Exxon CEO: Warming Happening, But Fears Overblown 288
Freshly Exhumed writes "In a speech Wednesday, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson acknowledged that burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but said society will be able to adapt. The risks of oil and gas drilling are well understood and can be mitigated, he said. And dependence on other nations for oil is not a concern as long as access to supply is certain, he said. Tillerson blamed a public that is "illiterate" in science and math, a "lazy" press, and advocacy groups that "manufacture fear" for energy misconceptions in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations."
C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
Tillerson blamed a public that is "illiterate" in science and math, a "lazy" press
Yes, the public is about as smart as a rock. But that doesn't mean you need to spin it. Desertification of wide swaths of land as well as the acidification of the oceans will be pretty hard to deal with.
And dependence on other nations for oil is not a concern as long as access to supply is certain
Not a concern for Exxon, he means.
Standard PR (Score:5, Insightful)
Deny
Undervalue impact
Disassociate
Imply fix.
On the plus side,now that the CEO of Exxon has also said that the increase in temperatures over standard cycles i.e. Global Warming, is man made, I'm sure all you deniers will now apologize fro being wrong.
haha, of course you want. You entrenched into an emotional opinion, so actual facts will never change you mind.
Amazing! (Score:5, Insightful)
The CEO of an oil company tells us that burning oil isn't such a big problem! Well, I guess we can all stop worrying about that then.
Re:C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. We are now at the point in the anti-science strategy where you admit some minimalistic version of what the science is saying, but spin it so that the admission isn't a big deal.
Re:C'mon (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. We are now at the point in the anti-science strategy where you admit some minimalistic version of what the science is saying, but spin it so that the admission isn't a big deal.
It'll only matter to people when they actually feel the pain of their choices - when the waves lap up Wall Street, not due to a storm, but on a fair day, you better believe someone will finally be paying attention .. of course, it'll be too late. But why should the 1% care? They can just move to higher ground. Probably already have houses on higher ground.
No, no, no! (Score:5, Insightful)
4. Huh . . . well, look at that. Hurricanes in January. Hey, this is not a time to play the blame game. No one could have foreseen this would happen.
5. Something must be done. Level headed people like us. Introducing Exxon Atmospheric Engineering Associates.
6. OK, that didn't work. But hey, neon green sunsets . . . cool!
7. Look you'all knew for decades that our product could lead to this, but you CHOSE to ignore the warnings by scientists rather than taking responsibility and choosing to use renewable energy. We were just selling a product people wanted and freely chose to use.
relocation (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we relocate this guy's mouth to 1 inch above sea level? If sea level remains the same, he has nothing to worry about. If not, well, the world will be less one asshole.
Re:C'mon (Score:4, Insightful)
The 1% should care because if recent history is a guide, anarchy tends to lead to communism. And communists like to put those of the 1% that they don't execute into labor camps.
Re:C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Tillerson cleverly attacks the weakest part of research about climate change: the prospective part, about its consequences. Remember it was in that part of the IPCC report that there was reviewing issues.
Since the hard sciences part turned out to be rock solid, staying in denial of it would have been disingenuous.
ExxonMobil's science education ads (Score:4, Insightful)
What's really nutty about ExxonMobil is that on the one hand, they are spending millions on TV, radio and print ads on how the US needs to improve math and science education, but at the same time roughly two-thirds of their political contributions (corporation and employees) are to Republican candidates. To a person, Republicans have conducted an all-out war on free public education, teachers, and teachers unions over the last 30 years. The leading US scientists over the last 100 years did not, in general, attend tony prep schools or come from wealthy families. If ExxonMobil is actually serious about improving math and science education in the US, they'll stop funding Republican candidates and start funding Democrats, as well as making targeted gifts to grammar and high school math and science programs around the country.
Eek, a global warming thread... (Score:1, Insightful)
Obligatory subthread arguments include:
--the quality of the science (both for and against)
--who's evil (whoever authored the story the thread is based on is a given, but who else?)
--how dumb the public is
--alternative energy
Let's face it. Orson Scott Card was wrong. xkcd was right [xkcd.com]
Re:C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, we're at stage two.
(For the uninitiated:
- In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
- Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
- In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we *can* do.
- Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.)
Re:Standard PR (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you stopped driving your car yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
So the question isn't "How do we find alternatives to fossil fuels" because we aren't going to find anything nearly as cheap and easy in the near future. The question is "how can we deal with whatever problems using them is going to cause?" If they really are going to cause so much damage it ends the world, then we're fucked. Cause it's going to happen. If, instead, it's going to gradually raise the tempureture of the planet over the next 200 year, then we'll likely be able to come up with some technology to help mitigate the effects. If we can't we'd better at least learn to deal with them... because the fact is, it's going to happen... no matter how much you complain on an internet forum using your computer with it's 500 watt power supply that you left on all day while you were at work.
Best part (Score:4, Insightful)
And dependence on other nations for oil is not a concern as long as access to supply is certain [...]
And we will spend trillions of dollars of tax money to keep that access available.
Re:Standard PR (Score:4, Insightful)
4) every other other possible reason has been shut down.
Citation needed?
Re:Standard PR (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
Tillerson blamed a public that is "illiterate" in science and math, a "lazy" press
The irony is the majority of people who are *literate* in science and math (including, what, about 95% of climate scientists?) agree that global warming is real and we need to do something about it. It's the scientifically illiterate who keep trying to claim (with their scientifically illiterate arguments, of course) that it's all a big conspiracy with no scientific support...
Re:C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
"....society will be able to adapt."
really means, "I've got mine. Screw everybody else."
Of course not... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course not, it's not as if it's your boys who are going to get sent off to get killed, maimed for life, and left with memories that will haunt them forever, you goddamn plutocrat fuck. It's not as if nearly all of our current national security headaches (and nearly all the people killed by terrorism in the world for the last 20 years) can be traced to our meddling in the middle east AT YOUR BEHEST AND ON YOUR BEHALF. Sweet Jesus on a pogo stick, don't you people pay handlers to prevent us from seeing just what massive assholes you are?
Notice how we never, ever hear this kind of despicable statement from people like Joe Biden, or the English royals, both of of whom have family serving? You will find no record of President Eisenhower blithely insulting the difficult job the men in Korea faced (I wonder why!). Yet there is a word that specifically refers to the kind of twunts who don't serve, then loudly cheer to have others sent to die (especially if they use privilege to avoid serving after being called to): chickenhawks. They are despicable and should be loudly shamed at every opportunity.
When you think "adaptation" (Score:2, Insightful)
Think "Colorado Springs." Adaptation sounds wonderful but it'll be fueled by burning houses, with hopes damped by submerged homes. It's all part of the deal.
Re:C'mon (Score:3, Insightful)
Tillerson is both right and wrong, the general public is illiterate in math and science, but also illiterate in sociology, government, and history... as you're post exemplifies; unless of course you're intentionally lying through omission. I suspect though, it's simply that you're too ideologically driven to see much other than what some other asshat told you, or too unwilling to put any effort into actually thinking about is... i guess that's the lazy part he mentioned.
Re:Not Really (Score:0, Insightful)
Don't let your emotions get in the way of facts. Whether or not Tillerson (and Exxon) are pathological assholes doesn't matter in the long run. Fact of the matter is as you implied, you can't get out of this pickle without his companies product, so you better learn how. That is learn how physically to engineer your way out with his product and do it in a way that doesn't piss them off so much so that they give you the finger and refuse to sell to you. They could just sell to the developing world who would gladly take the product without question and you'd be up shit creek without a paddle. OTOH its a lot more fun to be an immature know-nothing-practical on slashdot without pointing out anything substantial.
Re:C'mon (Score:4, Insightful)
would it be cheaper to simply compensate the affected people
It doesn't matter. Nobody has any intention of doing that. When a company pollutes an area, often its' biggest supporters are the people living in that area. They're just happy to have jobs. And if this ever get to disastrous levels, what are the odds that reparations will be paid to those who lost everything? What are the odds that this will be paid for by taxes/fines on the people who benefited most from causing the problem?
and secondly would it crimp the economy so badly that no future development (e.g. electric cars, new power generation sources like solar etc.) could occur because all resources would be spent in prevention* and maintenance.
Or would it make such development worthwhile? Alternate energies and new technologies have an uphill climb because they are having to fight against a well-established system with infrastructure and political clout on their side. If we had a reasonable system in place to require people to reduce emissions, then people would adopt newer technologies, the businesses that supply those technologies would grow, and they would have more money to research cheaper, more efficient production.
Also not discussed by "advocates" is the fact that the CO2 we generate is at this point probably insignificant due to the developing world, and their increased output.
That is a problem. It's hard for us to tell some third world country "now that we got ours, the rules are changing"
Re:anything but "rock solid" (Score:2, Insightful)
Whilst this statement is pedantically correct, it should be pointed out that they actually have quite a lot of data, considering that they only have one Earth to collect it from.
Sorry, could I ask for a favour? You appear to have forgotten to link to supporting evidence for "ax to grind" and "qualifications...all over the place". I will concur that a lot of the content of IPCC reports is negotiated, but you're just restating the point that expert judgement is required for projecting the consequences of global warming. In any case, you're being misleading: the conclusion that the warming is anthropogenic in nature is not negotiated, it is based upon analysis of data and modelling. Statistics, in short.