Bishop Hill On capricious government
Nov 6, 2015 Energy: oil Greens ;){kind=logo}
The decision by New York regulators to investigate Exxon over climate change is an interesting one. Apparently the aim is "determining whether the company failed to disclose the climate change risks to investors as well as the public".
And you can't really say fairer than that. If companies are obliged to disclose risks - and there is no doubt that they are - then I don't think one can argue that Exxon or any other oil company should be disclosing to investors the possibility, say, that governments might do foolish things in response to hysteria over climate change. These are real risks that affect investors. There are interesting questions over what point any particular political foolishness becomes concrete enough to make it disclosable, however. Governments are driven by perverse incentives, and politicians are capricious at the best of times. Political risk is therefore always a hard thing to gauge.
Moreover, Exxon is a global company, and political risks in any one country are therefore even less likely to affect the overall business. Global political risks are even more nebulous than national ones: the possibility of a global carbon tax, for example, remains remote, with the developing world unwilling to let their populations die young in order to make western greens feel good about themselves.
Of course, the investigation looks more like a fishing trip, trying to get access to Exxon's internal communications on behalf of environmental activists. There is, in the minds of greens at least, a vast oil-funded conspiracy to be exposed. I don't suppose they will find very much.
Reader Comments (48)
Or quite possibly they will find things they don't want to - Big Oil covertly funding and encouraging climate alarmism.
I've long thought the 'big oil shill' meme was pure projection.
lots of comparison with tobacco companies but just look at the latter's stock price history and there is little concern for Exxon really, any way things go
http://www.bat.com/group/sites/UK__9D9KCY.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/DO52AJTV
OTOH nobody remembers an energy company active in pushing for the CO2 trading business, and ultimately destroyed by its legality-averting management? It starts with E and ends with N, just like Exxon.,
Of course, the investigation looks more like a fishing trip, trying to get access to Exxon's internal communications on behalf of environmental activists. ... I don't suppose they will find very much.
It doesn't really matter too much to Greens whether or not what they find what they are hoping for. As Mark Steyn the Canadian commentator has often said, the Left in the West uses judicial investigations as a form of punishment. There is no need to prove guilt - forcing the targets to suffer a long drawn-out investigation is a punishment in itself.
But the BigOil conspiracy is already well documented. It's been said over and over. Furthermore, I read in Stoat that it comes from billions of dollars of "dark money". Is there evidence more evident than this?
As usual they haven't thought the consequences of this through properly. After all, what's sauce for the goose!
If they succeed in getting access to all the Exxon internal documentation, on the basis that 'they knew it was worse than they were saying', then the greens open themselves up to counter-litigation on the same basis – 'they said it was worse than they knew it was', and exaggerated it for political effect. In short: They lied.
Climategate revealed that the scientists themselves had private doubts that they concealed in public. It would be VERY interesting to gain access to those private discussions within the greens.
OT
Watching a BBC4 documentary about light and colour on the IPlayer.
Question if CO2 reflects and traps heat then does it do the same wth light and in what spectrum.
And extra light output has to be good for Plant and Crop yeild.
Cigarette?.. anyone?..
This was big news on the BBC this morning. There's not some big climate conference coming up or something is there...
Have the BBC reported yet about NOAA's refusal to release certain data in response to another congressional enquiry?
tonyb
The climate obsession is clearly a dark vision and is becoming darker quickly.
The need of the climate fanatics to silence critics and to place blame is becoming a cancer that is eating up civil societies in the West.
Sacks full of Big Oil dollars for "deniers"? Right......
UK Climate Research Unit was set up with funding from BP, Shell and Rockefeller.
Nature Conservancy, $10 million from BP:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052302164.html
Princeton Climate Research BP $2 million per year for 10 years
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S22/40/40G69/index.xml?section=topstories
AGW activist, Environmental Defense adviser, co-founder of the Climate Action Network and IPCC Lead Author for AR4 and 5, Michael Oppenheimer is based at Princeton: http://www.climatedepot.com/2011/01/04/un-ipccs-michael-oppenheimer-an-activist-first-a-scientist-a-distant-second-scientific-work-roundly-trashed-even-by-fellow-warmists/
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/21/us/exxon-led-group-is-giving-a-climate-grant-to-stanford.html
Four big international companies, including the oil giant Exxon Mobil, said yesterday that they would give Stanford University $225 million over 10 years for research on ways to meet growing energy needs without worsening global warming.
Exxon Mobil, whose pledge of $100 million makes it the biggest of the four contributors, issued a statement saying new techniques for producing energy while reducing emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases were ''vital to meeting energy needs in the industrialized and developing world.''
In 2000, Ford and Exxon Mobil's global rival, BP, gave $20 million to Princeton to start a similar climate and energy research program.
The late Stephen Schneider was based at Stanford. http://www.john-daly.com/schneidr.htm.
Many alarmists, such as Chris Field, co-chair of AR5 WGII are at Stanford. It provided the Technical Support Unit for WGII, https://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/. "Acid Oceans" Ken Caldeira is also there.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/02/shell-sees-solar-as-biggest-energy-source-after-exiting-it
Shell...spending $2.3 billion on alternative energy and carbon capture and storage research and development in the past five years.
I don't suppose they will find very much., does it matter it is mud they are throwing in the hope it sticks and in reality no matter what is 'found ' it will be claimed has 'proof' of conspiracy while the press will lap-up without a question.
Aila, you might want to add an /sarc to that.
Stuck-Record, the Climategate emails are evidence that even the 'experts' weren't sure of the science even into the 21st century. Why would Exxon be expected to know more than the publicly funded scientists?
I think this serves them right. Fossil fuel companies have conspired with greens to persuade us that they are evil doers. By keeping their heads down and trying not to be noticed, they've let the myth stand. They should have done more to remind us how essential their products have been to our advancement. Of course like any company, they don't always behave perfectly and sadly when they get things wrong, the result is catastrophic. But the catastrophe is the nature of their product, not their relative irresponsibility. As a society we're bad at recognising that some things we want are inherently problematic and if we want the product we have to expect the side effects. AGW is another area where we seem determined to ignore our own part in the problem and prefer instead to blame nasty old industry. Time for the western world to grow up.
You beat me to it, tonyb.
The other cheek of the same arse is epitomised by the bankrobber's reply to the question of why they rob banks: "Because it's where the money is."
The gangster-greens, their legal advisers, and their political friends are attempting what I believe, in the American vernacular, is called "a shakedown".
a fishing expedition no doubt - with a well stocked, taxpayer funded series of hampers for the lawyers...
The entourage of predatory + bent lawyers / demented agitators looking to turn fossil fuels into "the new tobacco" - just wonderful.
Climate Justice?
geddouddahere .... +1 michael hart
@jamspid
I took a look at that Helen Czerski "The Spectrum of Science" thing - it is notable for being serially "detail averse" and predictably big on eye candy, travel, moozak and subjective perception ... no numbers please we're the BBC. No surprise that the same organisation brings us The Graham Norton Show.
With luck, this will become a big bum-biting exercise.
We need to know when the IPCC Climate Science experts, decided to drop Michael Mann's Hockey Stick from their scientific reports and why.
Could have saved US and UK taxpayers billions.
A massive cover-up in climate science that THEY want to keep covered up. Fraud on a massive scale.
jamespid
No. It absorbs and emits in the IR part of the spectrum, not the visible.
One would think that if Exxon knew that the political climate for fossil fuels was becoming toxic, they would have beefed up their nuclear business rather than dumping it. In 1986.
COMPANY NEWS; Exxon Plans Sale Of Nuclear Unit
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/24/business/company-news-exxon-plans-sale-of-nuclear-unit.html
All those oil companies, that greenwashed, played the game,etc,etc..
tough.
they are going to come after you aswell.
More Oil Companies Could Join Exxon Mobil as Focus of Climate Investigations
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/07/science/more-oil-companies-could-join-exxon-mobil-as-focus-of-climate-investigations.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
If it went to trial would the prosecution need to prove that Exxon knew things were worse than they publically said?
Or would the prosecution need to prove that things really were worse than Exxon publically said?
If the latter then the Pause makes the court case most interesting.
Dear New York City,
We have decided to withdraw all services and products from New York City for the duration of your investigation.
This is the only course of action to take to avoid the insinuation that we may influence the investigation by providing such services.
Yours sincerely,
Exxon.
As you say: fair enough.
But are we now to see similar 'fishing trips' into the murky waters surrounding the Green advocacy groups and the money men who finance them?
If not, that rather puts a different complexion on things, don't you think?
Uncle Badger
No reason why not. All it would need would be for someone to make a good enough case and fund the action.Where the difficulty arises is when you try to hold either scientists or politicians or political activists or environmentalists (or the media — good luck with that!) to the same standards that are demanded of public companies. If you can get over that hurdle then you'll find the playing field beyond is level enough. Or should be.
Following up on M Courtney's comment, the prosecution would need to prove that anyone had any proof that CO2 played a significant role in changing the climate.
Years later, and billions of taxpayers money spent, climate scientists have resorted to fraudulent consensus papers, and dodgy references from the Pope and the Dalai Lama. One belief system leading and influencing another.
Climate science is not rocket science, but a disastrous bang is imminent. Let Climate scientists light the blue touch paper, and we can all retire and watch the fireworks from a safe distance.
We should have a level playing field.
It would be reasonable to investigate if the IPCC have over-stated the alledged harms of global warming, and understated both the adverse consequences and ineffectiveness of mitigation policies. Also whether many businesses who support climate policy do so out of potential profit or as effective protection against the attacks that Exxon is supporting.
But this will not happen. The climate community cannot win by fair means, so they resort to every underhand means they can get away with.
This is following the exact script laid out by Shub Niggurath in the post that Bish highlighted 3 days ago.
jamspid: "Question if CO2 reflects and traps heat then does it do the same wth light and in what spectrum.
And extra light output has to be good for Plant and Crop yeild." Light is in the 390 - 700nm wavelengths, CO2 doesn't "trap" anything, it actually absorbs and emits at the 4nm and 15nm reflecting some of the energy back into the atmosphere. So no it doesn't "trap" light. I am assuming you're talking about light in terms of what humans can see.
I wonder how many jobs Exxon supports in New York State, it would be dreadful if they decided to upsticks and move to another state. Or better still impose a carbon tax on the citizens of New York state in response to the worries of he legislature.
Presumed guilt based on unproven science, with dubious circumstantial evidence, and conflicting real world data.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster, that will feed lawyers in expensive restaurants for years.
Which side will call Michael Mann as an expert witness? He seems to have an allergy to cross examination.
Trying to rig the judicial process with falsified evidence, isn't that what RICO was introduced for?
First issue - not warning their investors - of what? So far as I know AGW has not affected the profitability of Exxon. There may be a problem one day but how many decades in advance does a company have to speculate that something might be an issue affecting business? One might argue that if they had warned investors that oil demand would imminently plunge due to regulations for AGW, then they wold be guilty of misinforming them. They maybe should have warned that mass global production would lead to price competition. If they have to warn about the rise of an Obama type government supposedly banning oil do they also have to explain how invluable oil is and go into length how useless the competition is? Do thay have to speculate how likely their customer countries are to abandon oil if non customers like China do not? Or if they might continue to sell product to developing countries and/or those who do not act on AGW? Are these investigators giving oil companies the duty to outline why fossil fuels are extremely hard to do without? That so long as they give both sides of the debate they will have done their duty?
Did ExxonMobil know more than the IPCC?
And if they did, why didn't they publish it in the peer reviewed literature?
As said before, they are potentially playing a dangerous game for themselves, the last thing these guys want is any oportunity of getting "evidence" into court, & I would find it unusual for a judge to deny the admission of ALL evidence, as one would have to present it a) to make a prosecution, b) to make a defence! Other than a Naziesk how trial type of thing, whereby only onesided eviende is admitted. I don't think we have passed down that route just yet, but there's always a possibility knowing the legal profession!
Alan the Brit, the amount of evidence they can produce in court won't take too much photocopying. Obviously taxpayers of the world would love to see more proof to support the claims of climate scientists, but so far they have a busted Hockey Stick which isn't worth its weight in firewood.
bullocky, I think it was so long ago that all the world's top climate experts were still forecasting a forthcoming ice age, and this was a view supported by the respected science magazines at the time, so climate scientists would have blocked publication of a contrarian opinion.
Obviously climate scientists have continued to block publication of views that rock their gravy train, and derail their boat, but climate scientists have never figured out very much about anything, other than how to maximise Government grants with unprecedented quantities of unforeseen scary superlatives.
These are the companies that support the entire edifice of (Enron created carbon trading) fraud denial. Billions of dollars in free carbon credits have been handed out to big business.
International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)
The biggest lobbying group (486) supporting a global climate deal at the 2009 Copenhagen global climate conference was the International Emissions Trading Association created to promote cap and trade in 1999.
Its members include :-
BP, Conoco Philips, Shell, E.ON , EDF, Gazprom , Goldman Sachs, Barclays, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley..
http://www.ieta.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=19%3Adefault&id=168%3Aour-members&Itemid=82
E.ON , EDF are major coal players in the coal market. Gazprom is the largest Russian oil and gas corporation
"IETA has about 170 member companies.... It was the largest non-government delegation at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen in December 2009."
http://www.marketswiki.com/mwiki/International_Emissions_Trading_Association#Membership
The greens know global warming is a gigantic scam, but can't refuse the money sloshing about.
Friends of the Earth on IETA
The IETA is extremely active in the international climate negotiations, carrying out lobby activities and side events aimed at promoting the uptake and expansion of carbon trading globally. Carbon trading is a false solution to the climate crisis. All existing and planned carbon trading schemes are based on offsetting – an escape hatch for industrialised countries and polluting industries from the deep and urgent emissions reductions that are needed to stop the climate crisis getting worse.
http://www.foei.org/press/archive-by-year/press-2011/climate-talks-corporate-pressure-is-undermining-real-action/
the stock price has barely moved
Savvy investors will know the history of the litigation against Big Tobacco. The settlement seemed destined to write them off, but all they did was agree to pay a yearly bribe to states and milk the smoking public of the monies needed for the aforementioned bribe.
that's why Big Tobacco has consistently been liked by investors, and the BAT price has only gone up during the last 10 years.
I am sure Exxon and other Big Oil companies have all that's needed to get a good settlement in place, whatever the charges. And the effect on emissions will be negligible
Just saw on the BBC Canada that France is to re-instate border controls during the Paris gabfest to ensure that no undesirables with counter opinions to the theme are allowed into the country???
Maybe Lord Monckton should adopt his Arabian headdress and enter via Marseilles as a "refugee" to creep under the dictatorial barrier.
Seems to me to be an act of desperation by the "Warmistas" to prevent any dissent to the "Progrom".
With any luck in December there will be a stationary high pressure Arctic air mass hovering over the European landmass. That would result in a severe shortage of electrons in the UK, the BBC and Guardian will have a hard time creating a positive spin in those conditions and with just a little more luck their stand-by power generators will fail and silence the propaganda machine of the greedy greens.
A person can dream can't he?
It's a non-starter. Unable to do links at the moment but ExxonMobil's 10k has a paragraph about the risks they face from climate change. Their website is full of stuff about how they are reducing NOx at refineries etc. It is just a stupid greeny publicity stunt to claim that they have failed to warn investors.
diogenes
Exxon were promoting cuts in their CO2 emissions as far back as 2003.
There's a story up on the web saying it reports Exxon's response to the LA Times article.
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/la-times-refuses-to-show-so-called-smoking-gun-against-exxon-here-it-is.html
Well if it gets to Court and there is a chance at least some of the dodgy science and data manipulation sees the light of day then it could turn out to be a good thing. But I don't think it will get to Court --it will just drag on and on outside Court and will in the end turn out to be an alarmist PR exercise pre Paris.
golf charlie Nov 6, 2015 at 3:09 PM | Unregistered Commenter
It has been a long-standing position of the science community that research, not published in the peer reviewed literature, is not 'credible'. Also, that research rejected upon peer review, is not credible.
What the inquisition needs, therefore, to clarify, is whether ExxonMobil was responsible for the deliberate withholding of scientifically credible climate change research from peer review, and that such withholding was in the interests of ExxonMobil. Should it be necessary to adjudicate on the question of 'credibility', one would expect the arbiters to be appointed by and from the climate change establishment.
If, as you suggest, it was 'so long ago' that the research counter-dicted the prevailing climate consensus of a general cooling, ExxonMobil may well claim that then, as now, anti-consensus views held little credibility. Here, one can perceive the fragility of the 'consensus' argument.
Of course, Lord Oxburgh could bring this investigation to a swift and concise conclusion; the problem is that his specialty is exoneration rather than culpability.... (sarc)
Quite a bit more than that. Depends on the approach, though.
On an investor basis, the plaintiff would have that Exxon knowingly took actions detrimental to Exxon and the stock price. Even though that is the opening ploy of the Attorney General, I can't see that getting any real traction. If the AG is hoping that discovery will uncover a smoking gun, it won't be long before he learns a lot more about Corporate law, the hard way.
If they're hoping for moving into a RICO investigation the plaintiffs have a lot of Exxon racketeering to prove before they get to start a general discovery search.
Meanwhile, giving the recent news about the genesis to activist thinking along with their plans to instigate RICO charges and somehow dredge up a 'smoking gun' inner circle paper; Exxon/Mobil has a lot of reason to investigate the origin of the investigation plans plus any communication corridors those plans passed through.
Another rude education in Corporate law coming up.
Unlike the tobacco investigations, climate activists must produce very real evidence for CO2 damages. Any attempts to correlate CO2 to temperatures by the activists will be quite amusing. Courts will not take eighteen years of CO2 inaction on temperatures lightly. Pointing outside the courtroom and asking where are the warmer temperatures? Prove that temperature rise beyond an absolute doubt!
bullocky & ATheoK
Under American Law, is this an example of guilt being presumed by the media, until innocence is proven?
This seems to be a bit like a dog running and barking at a passing car, without any idea what it will do, if the car stops.
The stakes are high in this game, and it could back fire in one of two ways.
First, the Oil Majors have gone along with all this green madness and Climate alarmism since they can make more money out of trading carbon bonds and developing alternative energy than they can make from trading oil. In fact oil trade itself (as opposed to exploration and development) forms only a small part of the profits. But if the Oil Majors are going to be sued over Climate Change, it may be in their interests to prove that the current science is unsound and that presently there appears no firm evidence that CO2 (at current levels) does anything other than greening the planet. The Green blob might find that, instead of dealing with spineless Governments, it has taken on an opponent that can bite back and has deep pockets with which to mount a counter attack.
Second, the destruction and emancipation of the Oil Majors would be a catastrophic blow for society since unlike many companies such as Google, Starbucks, Amazon, eBay and their like where there are significant issues regarding the amount of tax that they pay, Oil Majors pay vast sums to the exchequers. If the Government was to lose that money, the health service and welfare would severely suffer since there would be a huge hole in the Government finances which no other business could fill. There is no way that windfarm operators or solar farm operators will be paying in tax the sums that Exxon and other Oil Majors do. So should serious harm be dealt to Exxon (and other Oil Majors) this will hurt the lefties far more than they realise since their beloved welfare state will likely fall with it.
One should be very wary as to how this game may unfold.
I'm not sure exactly what is the example you are referring to, Golf Charlie.
I am sure that the dog knows exactly what it is doing. In the dog's mind, it is successfully chasing away a fleeing beast.
If, by some lucky break the dog catches the car, I am also sure that in the dog's mind it will give the car a thorough barking and maybe bitten too.
It will not be in the dog's mind that the car can inflict fatal injuries; even on dogs biting on the rear tires.
The same appears to be green activist thinking. From several separate news accounts, the activists are convinced there are nefarious and condemning papers just out of their reach hidden by the big oil companies.
Activists are so convinced of this, that in activist thinking, big oil companies greatly fear the activists and regularly review damning evidence along with analyzing and listing their most fearsome green activist opponents...
It is a similar illness to individuals firmly believing that destroying property, injuring or even murdering innocents gains them fame as heroes. That achieving even some glimmer of news fame is their success and proof.
I expect the green activists are destined to be frightening oldsters forever muttering to themselves about doomed mankind. It is a crying shame that many of the worst most dire CAGW activists are able to afford quite comfortable retirements in beautiful locales; all at our expense and with no lives saved.
I find this a very disturbing development.
If I were the Exxon lawyers, I might be inclined to visit the transcript of the recent APS review of its statement on climate change, and the story of what happened to Steve Koonin.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-science-is-not-settled-1411143565
It seems quite extraordinary that anyone might think that Exxon could be more certain of the science 30 years ago than we are today - and with a certainty sufficient not only to justify but to obligate a redirection of corporate risk management. Ridiculous.
Oil producers have typically been very small producers of CO2. It has been the end-users of their product who have generated the CO2. Exxon should have redirected its policy when the most convinced climate scientists of the day wouldn't give up their cars? Are all electricity generators guilty too? Presumably the level of guilt across all of society will be determined by the degree of certainty that the end-user had in the lethal nature of CO2 production? Phhht.
Reference has been made to the LA Times hatchet job, the nub of which was that Exxon “poured millions into a campaign that questioned climate change.” Exxon wrote to the LA Times, pointing out that there had been massive selective quotation from a key document that actually said something diametrically different. The LA Times refused to publish a correction.
Exxon published a rebuttal and the full document on 5th November (http://www.exxonmobilperspectives.com/2015/11/05/a-case-for-readers-to-read-for-themselves/). It is quite clear that the LA Times was guilty of the worst kind of unethical journalism, and its refusal to publish Exxon’s side of the story compounds that lack of ethics.
But of course it creates an opening for an ambitious lawyer to get in on a non-act. I'm still trying to find the origin of the definition "Lawyer - a beast of prey that feasts on human folly". No, its not Ambrose Bierce.