Executives privately sought to downplay link between fossil fuels and climate change despite public pronouncements, WSJ reports

Executives privately sought to downplay link between fossil fuels and climate change despite public pronouncements, WSJ reports

ExxonMobil executives privately sought to undermine climate science even after the oil and gas giant publicly acknowledged the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, according to previously unreported documents revealed by the Wall Street Journal.

The new revelations are based on previously unreported documents subpoenaed by New York’s attorney general as part of an investigation into the company announced in 2015. They add to a slew of documents that record a decades-long misinformation campaign waged by Exxon, which are cited in a growing number of state and municipal lawsuits against big oil.

Many of the newly released documents date back to the 2006-16 tenure of former chief executive Rex Tillerson, who oversaw a major shift in the company’s climate messaging. In 2006, Exxon publicly accepted that the climate crisis posed risks, and it went on to support the Paris agreement. Yet behind closed doors, the company behaved differently, the documents show.

  • not_that_guy05@lemmy.worldEnglish
    432·
    10 months ago

    Hang them and distribute their funds to climate change. Family should not receive a single penny either.

    • Spendrill@lemm.eeEnglish
      56·
      10 months ago

      I don’t believe in hanging people, we should expropriate all but a basic living pensions and exile them to equatorial countries.

        • Spendrill@lemm.eeEnglish
          8·
          10 months ago

          Everybody else is saying kill them and I think, somehow, that’s letting them off easy. Let them all go and be the self-made, self sufficient men and ladies they have always wanted to be. They can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and show us once and for all we’re just crap people by not only surviving but thriving under the conditions that they, more than anyone else, have made.

          Seems like my proposal has balance and justice about it.

          • postmateDumbass@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            10 months ago

            The risk of them making others think like them is pretty great.

            The risk of them doing things to prolong their bloodline at the expense of others is also pretty good.

            Better to remove the risk.

      • fiat_lux@kbin.social
        2·
        10 months ago

        So they can go and exploit the previous victims of colonialism and current victims of capitalism directly in person? What did the people in equatorial countries do to deserve that?

        They already have enough problems without the world illegally dumping yet more hazardous waste on them.

        • Spendrill@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          10 months ago

          My feeling is that those people will have been forced to move into more temperate areas because of the harshness of climate change and so there’s be a natural space for the ‘wealth creators’ to exploit.

          • fiat_lux@kbin.social
            2·
            10 months ago

            I’m not sure if you’ve noticed how warmly people from equatorial countries are currently being received as refugees, but, let’s just say that’s a remarkably optimistic outlook.

            • Spendrill@lemm.eeEnglish
              1·
              10 months ago

              It’s a pessimistic outlook really, I am saying that the equatorial zones will be rendered largely uninhabitable. Like all refugees, those people would rather be able to stay in their homes but that’s not going to be possible. The other thing is that once everybody from those regions have to move, out of necessity, they’ll have the numbers to insist on relocation.

              • fiat_lux@kbin.social
                2·
                10 months ago

                I understand what you were getting at, but I still think ‘having the numbers to insist’ is not something that will happen. 7000 people arrived on one of Italy’s islands in the last 2 days seeking refuge. Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya was established in 1992 but today holds 200k people. On the other side of Kenya is Dadaab camp which holds 240k people right now. On average, people spend 10-15 years in those camps.

                Sadly, the world will leave them to rot, as it always has. This will only be more true as people in richer countries begin to feel greater cost of living pressures - xenophobia is a typical response when people are angry that they have nothing.

                Either way, I’m opposed to dumping billionaires as punishment. Exile is not really feasible like it used to be. I say seize assets and garnish future income, like they’re someone trying to avoid paying child support.

                • Spendrill@lemm.eeEnglish
                  1·
                  10 months ago

                  Yeah, if there were proper consequences to them not paying up and not a toothless regulatory entity then I could go along with that, it’s not got as much schadenfreude but it’ll do.

                  7000 is a lot but we’re talking about multiple countries being displaced here. If you’re old enough to remember, there was that whole Palestinians in Jordan thing where they were actually planning a coup and very possibly had a chance of pulling it off and then the King of Jordan (who turned out to be a CIA asset because of course it was the CIA) expelled them all from the country in Black September and then they ended up in the Lebanon.