ExxonMobil Says It's Stopped Funding CEI, Is Preparing For Eventual Carbon Controls - CNN

[hatrack]

OK, we'll see what happens, won't we?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- ExxonMobil is said to be in on meetings discussing the potential structure of carbon controls in the U.S., a sign that the company believes curbs on greenhouse gas emissions are looming, according to a news report Thursday.

Exxon (Charts), the world's largest oil company and a longtime skeptic that humans are responsible for global warming, is joining other industries at a series of meetings in Washington and elsewhere to discuss how laws on U.S. carbon control should be written, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Exxon's thinking on global warming has recently become more in-line with those in the scientific community who believe global warming is a human-made reality. Its current statement on the issue reads "we recognize that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere poses risks that may prove significant for society and ecosystems. We believe that these risks justify actions now, but the selection of actions must consider the uncertainties that remain."

Exxon has also said it has stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that questioned the premise that humans are largely responsible for causing global warming by burning fossil fuels with ad campaigns like ""Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life."

EDIT

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/11/news/economy/exxon_carbon/?postversion=2007011107

[Monomorphic]

1. The proof is in the pudding...

...what does exxon plan on selling... lemonade?

[kestrel91316]

2. Let's have a big round of applause for this:

"Exxon has also said it has stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that questioned the premise that humans are largely responsible for causing global warming by burning fossil fuels with ad campaigns like "Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life.""

[eppur_se_muova]

3. It wasn't working anyway, so they may as well claim credit for giving up. nt

[JohnWxy]

4. a stealth tactic loses its value when it's widely known. Time to morph into another form.

LEt's wait and see what they're up to. They still are going to do everything they can to warp policy to their advantage even when it is counter to the interests of the U.S. national security, the World and all common sense.

[Javaman]

5. I give them credit for nothing, they have been repeatedly polluting the

atmosphere for decades and they knew perfectly well what they were doing, then they started with the negative ad campaigns against global warming. They are pigs from the get go.

They only reason I suspect they are no longer funding this failed and stupid campaign is two reasons 1) they found a better more evil way to push their non-science crap or 2) they have found a way to continue to make billions off the consumer by going in this new "green" direction.

Screw them, if anyone honestly believes that these pigs who make their money off of our stupidity are going to change their ways, dream on.

[Javaman]

6. And here's the rub...

But the note added: "Although the tone has changed, the substance remains the same." Exxon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding research, but has not emulated companies such as Shell by moving into renewable energy. Shell wants to build the world's biggest offshore wind farm off the Kent coast.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1985715,00.html

So what gets me about all this bullshit, is that exxon makes it bread and butter on science yet they don't seem to question their geologists when it comes to hunt for oil, do they?

They only question the scientists who point fingers at their polluting ways.

What this all boils down to is money, as always. Not the money that exxon will lose through bad publicity but the money they will lose via lawsuits from cities like Houston that live in a smog belt causing untold health damages and an across the board rise to the health care premiums paid by Americans. And since this is a global issue and exxon is perhaps the biggest violator of pollution laws, what keeps, for example, Germany from saying, it's exxon's fault that we now have global warming, we are going to sue them.

so there you have it, it's not that exxon is in denial about global warming, it's that they are in a panic to stop the bleeding before it starts. Otherwise, what will happen to exxon in medical terms if they admit that they do believe that global warming has been created due to fossil fuel use, they will crash and bleed out.

But then again, it gets back to the same old concept regarding cigarettes. Do you sue the cigarette companies for pushing a product that they knew caused cancer? because people always have a choice and didn't have to smoke.

I don't think that argument will fly this time around. Let's its 1972 and U.S. has hit it's peak oil out put and there are long lines at the gas station. People are pissed. You can't say to them, well just don't drive or drive another type of powered vehicle. no dice. The american way of life was built around gas and the auto. the auto and oil industry have historically gone out of their ways to squash any other type of powered vehicle in the past. It's only recently that a real effort on the auto producers front to put out a car that runs on some other type of fuel. We as a nation were goaded into a corner of car dependency but more so, in to fossil fuel dependency.

Exxon as much as they are smiling, they are shitting a brick. There is a giant shoe down the road that has yet to drop and it won't be pretty for them.