[lpetrich]

I'm not sure where this thread belongs.

I Was an Exxon-Funded Climate Scientist | Peak Oil News and Message Boards (2017) - Exxon's strategists had known for a long time that fossil-fuel CO2 accumulation and global warming are real, even as the company officially denied the reality of them. Exxon more recently merged with Mobil to make ExxonMobil.

This came up recently:

'So they knew': Ocasio-Cortez questions Exxon scientist on climate crisis denial – video | Business | The Guardian
The graph in it is taken from this document: 1982 Exxon Primer on CO2 Greenhouse Effect.pdf

Exxon sowed doubt about climate crisis, House Democrats hear in testimony | Business | The Guardian - has some transcripts.

“What they did was wrong. They spread doubt about the dangers of climate change,” testified Martin Hoffert, who was a scientist consultant for Exxon Research and Engineering in the 1980s. “The effect of this disinformation was to delay action internally and externally … As a result, in my opinion, homes and livelihoods will likely be destroyed and lives lost.”

AOC called Exxon's scientists' predictions "startlingly accurate".

“In 1982, seven years before I was even born, Exxon accurately predicted that by this year, 2019, the Earth would hit a carbon dioxide concentration of 415 parts per million and a temperature increase of 1C. Dr Hoffert, is that correct?”

“We were excellent scientists,” Hoffert said to laughter from the audience.

“Yes you were, yes you were,” Ocasio-Cortez responded. “So they knew.”

[lpetrich]

ExxonMobil faces trial over allegations of misleading investors on climate crisis | Business | The Guardian

ExxonMobil is to face trial in New York City on Tuesday, accused of misleading investors over the business risks caused by regulations aimed at addressing the climate crisis.

The oil and gas giant has been taken to court by New York’s attorney general for allegedly covering up the costs it will incur from government rules designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This represents just the second time a climate case has gone to trial in the US.

...
A slew of lawsuits across the US have sought to hold major oil companies to account over the climate crisis. The New York case is different in nature as it essentially revolves around investor fraud. From 2010, Exxon told the public it had assigned a price to carbon to account for how government regulation would affect its business. However, it privately used a much lower figure, allowing it to make carbon-heavy investments such as in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, that would appear much less profitable otherwise.

Let's see what happens with this one, given all the evidence of oil-company duplicity.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Have you ever heard of disagreements among people running companies and expert employees?

Just because some scientists said "We believe X and here's why ..." does NOT prove that the folks running Exxon "knew" or believed everything they were told.

...

Example: I was heavily involved in Y2K preparation at IBM for the commercial account mainframe business, re policy for IBM global services in 1999.

I gathered a lot of expertise in various meetings of expert technicians with 40ish such people in a room, where I figured I was probably about the dumbest person in the room, and I was no slouch at my specific area of expertise.

And later when push came to shove, I made it very clear to TPTB that trying to go cheap and quick on certain regimens would NOT work, even for test mainframe LPARs, because a lot of software (like job schedulers, etc) would fail SPECTACULARLY if you tried to set the clock back.

They ignored me and went the cheaper route. And then later, when more formal testing occurred, the cheap methodology blew up in their face. (At least they found it and believed it before Y2K happened). And when management got mad, I remember some technicians I'd advised saying "Wait -- it's just like what Roger said would happen", and then everyone went away, and decided to do things properly, and eat the cost.

Now, in court, do you think you could prove that TPTB "knew" that their hoped for cheapskate method of dealing with possible post Y2K failures wouldn't work, even though I told them so and why? I don't think so. Their answer would be that they didn't believe me or that they followed their intuition, or that they wanted to save money to pump up their bonuses so they chose to hope I was wrong, or whatever. Not that they KNEW they were screwing up.

We'll see what happens, but if all AOC and their ilk have for their arm waving is that there were position papers published where scientists stated/opined that climate change was real -- I think they have nothing meaningful for proving Exxon "knew" in court.

....

Thought experiment: If a bunch of Exxon technicians claim that the earth is flat and present position papers, should Exxon management rush to pursue some expensive "flat earth" policy in case it's true? Somehow, I don't think so.

Hint: What seems obvious in decade X might seem like "a new possible theory worth keeping an eye on" in decade X - 3 or so.

[Cog]

A corporation is entitled to use research, that it paid for, in any way that it suits them. Even to ignore the research if it benefits the corporate bottom line. The left seems to think a corporation is some sort of charity. LOL

[lpetrich]

A corporation is entitled to use research, that it paid for, in any way that it suits them. Even to ignore the research if it benefits the corporate bottom line. The left seems to think a corporation is some sort of charity. LOL

So if a corporation is a news agency, it has an absolute right to be horribly biased because being unbiased would be acting like a charity, right?

[Plantagenet]

So if a corporation is a news agency, it has an absolute right to be horribly biased because being unbiased would be acting like a charity, right?

Even charities are biased. Don't you ever get those begging letters filled with photos of kids and adults with horrible diseases in third world countries? Many of those so-called charities use most of the money they raise for salaries and more fund-raising. In a large number of cases very little of the money raised actually goes to doing the good work that the charity claims it is doing.


Send $10 every month to the Stop Cheek Biting Foundation and this poor man and many others will receive much needed medical attention...pinky promise!

Cheers!

[Cog]

A corporation is entitled to use research, that it paid for, in any way that it suits them. Even to ignore the research if it benefits the corporate bottom line. The left seems to think a corporation is some sort of charity. LOL

So if a corporation is a news agency, it has an absolute right to be horribly biased because being unbiased would be acting like a charity, right?

Yes. The first Amendment protects all types of speech. Especially biased and so called hate speech. Speech that everyone likes or agrees with needs no protection.

[jedrider]

A corporation is entitled to use research, that it paid for, in any way that it suits them. Even to ignore the research if it benefits the corporate bottom line. The left seems to think a corporation is some sort of charity. LOL

So if a corporation is a news agency, it has an absolute right to be horribly biased because being unbiased would be acting like a charity, right?

Yes. The first Amendment protects all types of speech. Especially biased and so called hate speech. Speech that everyone likes or agrees with needs no protection.

Except, if a company knows it's bottom line is at risk from the results of such research! Capitalism always trumps everything else apparently.

[Plantagenet]

EVERYBODY knew about the predictions of global warming.

And everybody ignored them.

The biggest polluters turned out to be the socialists and communists in Russia and China.

So Capitalism had nothing to do with it.

It was a universal problem.....and still is.

Cheers!