Twenty years ago, on this day, October 30th, 2006,
On Oct. 30, 2006, Senators John D. Rockefeller (D.-W.Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R.-Maine) wrote an extraordinary open letter to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson urging him to end his company’s support of “climate-change-denial front groups.” The only organization mentioned by name is the one that the authors of this article work for — the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The senators’ letter then goes on to announce: “A study to be released in November by an American scientific group will expose ExxonMobil as the primary funder of no fewer than 29 climate-change-denial front groups in 2004 alone.” http://humanevents.com/2007/05/08/liberal-scientists-lead-jihad-against-globalwarming-skeptics/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the oil companies, including Exxon, had been well aware of the carbon dioxide issue in the 70s, and Exxon had initially collaborated with scientists to understand it better. Exxon then took the fateful decision to oppose climate action, and they had done so very successfully, both within bodies like the Global Climate Coalition and the other trade bodies, but also solo. They had been instrumental in getting Bob Watson fired after only one term as IPCC chair.
In September 2006 (i.e. a month earlier), the Royal Society had taken the extraordinary step of an open letter trying to get the Exxon mob to stop financing denialist groups.
Here you see a couple of senators also saying knock it off. This is the same 2006 as the year when the whole climate issue had really exploded onto television screens and people’s consciousness again, really for the first time since 1990.
What I think we can learn from this – too much concentrated wealth is concentrated power is bad for the “common good.”
What happened next – Exxon persisted in being Exxon.
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On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
October 30, 1972 – Carroll Wilson writes to Maurice Strong, pondering networks
October 30, 1983 – Carl Sagan hosts ‘nuking ourselves would be bad’ conference.
October 30, 2006 – Stern Review published.