaligned with, so If you want your own biases to be able to communicated, you have to let others do the same.
> Would you also like to know if there was an EV company or environmental group financed or sponsored astroturf campaign against ICE vehicles?
I wouldn't care, because environmental groups aren't destroying the planet and covering it up (see also the article you're commenting on: "New Documents Add to Evidence in Climate Deception Case Against ExxonMobil").
> If you want your own biases to be able to communicated
Wanting to know if you're being lied to isn't a "bias".
I suspect that 38 years from now, future versions of us will look negatively upon Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and Sierra Club's opposition to fission reactors for electrical power generation, whether as a transitional approach to reducing fossil fuel combustion or longer-term base load generation. (Some current versions of us are looking negatively at that, but not all.)
You'd think the one place in the world where checks and balances would be understood would be the United States of America. What did anyone expect ExxonMobil to do? Release a public statement that terrible things were going to happen, shut down all operations, lay off everybody and switch off the lights. Why was the issue politicised so the two main parties could make sure it served their interests. How come institutions like the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine had to weather severe political pressure to silence them, instead of being taken seriously and something done sooner? It's not much of a system if it's so easy to derail.
The checks and balances in the US were always rather fictional, but this particular failure mode of big corporations being able to cause vast amounts of harm and suffering, completely disproportionate to any benefits to the society, seems to be intrinsic in any state of matters where big corporations are allowed to exist at all.
Big Oil has been an immense producer of _value_ to society. It is fossil fuels that has enabled so much of our modern world to be possible. Cheap, portable, effective and efficient production of energy at scale. My goodness. The ancients would be so jealous of what we have - and so confused by our reaction to what made it possible.
What an amazing achievement for the liberation of everyone.
Yes however that value was always temporary in nature. Like most things, new innovations seem good for a while until they’re outpaced, then they’re just bad. But we still do them because of inertia.
The oil companies should have shifted innovation and R&D to cleaner alternatives decades ago. When they had the capital and political sway. That would have ensured their long-term profits.
But they didn’t, because they figure doing the same thing forever will just work. It won’t, of course, and now they’re paying the cost.
The ultimate irony is that this isn’t even because of climate change. Even if climate change didn’t exist, this would happen. Already greener alternatives are getting cheaper and cheaper, and soon it will make zero economic sense to be a petroleum company. Like the coal companies before them.
And now, it’s too late. With each passing day the oil giants lose foothold, and now they don’t have the runway to pivot even if they wanted to. If they started in the 70s with the energy crisis, they would be more profitable today than ever. They would have ensured their place in the modern changing world. But they didn’t, and now they will die a slow death. Not because of climate change, but because of the nature of the free market.
It's a real shame these institutions have been rendered ideologically indistinguishable from the activists who've been telling us constantly the world will end if we don't get rid of all oil in the next 5 years for the last decade and a half. "Boy who cried wolf" resulting from activist alarmism has done immense and possibly irreparable damage to the credibility of the scientific community.
It will actually take a little while to tell if they were, in fact, crying wolf.
There is a lag between when carbon is released and when the effects of it peak. If we did stop all carbon emissions today, the effects of prior emissions would play out over the next 30ish years.
We’re injecting unprecedented amounts of thermal energy into planet-scale systems, and it is hard to predict second and third order effects.
Nobody really ever said the world will end in 5 years.
The message has basically always been "the climate is fragile and we're adding energy to that system, which will cause change in the climate"
The whole "the world will end in 5 years" is a really lame reaction that dismisses the messaging on purpose. It's what people use when they don't want to say, "I don't care" because saying that makes people feel/look bad or because they are "anti-hippie" or whatever phrase we wanna use.
I believe the OP was talking about scientists, not social media influencers.
Also the statement was not “we will all be dead in 5 years.” It was “this could wipe out humanity if we don’t make huge changes in 5 years.” Time frame was not stated.
I think it’s hyperbole, and that the realistic take is “if we continue to make this problem worse the cost will compound until it becomes an existential risk to civilization.” That’s not extinction, but it’s very bad.
It’s a bit like running up credit card bills, except that we don’t even know the interest rate.
The influencer was citing a scientist, and the hyperbole (delivered seriously) is the root cause of the "boy who cried wolf" effect that caused large swaths of the population to now dismiss basically all climate science, including the valid, rational, non-hyperbolic findings.
Valid counterpoint. There's an incredibly widespread belief in those circles that if you don't crank up the hyperbole nobody will pay any attention at all.
Unfortunately there's some truth to it, especially in the mass media age. We have a President who became the most powerful person on Earth by more or less eating his own boogers, because it got attention, and "any attention is good attention as long as they spell your name right." It works, unfortunately.
But it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you crank up the hyperbole you discredit yourself. If you don't, you're ignored. Rational measured opinions get no press and have no "virality."
Some of the AI doomers are, I think, genuinely kind of nuts (the Rationalists), but I suspect that some of them (especially actual scientists like Hinton) are doing this. They think if they don't make bombastic claims nobody will listen.
Unfortunately it means everyone will dismiss the entire issue when, in a few years, AI has not destroyed humanity.
You're purposefully misinterpreting what is being said.
They're saying that unless we stop our behavior in the next X years then it will be too late. We will have added so much to the system that it will "run away". This will eventually lead to the environment being inhospitable to our ways of life. Most dates ive read are 2075 or so. That's not 5 years.
They are not saying that life will end in 5 years.
This is a purposeful misinterpretation so that the reader doesn't have to listen. It allows the reader to scoff and go about their excess.
This interpretation was pushed, very purposefully, to accomplish apathy and complacency in the general public.
But back on tbe point, nobody really ever said "humanity is OVER in 5 years if we don't stop". What has consistently been said is "we are changing our environment and it will eventually change in ways that won't support our life" with various dates, usually 50+ years, given.
Imagine how immensely well looked-upon they would be now if they had come public about it, with a long term transition plan. Imagine a world where executives had that kind of courage.
The system got a series of lucky breaks for about a century: immense natural resources, and the European economies destroying each other. This obscured the deep flaws in the system and has made it practically impossible for Americans to see them. Quite the opposite: whenever the flaws manifest, we try to solve them my entrenching them further.
That process is almost never applied to C corps except for certain financial fraud, while partnerships (like LLCs) are usually seen as proxies for their members, as in your example.
* There is a company that manufactures and sells cars that supposedly brake in front of pedestrians.
* The company is aware that the car's braking system is faulty.
* It runs a sophisticated public relations campaign campaign to convince buyers that cars can not run people over.
* Public evidence of its failed braking system emerges.
* It attempts to muddy the waters, cast doubt on the victims, and shift blame to drivers.
* You buy such a car and run someone over.
The car is a machine. It cannot be responsible. If you believed the company's lies, then you are the victim of a misinformation campaign, as is the person you have run over. If you did not believe the company's lies then depending on your intent, you, the company, and the people involved in obfuscating the truth about a faulty braking system may be responsible.
But in your example, responsibility for the misinformation campaign is assigned to the machine (the corporation itself) not the people (the execs who mounted the misinformation campaign).
My point is that the people (the “drivers” of the car company) should bear the responsibility; it should not be absorbed by the company.
There are other liabilities that should still be assigned to companies. I’m not advocating throwing away the idea of limiting liability.
This nine-part history of Exxon’s engagement with the emerging science of climate change is the result of an eight months-long investigation conducted in 2015. The stories span four decades, and are based on primary sources, including internal company documents dating back to the late 1970s; interviews with former company employees; and other evidence published for the first time by ICN.
We found that decades ago, Exxon conducted cutting-edge climate research and then worked at the forefront of climate denial, manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that its own scientists had confirmed.
This series was named a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and earned national recognition from many other quarters.
The reports in your link start from 1977 and they are just summaries of public research. They are well done, but lots of people with engineering and/physics training would be able to read published research and write summary reports.
The actual, original science is properly referenced in the end in "Bibliography" (pdf page 15).
I really don't find any "cutting edge research" in those reports. Maybe "cutting edge reading", if we think that being able to follow, read, understand and summarize published research was cutting edge in the late 1970s.
Those are awesome cites, thanks! I swear I'm not sealioning -- I'm asking because it's obscure and I genuinely don't know, and if you know those cites, maybe you'll know this as well: it's insane to me that we had clear evidence like this in the '60s, but was it uncontested? Like, we know now that this paper was correct and by the science of today uncontroversial. Was it reasonable to have that same confidence when it was published? Or: when did consensus start to become achieved?
These works were referenced in my complex dynamics classes of the early 1980s, along with other geodetic works on magnetic and gravitational fields, tides, etc.
> Most of the lawsuits assert that oil companies should help pay the escalating costs being imposed on the public by climate-fueled extreme weather because they knew the risks their products posed but worked to publicly question climate science and stymie efforts to curb emissions.
"They knew the risks"
Everybody knew the risks. Climate science has been researched at universities and published openly.
If politicians have failed to regulate, and consumers have enjoyed the benefits of (relatively) cheap fuel and energy, why would the fossil energy companies be singled out as the culprits? People wanted the high material standard of living that comes from (relatively) abundant available energy, cheaper and plentiful food that comes from abundant nitrogen fertilizers (made from natural gas). We were all part of this.
The difference is that exxon knew the risks but spent time and effort to sow doubt. This is exactly like how tobacco companies tried to muddy the waters on health effects of tobacco use. The oil companies could have acknowledged the problems of burning fossil fuel but it took them almost 20 years to even admit climate change is real
The way you are thinking about this makes me think the eventual solution will be a black box label on the gas pump that says “Studies have shown that burning gasoline increases the risk of climate-change related weather events”
Ideally yes, and as another commenter pointed out they do. Moreover, they can’t lie and say alcohol is good for you. In fact they can’t say much at all, their advertising avenues are very limited. It’s even worse for tobacco.
They got in this mess not because they made bad products that kill people. That’s actually fine, no politician in the US cares about that. No, they got into this mess because they spend decades covering up the truth and trying to convince consumers “see, it’s not that bad!”
Now that’s a problem. If the product just killed people we could sit around and play the “free will” game. “Well you see consumers can choose to kill themselves!” But that game goes out the window when we pollute free will with deception.
What free will actually looks like is a price that reflects the actual cost of the product, as well as labels that make it clear “this will kill you”. Turns out, when we do that, a lot less people choose to consume the product.
> lawsuits assert that oil companies should help pay the escalating costs being imposed on the public by climate-fueled extreme weather because they knew the risks their products posed
How would one even begin to adjudicate that? How do you determine which storm or what portion of a storm was caused by climate change, and how do you determine what portion of climate change was caused by Exxon’s CO2 emissions or whatever?
Same reason we go after drug dealers but not drug users, and pimps but not prostitutes. We want the consequences to fall on the entity making the most money, or more cynically , the least sympathetic entity.
I’ve happened to meet a number of researchers employed by large oil companies over the years, including many involved in the result of memos like this: making research into carbon capture and other mitigations a top corporate priority. Are there optical/PR reasons for investing in this research? Absolutely. Have they also been engaging in the science in good faith, and genuine intent that… in a world where climate action is desired, and net emissions are something to optimize for, they can anticipate this by genuinely funding research, and having their own research projects already underway that can address anticipated challenges? Also absolutely true.
Now, I can’t speak for, say, lobbying efforts. But the scientists on the ground getting accused of the “deception” are some of the smartest, most caring, and highest-integrity people I’ve met. Entire labs of people working for decades to think: can we make our processes cleaner, at the same time we rise to the challenges of global demand.
We should be celebrating, not condemning, this work.
> Have they also been engaging in the science in good faith, and genuine intent that… in a world where climate action is desired, and net emissions are something to optimize for, they can anticipate this by genuinely funding research, and having their own research projects already underway that can address anticipated challenges? Also absolutely true.
This is a claim that is very contrary to the prevailing view. If you wish others to be persuaded by this claim, I recommend that you provide some evidence for it, because on their own your statements are unconvincing.
They are, unfortunately, being undermined by politics. I know someone who works on carbon capture facilities whose projects are being canceled because the incentives are being destroyed by the current presidential administration.
Oil and gas companies strongly lobby for Republicans they know will remove any incentive for them to need to worry about the environment.
The headline may be sensationalized but the memo you link (thank you) is plenty damning on it's own. It's under 2 pages and anyone can read it. The memo quite clearly understands that Exxon has made a lot of investment in carbon resources and is entirely centered around getting the value from those resources and fighting the necessary political battles along the way.
I would not celebrate this work, it's typical corporate boss-pleasing. It's not some exhortation towards clean energy.
You don't get the accolades if you do your research into a corporate black hole created by NDA's. The study may as well not have ever happened at all. Science that isn't open is just contributing to the Machiavellian cycle of amoral corporatic behavior. Get back to me when this research doesn't come to light >50 years later as part of discovery in a court case.
> But the scientists on the ground getting accused of the “deception” are some of the smartest, most caring, and highest-integrity people I’ve met.
This is a strawman (and a weirdly strong appeal to emotion for unclear reasons).
The claim is that their scientists were loudly saying internally their PR campaigns and climate claims were false and contrary to their findings. Executives read these memos and chose to do these anyways.
For instance:
> The new disclosures in the Massachusetts case add to the evidence with excerpts from a deposition by an Exxon scientist who worked on the program.
> Asked whether a 2018 press release, which said Exxon anticipated “10,000 barrels of algae biofuel per day could be produced by 2025,” was misleading, the scientist said “yes,” adding, “All the clauses in there are patently false.”
edit: the single memo (one of many the article is discussing) that you linked is not supposed to be some smoking gun, it's useful to dispel any ignorance that there's no reasonable claim of ignorance on Exxon's part, and the date is especially notable: 1988. Basically any PR, legal, and lobbying work for at least 38 years is suspect because of what they actually knew.
Folks say cigarette companies are covering up that cigarettes cause cancer but the Tobacco Institute scientists I've met are funny, charming, and boy can they cook.
> The memo, as linked in the OP, is here, and is worth reading, as it’s incredibly far from the sensationalized headline:
Having read both the memo and article, maybe there is a language barrier here, but how is it "incredibly far from the sensationalized headline"?
Maybe this comes down to how one defines "deception", but I have a hard time seeing it not apply here and don't see any hyperbole, overpromising or inaccuracy in the title given the memos writing. Certainly not "incredibly far", even if we split hairs on what raises to being "deception".
Scientists and economists are dime a dozen, they have to sing for their supper. For a few thousands dollars, scientists have written about benefits of smoking, lead is a gift from God, and tens of thousands of toxic substances, food additives, etc.
Carbon capture is fraud. You can EASILY stop carbon emissions by switching to EVs, which are cheaper to buy and operate. Instead Govts want to spend trillions on top the $7T dollars/year subsidies to help oil companies recover more oil.
The COP summits are held in fossil fuel countries and discuss carbon capture.
Shell Is Looking Forward The fossil-fuel companies expect to profit from climate change. I went to a private planning meeting and took notes: https://archive.is/15Dj4
Planting and growing trees is a form of carbon capture and it is one that has worked in Earth's history to bring CO2 levels down over the last millions of years from 7000ppm during the Cambrian Age to less than 700ppm.
You already know why that’s a confusing argument because you included the time scale yourself, but to say the obvious: I think we probably need to go a bit faster than “millions of years”.
It took nature millions of years to go from 7000ppm to under 700ppm. But we are talking a diff of only about 100ppm. Not cutting down the rainforest or raising a forest of that scale in some desert does seem like a positive contribution.
Another good idea would be to mandate working from home for everyone that reasonably can do so. During Covid I've only measured about 300ppm as the bottom baseline, while nowadays I do not measure lower than 400ppm. (Co2 measuring devices are fairly cheap and good to have in your office, as high Co2 affects your ability to think clearly. Without opening a window and having just one person inside Co2 easily climbs to about 3000ppm within a few hours just from your breathing.)
Planting trees as "carbon offsets" has been a hugely profitable rort
The idea that we can lock up land, forever, planted in trees to offset our consumption is blissfully naive
In New Zealand large swatches of land are being taken out of production, for a onetime big payment
It neglects two things:
1. Trees burn. Forests left untended for years choke with fuel and then catastrophically burn releasing all that carbon
2. We need the land. Future generations, this generation in a few years, will not be sympathetic to the vast swatches of unproductive land (that due to 1. above create costs)
We must stop producing carbon. It will mean many obscenely rich will be downgraded to wealthy. And the prospect of that is enough to burn the world
Carbon capture is physically unable to be as effective as we need it to be. To an approximation, growing a tree is able to capture as much carbon as burning the wood from that tree. If most of our released carbon came from burning wood, we would just need to re-grow that amount of wood (unfortunately it's not even that simple, as the soil stores carbon long term in a way that just growing the tree doesn't capture, and is also released over time when old growth forests are cut down). Instead, the carbon we're burning comes from processes which efficiently concentrated the carbon from plants and microorganisms over millions of years to create coal, oil, and gas.
Carbon capture technology would have to artificially replicate these millions-of-years-long processes, and do it on a scale of years to decades. The scale of carbon capture we need is entirely unfathomable, requiring processes that don't exist, because they have to work against entropy itself.
Carbon capture at the point of burning fossil fuels to abate further emissions might be economical. Capturing already released carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (concentration of ~0.04%) is a fiction pushed by fossil fuel companies to muddy the debate and distract from the urgency of immediately stopping the burning of fossil fuels.
That reads like defeatism. Just because you think it is not effective enough is no reason to not give it a try. We won't be stopping to burn fossil fuels. Just like we won't be stopping war and have world peace.
I think it's more productive to not entertain wild fantasies and be realistic about what can be done.
EVs don't "easily stop" emissions in the US, since the American grid today is powered about 43% by natural gas and 15% by coal. Converting those sources has to happen too.
True, but the overall carbon reduction in owning an EV over its lifetime is still leagues lower; "Production-weighted average carbon footprints are 183 g CO2e/mi for BEVs; 351 g CO2e/mi for PHEVs; 445 g CO2e/mi for HEVs; and 521 g CO2e/mi for ICEVs." from [0] which does take into account the carbon-emitting percentage of the electrical grid.
Also, see Figure 4[1] in the study which states "Results demonstrate that, even under unfavorable conditions, BEVs still have a 30% lower life cycle carbon footprint."
Emissions displacement is healthier for where humans actually live, but they do also reduce emissions over their lifetime. you and others can work on improving that further at the other parts of the stack
The claim was that EVs "stop" emissions and I believe we've corrected that. At no point did I claim EVs don't reduce emissions.
Thanks for the tip on what to work on. You too can work on other parts of the stack. And you can even improve the "vehicle" end of the stack, to which it sounds like you confine your actions, by moving around less, and when moving around, not hauling one or two tons of "car" with you. This can be accomplished by moving close to work (or only working close to home), living only in areas with good public transit, and/or bicycling everywhere for example, which I did for 30 years, so I know it's possible.
And once we can get Trump and the Republicans, who have been consistently, aggressively, and in some cases fighting against both profitability and common sense, squashing attempts to solarize and trying to bring back the dirtiest coal they can, out of office, that will become much, much easier.
Solar panels are now vastly cheaper and more effective than they were even a few years ago. Replacing the whole US grid won't happen overnight, but once the government is actually expending effort to move in that direction, rather than clawing in the other direction by its fingernails, it will move fairly quickly.
Just what do you think the world would look like if these companies—working against our collective “good”, apparently—folded up their operations tomorrow without successors?
A false dichotomy that reveals a critical lack of imagination.
> collective “good”
Privatized gains, public losses. Surely this is known to you?
Compare this to how Norway distributed its bounties.
The US and Exxon could have been a leader of the green transition starting in the 1970's, when everyone figured this out. With a few things breaking differently, we would have been.
We'd have had the absolute edge on the solar/battery transition.
Instead, precisely because of decades of deceptive lobbying, deindustrialization, bribes, and outright crimes, we're coasting far behind China's industrial policies.
I don't see how personal anecdotes about people you've met stand up to evidence. WHen you say, "the scientists on the ground getting accused of the “deception” are some of the smartest, most caring, and highest-integrity people I’ve met.", it looks like standard victim rhetoric - I mean, what an amazing group of people!
> research into carbon capture and other mitigations a top corporate priority
Do you have evidence? Evidence in the OP says otherwise:
"The documents include some statements which, according to the attorney general’s office, show Exxon knew that technology was also unlikely to present a scalable solution to cutting emissions.
A 2014 presentation on Exxon’s carbon capture portfolio included a slide listing challenges to reaching commercial scale. It noted widespread deployment would require a “massive investment” and an eventual storage rate “comparable to current oil and gas production.” It said costs were high and there were no market-based incentives."
Also, where are the results from this top priority of some of the largest companies in the world, with all these good-natured earnest scientists working on it?
> Frank Sprow of Exxon’s corporate research department warned his colleagues in an internal memo, “If a worldwide consensus emerges that action is needed to mitigate against Greenhouse gas effects, substantial negative impacts on Exxon could occur.”
This is a "fork found in kitchen" sort of discovery.
> "Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says
Of course they new. Even if we exclude what Joseph Fourier (in 1824) [1] and Svante Arrhenius (in 1896) [2] wrote about carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect, after [3] in 1967 and [4] in 1979, everybody who followed this branch of science, knew.
Since it doesn't look like anyone has mentioned it yet: the book "Merchants of Doubt" covers this topic quite well.
It's frequently the same literal scientists arguing against the existence or severity or cause of things like cigarette-caused illnesses, acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, and yes, anthropogenic climate change. And there's a well-established playbook for how they do it too (exploit Fairness Doctrine, abuse inherent shape of scientific method, etc). Really a fascinating read if you care about this stuff.
Of course, I don't see any counter points in the comments - why would I? It's hacker news.
I won't deny that weather changes. Indeed, I believe the expression is "as unpredictable as weather".
Here are my two counter points. First: for everyone who thinks to punish Exxon, you have a brillian solution available to you. Just don't drive, and don't use products manufactured with pertoleum. If you don't want weather to change and believe that you are doing it, just don't do it. Don't use gasoline or anything that uses gasoline in the supply chain.
Second: let's not be too lopsided, surely there are reasons to reward, not just to punish. Let's pay Exxon for every warm, sunny day without rain. Or with rain when we want it. If the weather is agreeable - let's give credit where it's due - to Exxon! If our maladies are caused by them, surely our vitality and wellness is caused by them too? I'll wait.
1) Nuclear proponents (Fossil fuel people disguised as). They say we need to fund nuclear now because thats the only solution. We can't trust the Sun, because it ghosts often, falls sick and goes on vacations like its a European. They know it will never happen and if if its funded, will take at least 5 decades. Fossil fuel companies killed nuclear by fear mongering and funding 'environmental' groups, when it was a credible threat.
2) Commentors who shift the blame to people: "They asked for it, we produced it. They knew about climate change." Companies are just responding to what people want. Exxon is doing Gods work.
3) The carbon capture 'tech' evangelists. Just give big oil a few more trillions/year and they will direct air capture all the carbon molecules.
4) Carbon is good, trees need it (and some study showing something about trees and carbon)
5) Commentors who shift the blame to all of us. With some nonsense claim about their pension in Australia is now financially viable only because the pension fund (or SWF) invested in fossil fuels. We are all enjoying pensions because of fossil fuels.
It is sad, but there is also some good that comes out of it. There are also many insightful commenters who have the perfect response. I learnt and continue to learn a lot from them!
The green party in Sweden went into the election we had a few weeks ago on a energy platform that said: thermal power plants are a necessary to enable renewable energy and keep prices low.
Solar in Sweden produce on average single digit percent during the worst months, while energy consumption doubles. This is the background why they define thermal power plant as necessary to enable renewable energy.
If the strategy is to build thermal power plants to enable renewables, then nuclear seems like a better option. If it does not need thermal power plants, then renewables and batteries are cheaper, safer, and better in basically every way. The "Fossil fuel people disguised as" can surely be both advocates for renewable and nuclear, but one of the most clear example we have was when Germany forced through EU regulations that defined natural gas as green. It does not get more clean cut than that, except maybe when the Swedish green party leader defended an oil power plant during a political debate and called it a "natural part" of the Swedish energy strategy.
There is a new thermal power plant being built in south of Sweden, built with support from local government which the green is part of, and guess what technology they are combining it with? CCS!
The impression I get on this discussion is that (man-made) "climate change" is a nebulous distraction from concrete environmental problems we do agree on (like pollution, which may directly cause certain diseases), and on what we could do about such problems
as, for example when I've tried to look up what remedies are proposed for things like excess "carbon emissions", the ideas seem inconsistent and all over the place, suggesting there is not really direct proof of man changing the climate by human actions (for example, planting "1 trillion trees" was suggested; now people aren't sure if that will solve the problem or not)
I could also see corporations and government creating environmental problems (like "man-made climate change", if it's real) and then offering solutions they design, for their own profit (as it's often the same groups of people running these operations in practice; although, this position is somewhat irrational as the leaders of such entities would be effectively poisoning themselves)
Also, I gather the HN consensus position is that non-renewables are harmful and that we can simply switch to renewables to solve issues related to (man-made) climate change. While I do like renewables in theory, and they could possibly cut down on a pollution (?), other more dramatic environmentalists point out that even renewables are probably not sustainable at some point as we will have more people than we have resources to supply them with. Alternatively, many people defensive of non-renewables point out that a lot of catastrophic environmental predictions did not remotely come to fruition.
So to recap: "climate change" is kind of vague and probably a distraction from tangible environmental issues we do agree on, and renewables either are not a sufficient solution to the problem of scarce resources running out or alternatively are not necessary to adopt to solve different environmental problems (although the economics are there and they will probably be adopted for a lot of their affordable benefits in coming years).
(Lastly, it's ironic that the tech community here which is against the over-use of non-renewables is probably passively accepting of AI datacenters which have amped up their consumption of even non-renewables to fuel their operations.)
I welcome discussion on the topic as I take somewhat of an uncommitted neutral view of if climate change is a "thing" or not (I rather would like to see discussion of more concrete solvable environmental issues).
This comment, while it didn't give me much to work with, did spur me to do some research to find a different framing of the conversation that I wanted to share:
Essentially renewables and other eco-friendly initiatives are being adopted globally for economic reasons rather than that of concern about "climate change".
It's just a question of if they are being adopted fast enough.
The "other side's" position is basically yes — the strong version being that there's no real hurry to begin with, the weaker position that even if there is some damage being done, it is survivable (probably my position ultimately presently, as we see some tangible environmental harms being done but are still here).
HN's position I gather is "no", and they want to see more done in an eco-friendly direction above what seems to be naturally adopted for economic reasons, but there may not be a consensus on what pace is needed exactly. "Degrowthers" go a step further in arguing much more dramatic action is needed to avert environmental problems.
So it's really a question of if the rate of more "eco-friendly change", being driven mainly by economics, is sufficient currently, or if those changes should be sped up and to what degree.
As perhaps a further way to sidestep this discussion, we might entirely focus on what ways to speed up the adoption of "eco-friendly" initiatives that are economically viable, which seems like a "win-win" for everyone.
> With the threat of climate action looming, he wrote, the company’s research and development on “Greenhouse” should have two primary goals: “Protect the value of our resources (oil, gas, coal),” and “Preserve Exxon’s business options.”
> Sprow then laid out an agenda for how to achieve those ends.
> With modeling critical to climate science, he wrote, “it could be considered important to be at the forefront of this modeling effort.” Sprow proposed “supporting a person on staff at one of the leading modeling centers (e.g. Princeton) or by sending one of our people to work in such a center.”
The picture this article paints of academia seems pretty bleak to me as a layperson. I thought shady science by corps just meant publishing a few bad faith studies and pushing them hard in media, but apparently it's possible to do "incentive-driven science" in a fashion that lets you sow seeds that can influence decades of downstream research.
I would hope that the framework of science itself has guardrails to prevent these efforts from obscuring more globally relevant results in favor of "technically true" pieces that do everything the right way but are badly motivated and omit methodologies which lead to undesirable results. For people who have experience in this area - how much critical thinking do you need when reading papers on climate research? Can the research be good enough by itself on merit, or is any opinion incomplete without evaluating the journal, affiliation of the authors, funding sources, etc.?
It seems like we're going to learn that big oil was just as corrupt as big tobacco when it comes to reporting on the negative effects of their industry :-/
> Those costs have surged, topping $100 billion in the U.S. in four of the last five years. Exxon, meanwhile, reported nearly $19 billion in earnings over the first six months of this year alone.
Fortunately for Exxon the $100B is mostly externalities that do not affect the bottom line.
138 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 84.3 ms ] threadThis release, Epstein files, Panama papers, etc.
It's like our generation has no desire to hold people accountable.
That's rhetorical, obviously. The answer is absolutely nobody because money is the best insulator there is.
I fear the Children of Men style future we're stepping into.
Doesn‘t Texas still have the death penalty?
1+1=…
And all of this is before you get into the question of whether they lied or were engaging in motivated reasoning. During COVID we had anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, seemingly without clear commercial reasons to lie. Should those people be thrown in jail as well?
This feels like a disingenuous question. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that claiming X isn't toxic, when you know that it is dangerous. Public health, frequency, scale of impact (more often, who is impacted that has resources to compete in court) et al are all considerations.
Humans act in their own self interest. Relying purely on individual self interest is a degenerate approach in public health issues. One of the many purposes of government, is to act in the collective interest. eg Typhoid Mary
If all you have is vibes, then it's a pretty legitimate question.
>Public health, frequency, scale of impact (more often, who is impacted that has resources to compete in court) et al are all considerations.
That's exactly not how the legal system is supposed to work. Bending the rules just because some defendant is particularly unsympathetic is exactly how you get politically motivated prosecutions and kangaroo courts.
It is. This is a misunderstanding of how justice works. People (judges, juries, et al) determine the impact of situations, not machines following abstract rules.
Which is a bad premise, because despite how much "russian troll farms" (and now "chinese AI troll farms") is bandied around in the media, it's entirely unclear how big their impact is, if any.
The captured carbon will be used for Enhanced Oil Recovery. Fossil fuel companies add a few trillion dollars in govt money, in addition to the $7T dollars in subsidies today (yale).
Carbon capture tech a 'complete falsehood', says Fortescue Metals chairman: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39373538
Honest Government Ad | Carbon Capture & Storage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8
So this 1000 metric ton CO2 DAC plant could offset the activities of 100-400 vehicles in a year... minus the activities of the employees to get to the plant. That's what I wanna know. When are the workers going to stop driving 60 miles round trip to work? And how many need to be at work everyday at the plant? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237920
Out of the 27 commercially operational CCS projects worldwide, 21 inject carbon dioxide into oil reservoirs to force out petroleum: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36970085
Big Oil Helped Shape Stanford’s Latest Climate-Research Focus. Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability recently unveiled its first institutionwide research focus: greenhouse-gas removal. Taking tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere will be “essential” to limiting global warming, as a news release last month explained, and ideas will be marshaled from across the school to get it done. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35829500
I'm not saying they're the bad guys. I'm saying that they had chances to do something, and didn't. They didn't care about implementing "The green dream or whatever they call it," even when they had a mandate, let alone punishing the people who made it a necessity by manipulating the public for several decades.
PS: I like the way you think :D
I don’t mean generic “throw someone in jail because we all agree they’re evil amirite” posturing, but actual cases against someone based on evidence of breaking a law. Any law. It doesn’t even have to result in jail time to be a political career builder. Saying you’ve pursued and won cases against a “bad” company or executives is a huge boon to anyone in this current political environment that is highly against establishments. It’s universal, from Elizabeth Warren campaigning on her actions against Wall St to the entire “drain the swamp” phenomenon.
Reading the actual memo, not the journalists trying to make articles out of it, reveals a little more about why there isn’t the classic smoking gun here, which is a much simpler explanation for why nobody is going to jail than assuming that money has bribed, paid off, and outlawyered everyone in the country who stands to benefit politically from going after a real crime.
1) avoid paying
2) get money from this conflict, and use it for something else (EU countries will use it to stop austerity)
For example, France has use the windfall tax from oil company Total ... to pay for road repair. Clearly, people, let's just stop this whole madhouse now. France has taxed oil companies and repaired its roads with the money, clearly climate change is solved now! Is there anyone here who believes it will be different in other countries? I don't.
I don't understand people who seem to think that taxing the oil companies will then result in massive climate protection programs ... it won't. No matter the outcome. Nobody wants that.
And, of course, the biggest externality for the EU, by far, is the need to (partially) rebuild their fossil fuel infrastructure to move away from the gas distribution network they built to consume Russian natural gas. There is zero discussion about replacing this with renewables, it doesn't make sense. That's another reason nobody will go to jail: this was 100% a political choice, and the main responsible persons for this unforced serious error are Angela Merkel and Gerhard Schroder, the German CDU and the European EVP. Obviously they will not be sent to jail, despite Schroder personally benefitting greatly from the decision, being the chairman of the board at Rosneft and Nord Stream AG, and being appointed chairman of the board at Gazprom ...
Just so we're clear: I like Angela Merkel and her party (and my opinion whether she and her party are superior to both "alternatives", Alternative Fur Deutschland or Die Linke, is simple: YES!). But it doesn't change that these 2 people are responsible, could realistically have chosen differently, and that their mistake is costing every European on average about 5000 euro per year now, and had these 2 people chosen differently, there would not be an interest rate crisis in either the US or EU right now.
EU is compensating with Canadian LNG, Qatarese LNG and US LNG+Diesel for now (not with solar), but unless the Ukraine war stops soon-ish that plan will fail and massive investment will be required. And yes, the Ukraine war is what matters. Though, of course, if the Iran war stops or the strait of Hormuz somehow reopens the timeframe where a solution is needed will be extended greatly.
Solar will still remove more and more the need for oil. But let's face facts here: you want to do something for the climate? Figure out how to build $0.1/Watt solar panels in the US and EU. Hell, figure out how to make flexible ones.
Somebody could decide retroactively that you circling a parking lot to find a better spot knowing you release CO2 was unjustified and you need to be punished. These lawsuits are exactly that - arbitrary petsonalistic extortion.
Treating this climate change like a religion and not science is the same mistake being made over and over and over again.
No one will go to jail because no laws were broken.
"https://insideclimatenews.org/" is not a serious website for factual or balanced information. Laughable.
It is because of coping mechanisms like yours we are unable to address this existential threat.
The fact the website you call "not serious" literally won a Pulitzer for its reporting at least adds some comedic relief to this otherwise rather irritating behavior.
"You didn't present this in just the right way to appeal to me, so I'm angry at you." Forgetting that of course there is no way to present this sort of information that you could accept, because the cognitive dissonance biases you against any of the actual facts.
This act is tired. You will continue to fool yourself, but nobody else is fooled by this transparent tantrum.
Truly damning stuff.
Frankly, I hope that both of those things happened, so that people could make their own minds up after an adversarial process.
It’s not like you can squash only PR campaigns that you happen to be misaligned with, so If you want your own biases to be able to communicated, you have to let others do the same.
I wouldn't care, because environmental groups aren't destroying the planet and covering it up (see also the article you're commenting on: "New Documents Add to Evidence in Climate Deception Case Against ExxonMobil").
> If you want your own biases to be able to communicated
Wanting to know if you're being lied to isn't a "bias".
"Please don't turn away from oil now that its geopolitical risks are so plain to see."
What an amazing achievement for the liberation of everyone.
The oil companies should have shifted innovation and R&D to cleaner alternatives decades ago. When they had the capital and political sway. That would have ensured their long-term profits.
But they didn’t, because they figure doing the same thing forever will just work. It won’t, of course, and now they’re paying the cost.
The ultimate irony is that this isn’t even because of climate change. Even if climate change didn’t exist, this would happen. Already greener alternatives are getting cheaper and cheaper, and soon it will make zero economic sense to be a petroleum company. Like the coal companies before them.
And now, it’s too late. With each passing day the oil giants lose foothold, and now they don’t have the runway to pivot even if they wanted to. If they started in the 70s with the energy crisis, they would be more profitable today than ever. They would have ensured their place in the modern changing world. But they didn’t, and now they will die a slow death. Not because of climate change, but because of the nature of the free market.
There is a lag between when carbon is released and when the effects of it peak. If we did stop all carbon emissions today, the effects of prior emissions would play out over the next 30ish years.
We’re injecting unprecedented amounts of thermal energy into planet-scale systems, and it is hard to predict second and third order effects.
I have kids/I really hope they were crying wolf.
The message has basically always been "the climate is fragile and we're adding energy to that system, which will cause change in the climate"
The whole "the world will end in 5 years" is a really lame reaction that dismisses the messaging on purpose. It's what people use when they don't want to say, "I don't care" because saying that makes people feel/look bad or because they are "anti-hippie" or whatever phrase we wanna use.
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-poca...
You mean besides the most recognizable / well known climate activist on earth?
"A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years."
- Greta Thunberg (June 21st, 2018)
https://web.archive.org/web/20230307215203/https://twitter.c...
Also the statement was not “we will all be dead in 5 years.” It was “this could wipe out humanity if we don’t make huge changes in 5 years.” Time frame was not stated.
I think it’s hyperbole, and that the realistic take is “if we continue to make this problem worse the cost will compound until it becomes an existential risk to civilization.” That’s not extinction, but it’s very bad.
It’s a bit like running up credit card bills, except that we don’t even know the interest rate.
Unfortunately there's some truth to it, especially in the mass media age. We have a President who became the most powerful person on Earth by more or less eating his own boogers, because it got attention, and "any attention is good attention as long as they spell your name right." It works, unfortunately.
But it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you crank up the hyperbole you discredit yourself. If you don't, you're ignored. Rational measured opinions get no press and have no "virality."
Some of the AI doomers are, I think, genuinely kind of nuts (the Rationalists), but I suspect that some of them (especially actual scientists like Hinton) are doing this. They think if they don't make bombastic claims nobody will listen.
Unfortunately it means everyone will dismiss the entire issue when, in a few years, AI has not destroyed humanity.
They're saying that unless we stop our behavior in the next X years then it will be too late. We will have added so much to the system that it will "run away". This will eventually lead to the environment being inhospitable to our ways of life. Most dates ive read are 2075 or so. That's not 5 years.
They are not saying that life will end in 5 years.
This is a purposeful misinterpretation so that the reader doesn't have to listen. It allows the reader to scoff and go about their excess.
This interpretation was pushed, very purposefully, to accomplish apathy and complacency in the general public.
But back on tbe point, nobody really ever said "humanity is OVER in 5 years if we don't stop". What has consistently been said is "we are changing our environment and it will eventually change in ways that won't support our life" with various dates, usually 50+ years, given.
The system got a series of lucky breaks for about a century: immense natural resources, and the European economies destroying each other. This obscured the deep flaws in the system and has made it practically impossible for Americans to see them. Quite the opposite: whenever the flaws manifest, we try to solve them my entrenching them further.
A limited liability company is just a machine, as is a car. Yet somehow when you drive one you shift your responsibility to the vehicle.
This needs to be fixed.
Classic example:
- guy owns a cab company
- he puts each cab in it's own LLC
- the idea is that if a cab hurts or kills someone, the liability stops at the cab and doesn't come back to him
Judges will say "that is not acceptable" and rule that the liability does indeed extend outside the single car LLC and should apply to the owner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil
* There is a company that manufactures and sells cars that supposedly brake in front of pedestrians. * The company is aware that the car's braking system is faulty. * It runs a sophisticated public relations campaign campaign to convince buyers that cars can not run people over. * Public evidence of its failed braking system emerges. * It attempts to muddy the waters, cast doubt on the victims, and shift blame to drivers. * You buy such a car and run someone over.
The car is a machine. It cannot be responsible. If you believed the company's lies, then you are the victim of a misinformation campaign, as is the person you have run over. If you did not believe the company's lies then depending on your intent, you, the company, and the people involved in obfuscating the truth about a faulty braking system may be responsible.
My point is that the people (the “drivers” of the car company) should bear the responsibility; it should not be absorbed by the company.
There are other liabilities that should still be assigned to companies. I’m not advocating throwing away the idea of limiting liability.
This nine-part history of Exxon’s engagement with the emerging science of climate change is the result of an eight months-long investigation conducted in 2015. The stories span four decades, and are based on primary sources, including internal company documents dating back to the late 1970s; interviews with former company employees; and other evidence published for the first time by ICN.
We found that decades ago, Exxon conducted cutting-edge climate research and then worked at the forefront of climate denial, manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that its own scientists had confirmed.
This series was named a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and earned national recognition from many other quarters.
I disagree.
This is where cutting edge academic research was already 10 years earlier:
1967: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atsc/24/3/1520-04...
1969: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/8/3/1520-045...
The reports in your link start from 1977 and they are just summaries of public research. They are well done, but lots of people with engineering and/physics training would be able to read published research and write summary reports.
Let's look at the first one: https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Jam...
The actual, original science is properly referenced in the end in "Bibliography" (pdf page 15).
I really don't find any "cutting edge research" in those reports. Maybe "cutting edge reading", if we think that being able to follow, read, understand and summarize published research was cutting edge in the late 1970s.
These works were referenced in my complex dynamics classes of the early 1980s, along with other geodetic works on magnetic and gravitational fields, tides, etc.
"They knew the risks"
Everybody knew the risks. Climate science has been researched at universities and published openly.
If politicians have failed to regulate, and consumers have enjoyed the benefits of (relatively) cheap fuel and energy, why would the fossil energy companies be singled out as the culprits? People wanted the high material standard of living that comes from (relatively) abundant available energy, cheaper and plentiful food that comes from abundant nitrogen fertilizers (made from natural gas). We were all part of this.
It’s so basic
They got in this mess not because they made bad products that kill people. That’s actually fine, no politician in the US cares about that. No, they got into this mess because they spend decades covering up the truth and trying to convince consumers “see, it’s not that bad!”
Now that’s a problem. If the product just killed people we could sit around and play the “free will” game. “Well you see consumers can choose to kill themselves!” But that game goes out the window when we pollute free will with deception.
What free will actually looks like is a price that reflects the actual cost of the product, as well as labels that make it clear “this will kill you”. Turns out, when we do that, a lot less people choose to consume the product.
How would one even begin to adjudicate that? How do you determine which storm or what portion of a storm was caused by climate change, and how do you determine what portion of climate change was caused by Exxon’s CO2 emissions or whatever?
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28574283-searchresul...
I’ve happened to meet a number of researchers employed by large oil companies over the years, including many involved in the result of memos like this: making research into carbon capture and other mitigations a top corporate priority. Are there optical/PR reasons for investing in this research? Absolutely. Have they also been engaging in the science in good faith, and genuine intent that… in a world where climate action is desired, and net emissions are something to optimize for, they can anticipate this by genuinely funding research, and having their own research projects already underway that can address anticipated challenges? Also absolutely true.
Now, I can’t speak for, say, lobbying efforts. But the scientists on the ground getting accused of the “deception” are some of the smartest, most caring, and highest-integrity people I’ve met. Entire labs of people working for decades to think: can we make our processes cleaner, at the same time we rise to the challenges of global demand.
We should be celebrating, not condemning, this work.
This is a claim that is very contrary to the prevailing view. If you wish others to be persuaded by this claim, I recommend that you provide some evidence for it, because on their own your statements are unconvincing.
Oh, well, if it's the prevailing view, it must be correct!
You people see conspiracy everywhere. If you don't think places like Exxon are doing legit climate science, it's not worth arguing about.
Oil and gas companies strongly lobby for Republicans they know will remove any incentive for them to need to worry about the environment.
I would not celebrate this work, it's typical corporate boss-pleasing. It's not some exhortation towards clean energy.
This is a strawman (and a weirdly strong appeal to emotion for unclear reasons).
The claim is that their scientists were loudly saying internally their PR campaigns and climate claims were false and contrary to their findings. Executives read these memos and chose to do these anyways.
For instance:
> The new disclosures in the Massachusetts case add to the evidence with excerpts from a deposition by an Exxon scientist who worked on the program.
> Asked whether a 2018 press release, which said Exxon anticipated “10,000 barrels of algae biofuel per day could be produced by 2025,” was misleading, the scientist said “yes,” adding, “All the clauses in there are patently false.”
edit: the single memo (one of many the article is discussing) that you linked is not supposed to be some smoking gun, it's useful to dispel any ignorance that there's no reasonable claim of ignorance on Exxon's part, and the date is especially notable: 1988. Basically any PR, legal, and lobbying work for at least 38 years is suspect because of what they actually knew.
Having read both the memo and article, maybe there is a language barrier here, but how is it "incredibly far from the sensationalized headline"?
Maybe this comes down to how one defines "deception", but I have a hard time seeing it not apply here and don't see any hyperbole, overpromising or inaccuracy in the title given the memos writing. Certainly not "incredibly far", even if we split hairs on what raises to being "deception".
Carbon capture is fraud. You can EASILY stop carbon emissions by switching to EVs, which are cheaper to buy and operate. Instead Govts want to spend trillions on top the $7T dollars/year subsidies to help oil companies recover more oil.
The COP summits are held in fossil fuel countries and discuss carbon capture.
Shell Is Looking Forward The fossil-fuel companies expect to profit from climate change. I went to a private planning meeting and took notes: https://archive.is/15Dj4
Planting and growing trees is a form of carbon capture and it is one that has worked in Earth's history to bring CO2 levels down over the last millions of years from 7000ppm during the Cambrian Age to less than 700ppm.
Another good idea would be to mandate working from home for everyone that reasonably can do so. During Covid I've only measured about 300ppm as the bottom baseline, while nowadays I do not measure lower than 400ppm. (Co2 measuring devices are fairly cheap and good to have in your office, as high Co2 affects your ability to think clearly. Without opening a window and having just one person inside Co2 easily climbs to about 3000ppm within a few hours just from your breathing.)
The idea that we can lock up land, forever, planted in trees to offset our consumption is blissfully naive
In New Zealand large swatches of land are being taken out of production, for a onetime big payment
It neglects two things:
1. Trees burn. Forests left untended for years choke with fuel and then catastrophically burn releasing all that carbon
2. We need the land. Future generations, this generation in a few years, will not be sympathetic to the vast swatches of unproductive land (that due to 1. above create costs)
We must stop producing carbon. It will mean many obscenely rich will be downgraded to wealthy. And the prospect of that is enough to burn the world
Carbon capture is physically unable to be as effective as we need it to be. To an approximation, growing a tree is able to capture as much carbon as burning the wood from that tree. If most of our released carbon came from burning wood, we would just need to re-grow that amount of wood (unfortunately it's not even that simple, as the soil stores carbon long term in a way that just growing the tree doesn't capture, and is also released over time when old growth forests are cut down). Instead, the carbon we're burning comes from processes which efficiently concentrated the carbon from plants and microorganisms over millions of years to create coal, oil, and gas.
Carbon capture technology would have to artificially replicate these millions-of-years-long processes, and do it on a scale of years to decades. The scale of carbon capture we need is entirely unfathomable, requiring processes that don't exist, because they have to work against entropy itself.
Carbon capture at the point of burning fossil fuels to abate further emissions might be economical. Capturing already released carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (concentration of ~0.04%) is a fiction pushed by fossil fuel companies to muddy the debate and distract from the urgency of immediately stopping the burning of fossil fuels.
I think it's more productive to not entertain wild fantasies and be realistic about what can be done.
True, but the overall carbon reduction in owning an EV over its lifetime is still leagues lower; "Production-weighted average carbon footprints are 183 g CO2e/mi for BEVs; 351 g CO2e/mi for PHEVs; 445 g CO2e/mi for HEVs; and 521 g CO2e/mi for ICEVs." from [0] which does take into account the carbon-emitting percentage of the electrical grid.
Also, see Figure 4[1] in the study which states "Results demonstrate that, even under unfavorable conditions, BEVs still have a 30% lower life cycle carbon footprint."
0: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44458-025-00032-4
1: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44458-025-00032-4/figures/4
Emissions displacement is healthier for where humans actually live, but they do also reduce emissions over their lifetime. you and others can work on improving that further at the other parts of the stack
Thanks for the tip on what to work on. You too can work on other parts of the stack. And you can even improve the "vehicle" end of the stack, to which it sounds like you confine your actions, by moving around less, and when moving around, not hauling one or two tons of "car" with you. This can be accomplished by moving close to work (or only working close to home), living only in areas with good public transit, and/or bicycling everywhere for example, which I did for 30 years, so I know it's possible.
Solar panels are now vastly cheaper and more effective than they were even a few years ago. Replacing the whole US grid won't happen overnight, but once the government is actually expending effort to move in that direction, rather than clawing in the other direction by its fingernails, it will move fairly quickly.
> I can’t speak for, say, lobbying efforts.
Even easier to deceive yourself if you blind both eyes.
> collective “good”
Privatized gains, public losses. Surely this is known to you? Compare this to how Norway distributed its bounties.
The US and Exxon could have been a leader of the green transition starting in the 1970's, when everyone figured this out. With a few things breaking differently, we would have been.
We'd have had the absolute edge on the solar/battery transition.
Instead, precisely because of decades of deceptive lobbying, deindustrialization, bribes, and outright crimes, we're coasting far behind China's industrial policies.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Incidentally, the magical carbon capture that they like to research is what would let them continue their business forever unaltered!
Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, if it was really possible!
But, as it turns out, carbon capture anywhere close to the scale they blather about is a fever dream, and they know it well.
But yes, let's celebrate them, heck lets make them saint!!!
> research into carbon capture and other mitigations a top corporate priority
Do you have evidence? Evidence in the OP says otherwise:
"The documents include some statements which, according to the attorney general’s office, show Exxon knew that technology was also unlikely to present a scalable solution to cutting emissions.
A 2014 presentation on Exxon’s carbon capture portfolio included a slide listing challenges to reaching commercial scale. It noted widespread deployment would require a “massive investment” and an eventual storage rate “comparable to current oil and gas production.” It said costs were high and there were no market-based incentives."
Also, where are the results from this top priority of some of the largest companies in the world, with all these good-natured earnest scientists working on it?
This is a "fork found in kitchen" sort of discovery.
* https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/01/revealed-exx...
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/exxon-mobil-predicted-global...
From 2015, "Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says – but it funded deniers for 27 more years"
* https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/08/exxon-cl...
Turns out Exxon's climate science is pretty good:
* https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063
Of course they new. Even if we exclude what Joseph Fourier (in 1824) [1] and Svante Arrhenius (in 1896) [2] wrote about carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect, after [3] in 1967 and [4] in 1979, everybody who followed this branch of science, knew.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fourier#Discovery_of_th...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_ef...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_Equilibrium_of_the_Atm...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charney_Report
It's frequently the same literal scientists arguing against the existence or severity or cause of things like cigarette-caused illnesses, acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, and yes, anthropogenic climate change. And there's a well-established playbook for how they do it too (exploit Fairness Doctrine, abuse inherent shape of scientific method, etc). Really a fascinating read if you care about this stuff.
I won't deny that weather changes. Indeed, I believe the expression is "as unpredictable as weather".
Here are my two counter points. First: for everyone who thinks to punish Exxon, you have a brillian solution available to you. Just don't drive, and don't use products manufactured with pertoleum. If you don't want weather to change and believe that you are doing it, just don't do it. Don't use gasoline or anything that uses gasoline in the supply chain.
Second: let's not be too lopsided, surely there are reasons to reward, not just to punish. Let's pay Exxon for every warm, sunny day without rain. Or with rain when we want it. If the weather is agreeable - let's give credit where it's due - to Exxon! If our maladies are caused by them, surely our vitality and wellness is caused by them too? I'll wait.
1) Nuclear proponents (Fossil fuel people disguised as). They say we need to fund nuclear now because thats the only solution. We can't trust the Sun, because it ghosts often, falls sick and goes on vacations like its a European. They know it will never happen and if if its funded, will take at least 5 decades. Fossil fuel companies killed nuclear by fear mongering and funding 'environmental' groups, when it was a credible threat.
2) Commentors who shift the blame to people: "They asked for it, we produced it. They knew about climate change." Companies are just responding to what people want. Exxon is doing Gods work.
3) The carbon capture 'tech' evangelists. Just give big oil a few more trillions/year and they will direct air capture all the carbon molecules.
4) Carbon is good, trees need it (and some study showing something about trees and carbon)
5) Commentors who shift the blame to all of us. With some nonsense claim about their pension in Australia is now financially viable only because the pension fund (or SWF) invested in fossil fuels. We are all enjoying pensions because of fossil fuels.
This comment nailed how to respond to comments about trees being a solution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50045613 (and many sibling comments in the context)
Another one with reference to a book about this by scientists: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50044917
Solar in Sweden produce on average single digit percent during the worst months, while energy consumption doubles. This is the background why they define thermal power plant as necessary to enable renewable energy.
If the strategy is to build thermal power plants to enable renewables, then nuclear seems like a better option. If it does not need thermal power plants, then renewables and batteries are cheaper, safer, and better in basically every way. The "Fossil fuel people disguised as" can surely be both advocates for renewable and nuclear, but one of the most clear example we have was when Germany forced through EU regulations that defined natural gas as green. It does not get more clean cut than that, except maybe when the Swedish green party leader defended an oil power plant during a political debate and called it a "natural part" of the Swedish energy strategy.
There is a new thermal power plant being built in south of Sweden, built with support from local government which the green is part of, and guess what technology they are combining it with? CCS!
as, for example when I've tried to look up what remedies are proposed for things like excess "carbon emissions", the ideas seem inconsistent and all over the place, suggesting there is not really direct proof of man changing the climate by human actions (for example, planting "1 trillion trees" was suggested; now people aren't sure if that will solve the problem or not)
I could also see corporations and government creating environmental problems (like "man-made climate change", if it's real) and then offering solutions they design, for their own profit (as it's often the same groups of people running these operations in practice; although, this position is somewhat irrational as the leaders of such entities would be effectively poisoning themselves)
Also, I gather the HN consensus position is that non-renewables are harmful and that we can simply switch to renewables to solve issues related to (man-made) climate change. While I do like renewables in theory, and they could possibly cut down on a pollution (?), other more dramatic environmentalists point out that even renewables are probably not sustainable at some point as we will have more people than we have resources to supply them with. Alternatively, many people defensive of non-renewables point out that a lot of catastrophic environmental predictions did not remotely come to fruition.
So to recap: "climate change" is kind of vague and probably a distraction from tangible environmental issues we do agree on, and renewables either are not a sufficient solution to the problem of scarce resources running out or alternatively are not necessary to adopt to solve different environmental problems (although the economics are there and they will probably be adopted for a lot of their affordable benefits in coming years).
(Lastly, it's ironic that the tech community here which is against the over-use of non-renewables is probably passively accepting of AI datacenters which have amped up their consumption of even non-renewables to fuel their operations.)
I welcome discussion on the topic as I take somewhat of an uncommitted neutral view of if climate change is a "thing" or not (I rather would like to see discussion of more concrete solvable environmental issues).
Essentially renewables and other eco-friendly initiatives are being adopted globally for economic reasons rather than that of concern about "climate change".
It's just a question of if they are being adopted fast enough.
The "other side's" position is basically yes — the strong version being that there's no real hurry to begin with, the weaker position that even if there is some damage being done, it is survivable (probably my position ultimately presently, as we see some tangible environmental harms being done but are still here).
HN's position I gather is "no", and they want to see more done in an eco-friendly direction above what seems to be naturally adopted for economic reasons, but there may not be a consensus on what pace is needed exactly. "Degrowthers" go a step further in arguing much more dramatic action is needed to avert environmental problems.
So it's really a question of if the rate of more "eco-friendly change", being driven mainly by economics, is sufficient currently, or if those changes should be sped up and to what degree.
As perhaps a further way to sidestep this discussion, we might entirely focus on what ways to speed up the adoption of "eco-friendly" initiatives that are economically viable, which seems like a "win-win" for everyone.
> Sprow then laid out an agenda for how to achieve those ends.
> With modeling critical to climate science, he wrote, “it could be considered important to be at the forefront of this modeling effort.” Sprow proposed “supporting a person on staff at one of the leading modeling centers (e.g. Princeton) or by sending one of our people to work in such a center.”
The picture this article paints of academia seems pretty bleak to me as a layperson. I thought shady science by corps just meant publishing a few bad faith studies and pushing them hard in media, but apparently it's possible to do "incentive-driven science" in a fashion that lets you sow seeds that can influence decades of downstream research.
I would hope that the framework of science itself has guardrails to prevent these efforts from obscuring more globally relevant results in favor of "technically true" pieces that do everything the right way but are badly motivated and omit methodologies which lead to undesirable results. For people who have experience in this area - how much critical thinking do you need when reading papers on climate research? Can the research be good enough by itself on merit, or is any opinion incomplete without evaluating the journal, affiliation of the authors, funding sources, etc.?
Fortunately for Exxon the $100B is mostly externalities that do not affect the bottom line.