US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has also appeared to support geoengineering, describing climate change as an “engineering problem.” ExxonMobil’s funding of the climate denial industry is under investigation by attorney generals in the United States, but it’s less well known that ExxonMobil scientists under Tillerson’s reign as CEO were leading developers of geo-engineering technologies like carbon dioxide removal.
Asked about solutions to climate change at an ExxonMobil shareholder meeting in 2015, Tillerson said that a “plan B has always been grounded in our beliefs around the continued evolution of technology and engineered solutions.”
KaiserJeep wrote:You provided no link for your text, causing me to assume you faked it. Where is your quote from?
Also note, this is your one warning about ad hominem attacks.
David Schnare, an architect of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition, has lobbied the US government and testified to Senate in favour of federal support for geoengineering.
He has called for a multi-phase plan to fund research and conduct real-world testing within 18 months, deploy massive stratospheric spraying three years after, and continue spraying for a century, a duration geoengineers believe would be necessary to dial back the planet’s temperature.
Scientific modelling has shown that stratospheric spraying could drastically curtail rainfall throughout Asia, Africa and South America, causing severe droughts and threatening food supply for billions of people.
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me. - Martin Niemoller
One does not play games, or take chances, when essentially the whole of civilization and humanity may be in peril.
[/quote]One does not play games, or take chances, when essentially the whole of civilization and humanity may be in peril.
onlooker wrote:One does not play games, or take chances, when essentially the whole of civilization and humanity may be in peril.
ExxonMobil Ex-CEO Rex Tillerson
ExxonMobil knowingly misled the public for decades about the danger climate change poses to a warming world and the company's long-term viability, according to a peer-reviewed study, released on Wednesday, of research and statements by the US oil giant.
An analysis of nearly 200 documents spanning decades found that four-fifths of scientific studies and internal memos acknowledged global warming is real and caused by humans, while the same proportion of hundreds of paid editorials in major US newspapers over the same period cast deep doubt on these widely accepted facts.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, also cites ExxonMobil calculations that capping global warming at under two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)—the goal enshrined in the landmark Paris climate accord—would impose sharp limits on the amount of fossil fuels that could be burned, and thus potentially affect the firm's growth"The Harvard research shows systemic bias in sowing public doubt, while acknowledging the risks privately," ... "That is at the heart of the investigations."
"Using social science methods, we found a gaping, systematic discrepancy between what Exxon said about climate change in private and academic circles, and what is said to the public."
As early as 1979, when climate change barely registered as an issue for the public, Exxon was sounding internal alarms.
"The most widely held theory is that... the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to fossil fuel combustion," an internal memo from that year read.
A peer-reviewed study by Exxon scientists 17 years later concluded that "the body of evidence... now points towards a discernable human influence on global climate."
At the same time, however, the company was spending tens of millions of dollars to place editorials in The New York Times and other influential newspapers that delivered a very different message.
"Let's face it: The science of climate change is too uncertain to mandate a plan of action that could plunge economies into turmoil," Exxon opined in 1997, as the Bill Clinton administration faced overwhelming opposition in Congress to US ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
Assessing ExxonMobil's climate change communications (1977–2014)
onlooker wrote: With fossil fuels and that was my point we cannot at this time steer away from them as they still form the bedrock energy wise of our economies.
AdamB wrote:onlooker wrote: With fossil fuels and that was my point we cannot at this time steer away from them as they still form the bedrock energy wise of our economies.
Speak for yourself. Someone of us are managing quite fine not using any liquid fuels to commute to work, run to the grocery, go see a movie, or even drag race other non-liquid fuel burning autos out of stop lights! Now THAT is some proof of moving away from liquid fuels, still being able to do impromptu red light drag racing for fun in suburbia!
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