ExxonMobil Blasted for Efforts to Discredit Climate Science
Last week the non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) issued a report detailing how the world’s largest oil company, ExxonMobil, has donated $16 million since 1998 to 43 ideological groups working to discredit the science of human-induced climate change. The group joins a growing chorus of voices asking the oil giant and world’s most profitable company to turn the corner on global warming and start embracing a transition from fossil fuels.
"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," says Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists" Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."
Just this past September, Britain’s leading scientific academy, the Royal Society, asked the company to stop supporting groups that "misrepresented the science of climate change." In response, ExxonMobil said that it funded groups that research "significant policy issues and promote informed discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company" but that such groups do not speak for the company.
With most scientists and policymakers now on board with the concept of human-induced climate change, ExxonMobil may feel pressured into toeing the line on renewable energy so as not to get left behind by more forward-thinking competitors like Shell and BP.
Source: Union of Concerned Scientists