Tag: Exxon

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United States of America

May 8, 1980 – Nature article “CO2 could increase global tensions.” Exxon discussed underneath. Delicious ironies abound.

Forty four years ago, on this day, May 8th, 1980, there was an ironic juxtaposition in the British science journal Nature…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338.7ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the synfuels battle had just happened. And Americans, political leaders had been warned about the geopolitical consequences of CO2. Other people were saying the same stuff. 

What we learn is that CO2 was a really live issue in the late 70s, early 80s. People knew what was coming, they couldn’t say exactly when. And history is full of these delicious little moments, I guess.

What happened next, Exxon gave up on renewables and being vaguely responsible and all the rest of it and switched to denial very effectively. American politicians continued to be aware of CO2. There were congressional hearings, Senate hearings and then after 1985 it really picked up steam. 

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.

Also on this day: 

May 8, 1972 – “Teach-in for Survival” in London

May 8, 1992 – UNFCCC text agreed. World basically doomed.

May 8, 2013 – we pass 400 parts per million. Trouble ahead.

May 8, 2015 – denialist denies in delusional denialist newspaper

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United States of America

February 29, 1980 – Texaco and Exxon talk about setting up a greenhouse taskforce…

Forty four years ago, on this day, February 29th, 1980,

Bruce S. Bailey of Texaco offered “for consideration” the idea that “an overall goal of the Task Force should be to help develop ground rules for energy release of fuels and the cleanup of fuels as they relate to CO2 creation,” according to the minutes of a meeting on Feb. 29, 1980. 

Exxon’s Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s, Too

The minutes also show that the task force discussed a “potential area” for research and development that called for it to “‘Investigate the Market Penetration Requirements of Introducing a New Energy Source into World Wide Use.’ This would include the technical implications of energy source changeover, research timing and requirements.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338.7ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Exxon had known about the climate issue, and had been offering to do further research more recently than that. And obviously, outfits like Texaco and Exxon were in talks about what could be done; “Oh, I know, let’s set up a workshop”

What we learn

Corporates have their pressures and it is akin to that MacMillan Manoeuvre thing, but it’s also a necessary first step. So what we learn here is that oil companies were on it in the late 70s, early 80s. In the same period that Carter was talking about Global 2000.

And they didn’t speak up when Reagan came in and started backpedalling/ignoring this stuff (James Watt, Anne Gorsuch) because it helped them take their foot off the gas (or maybe, more accurately, put their foot on the gas).

 What happened next Exxon changed its tune. And then in 1988, began serious resistance to the climate issue.

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.

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United States of America

November 30, 1998 – Exxon and Mobil merge

Twenty five years ago, on this day, November 30, 1998, two of the Seven Sisters join at the hip.

1998 – Exxon and Mobil sign a USD$73.7 billion agreement to merge, thus creating ExxonMobil, the world’s largest company

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 366.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

Mobil had, by this time been doing “advertorials” and so on (see Herb Schmertz- https://marketingcraftsmanship.com/2013/07/05/the-herb-schmertz-era-when-public-relations-had-some-balls/

that the German provocateur and artist Hans Haacke had spoofed.

What I think we can learn from this is that Omnicorp is on the horizon, as per the Onion “Our Dumb Century”. These immensely powerful concentrated interests well, you can break them up and they recombine, recoalesce. It’s like that scene at the end of Terminator two (spoiler), where he’s been in the liquid nitrogen, they shoot him, he is destroyed. And then the pieces and Mercury start to come back together.

What happened next

Exxon continued to fund denialist groups (provoking the Royal Society into writing a public letter in 2006 telling them to knock it off), and is now getting sued for what it did to block action.

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.

References

That Hans Haacke/Bourdieu book “Free Exchange”

https://raphaeldelamer.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/bourdieu-pierre-haacke-hans-free-exchange.pdf

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Denial United States of America

August 3, 1988 – Exxon tries to downplay “the greenhouse effect.” Again.

Thirty five years ago, on this day, August 3, 1988, an Exxon PR flak is drafting bullshit about “THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT”, draft written by Joseph M. Carlson, an Exxon Public Affairs Managers.

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3024180/1998-Exxon-Memo-on-the-Greenhouse-Effect.pdf

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was everyone had started to bang on about climate change. And so Exxon needed to go public. But going public and saying, “yeah, we’ve known about this for 10 years and we decided a while back that we were going to be obstructive” would not be particularly helpful. So instead, they tried to baffle people with bullshit and passive language and all the rest of it. 

What I think we can learn from this

What we learn is that this is just how corporates behave unless forced to do otherwise.

What happened next

Exxon funded loads of denialist groups, to the extent that the UK Royal Society asked them to knock it off. With limited effect.

#ExxonKnew

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.

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Fossil fuels United States of America

June 6, 1978 – Exxon presentation about carbon dioxide build-up

Forty five years ago, on this day, June 6, 1978, Exxon got told about the climate crisis to be caused by its product… We know this thanks to the hard work of the folks at Inside Climate News and Exxon Knew.

6 June 1978 PRESENTATION SHARED WITH EXXON MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE from Exxon Research and Engineering Science Advisor, James Black

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Exxon had been aware of the climate issue like anyone else for a long time. They were beginning to liaise with certain scientists, like Wally Broecker, to do some investigation of their own and to offer Exxon facilities, ships etc. as platforms from which useful data could be measured.

What I think we can learn from this. This isn’t necessarily an effort at silencing or cooptation (in fact, that would be a perverse reading). This is just a big company trying to figure out what’s going on.

What happened next

Of course, since then, Exxon has done pretty much everything within its power to block climate action, because that action would impinge on their profits.

The predictions their scientists made in the 1970s? Pretty good… https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/

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.

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Denial United Kingdom United States of America

September 4, 2006 – Royal Society to Exxon: “Knock it off with the funding to #climate deniers”

On this day, September 4 2006, the Royal Society (venerable Science outfit, 360ish years old) asked the American oil company Exxon to knock it off with the climate denial support.

https://royalsociety.org/policy/publications/2006/royal-society-exxonmobil/

On this day the atmospheric carbon dioxide level was 379.04 ppm Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

Exxon had been/has been an enormous source of climate denial, despite their own scientists saying in the 1970s that yes, indeed, global warming because of the burning of fossil fuels was going to be a serious thing. A bunch of scientists who don’t like hand-to-hand combat coming out and saying “stop right there thank you very much” was a big deal.

What happened next?

Exxon got sneakier about it, is all.

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Australia Cultural responses United States of America

May 30, 1990 – Midnight Oil do a gig outside Exxon’s HQ in New York

On this day, May 30, 1990, Australian band “Midnight Oil” held an impromptu concert in New York, outside Exxon’s HQ. You can see the footage here

Exxon were villain du jour because of a certain carelessness the previous spring in Alaska.

We didn’t know then, but Exxon already had a solid ten years of climate knowledge under its belt – they knew that their product would wreck the planet, but why, erm, rock the boat?

You might also like this song, by “Max Q”

Why this matters. 

Culturally, we can resist.  Economically, persistently, strategically? Not so easy.

What happened next?

Midnight Oil kept burning.  They stopped while Peter Garrett, lead singer tried to change the system from within.  Have since resumed.


Exxon?  Oh, Exxon kept up their boundless love and generosity for future generations by, you know, funding denialist outfits, getting IPCC chairs sacked – the usual.

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Science Scientists

March 26, 1979 – Exxon meets a climate scientist

On this day in 1979, a few weeks after the end of the First World Climate Conference, Wally Broecker, the oceanographer met with Exxon scientists who were studying climate change and fossil fuels.

Broecker, to his apparent dismay, had coined the had been the first to use the term global warming in an academic context. (According to Alice Bell’s book “Our Biggest Experiment”, he  offered 200 bucks to anyone who could find an earlier example so he wouldn’t be lumbered with the unwanted title. 

Broecker also famously later compared the climate system to a sleeping beast and suggested that we stop poking it with a sharp stick.

What’s Exxon in all this? Well, “Exxon knew”. Exxon was doing its own studies of the climate problem, the carbon dioxide problem in the late 70s, early 80s. And this involved talking to scientists who knew what they were talking about. And Broecker most certainly was one of the scientists who really knew what he was talking about 

You can read more about this at the truly excellent “Inside Climate News”

Wallace Broecker

See also the page on Inside Climate News about “Exxon: The Road not taken.”

Exxon: The Road Not Taken

Why this matters

We need to remember that Exxon knew, and that scientists, quite rightly will talk to different constituencies they are paid out of taxpayer funding, and they should talk to not just the grassroots groups, but the biggies. And we need to know that in 1979, there were people seriously worried about climate. And these weren’t just hippies living in communes. This was the elite and it would be another 9 or 10 years before the issue would successfully break through and the co2 concentration had gone up and more kit had been built, and more norms around production and consumption had been established. And yes, yes, the population had gone up too;  we have two problems. The one that we in the West really need to do something about is overconsumption, exploitation, imperialism, hyper-extractivism, murder, you name it. And once we’ve done all of that, and paid reparations, then we can start to lecture other people about having too many babies.

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IPCC United States of America

February 6, 2001: ExxonMobil Lobbyist Calls on White House to Remove Certain Government Climate Scientists

On this day, in 2001, the oil company Exxon was throwing its weight around trying to get specific scientists pushed off the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In a memo to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), ExxonMobil lobbyist Randy Randol denounces esteemed climate scientist Robert Watson, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as someone “handpicked by Al Gore” who is using the media to get “coverage for his views.

He asks “Can Watson be replaced now at the request of the US?” In addition to Watson, Randol names other climate experts who he wants “removed from their positions of influence.” 

You can read the document here, on climate files.

And they succeeded. Bob Watson only served one term where the normal expectation was two. And this is because he was too independently minded and wasn’t going to waffle about technology saving us. 

This is not a new story. Historically scientists have come under ferocious attack, not just for their climate work, but also ozone hole, asbestos, you name it. There’s a lovely example in An Enemy of the People, the play by Henrik Ibsen, which by the way, inspired the movie, Jaws… but I digress. 

Why this matters

We need to remember that a lot of what we see and hear and take as accepted fact, is actually constructed for us actively or passively, and that critical voices have been removed. For the benefit of continued capital accumulation. This is Gramsci in action, people. This is how hegemony is constructed and maintained. 

What happened next

The IPCC kept producing reports and is producing another one. Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide accumulates thanks to the actions and inactions of people like you and me who have failed to build the kinds of movements that could have made a difference despite having freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of information. It might be a good idea for us to look ourselves in the mirror.

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Fossil fuels United Kingdom

Jan 22, 2002: Exxon and on and on

On this day 20 years ago. Lee Raymond, then boss of Exxon met for an hour (or 35 minutes – accounts vary) with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Now, of course, prime ministers do and have to meet with big business all the time. But maybe we should know what is discussed, what is agreed. And when people like Blair, talk about climate change, but then pal around with Exxon. Well, I refer you to yesterday’s blog post. 

What happened next

Exxon continued to be a big funder, a funder of fossil fuel denial. Exxon, we should remember, had known about the problem of climate change since the late 70s- see Inside Climate News and Exxon Knew. 

And fossil fuel usage is continuing to soar. Let’s have a look at a graph of fossil fuel usage since the 1750s.

Annual CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels, by world region (ourworldindata.org)

Can you spot the downturn after we were warned in 1988 to change our ways? Yeah, me neither..

“We” pursued precisely the opposite strategy. That little first person plural pronoun is of course, a mystification. “We” might all be responsible, but we are by no means equally responsible. There is always power politics at play, often behind closed doors as they were on the 22nd of January 2000.

Exxon buying up Biogas