Exxon Business Ambition Collided with Climate Change Under a Distant Sea

Throughout the 1980s, the company struggled to solve the carbon problem of one of the biggest gas fields in the world out of concern for climate impacts.

by Neela Banerjee & Lisa Song

Oct 8, 2015

After Exxon got the rights to develop the Natuna gas field, company researchers determined that the project site was contaminated with much more carbon dioxide than normal. This picture is from one of the company’s documents exploring how to address the carbon dioxide issue.

In 1980, as Exxon Corp. set out to develop one of the world’s largest deposits of natural gas, it found itself facing an unfamiliar risk: the project would emit immense amounts of carbon dioxide, adding to the looming threat of climate change.

The problem cropped up shortly after Exxon signed a contract with the Indonesian state oil company to exploit the Natuna gas field in the South China Sea—big enough to supply the blossoming markets of Japan, Taiwan and Korea with liquefied natural gas into the 21st century.

Assessing the environmental impacts, Exxon Research and Engineering quickly identified Natuna’s greenhouse gas problem. The reservoir was contaminated with much more carbon dioxide than normal. It would have to be disposed of somehow—and simply venting it into the air could have serious consequences, Exxon’s experts warned.

Exxon’s dawning realization that carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect posed a danger to the world collided with the company’s fossil fuel ambitions.

“They were being farsighted,” recalled John L. Woodward, who wrote an internal report in 1981 on Natuna’s climate implications.

…(read more).

See also:

• Bill McKibben Wants Everyone to Know Why He’s So Mad at Exxon October 20, 2015
• Exxon Research — James F. Black, 1977 October 20, 2015
• Bill McKibben : Exxon Knew Everything There Was to Know About Climate Change by the Mid-1980s—and Denied It October 20, 2015

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Bill McKibben Wants Everyone to Know Why He’s So Mad at Exxon

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, staged a one-man protest of Exxon’s climate denial last Friday. Credit: Bill McKibben via Twitter

Revelations that the energy giant knew about climate change and obstructed policy prompted him to get himself arrested in protest.

By Katherine Bagley, InsideClimate News Oct 19, 2015

Climate activist Bill McKibben has already written editorials about recent revelations that ExxonMobil had deep knowledge of climate change as far back as the 1970s. He had taken to social media to spread the word. But last week, he felt that wasn’t enough and decided to protest and get himself arrested at an ExxonMobil station in Burlington, Vt.

That’s how angry McKibben was that the energy giant had known for four decades that burning fossil fuels was changing the earth’s climate—and then chose to ignore it and fund efforts to deny it.

The findings were reported in two separate investigations by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times into how much Exxon knew about climate change and when.

The stories “change the accepted narrative of the fight I’ve spent almost my whole adult life engaged in,” McKibben, co-founder of the environmental organization 350.org, told InsideClimate News the day after his arrest. “Had Exxon been forthright in the late 80s or early 90s, they could have short-circuited the faux debate we’ve been engaged in all these decades. They were the ones that had the unique credibility to do it.”

…(read more).

See also:

• Exxon Business Ambition Collided with Climate Change Under a Distant Sea October 20, 2015
• Exxon Research — James F. Black, 1977 October 20, 2015
• Bill McKibben : Exxon Knew Everything There Was to Know About Climate Change by the Mid-1980s—and Denied It October 20, 2015

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Exxon Climate Research — Clear since work of James F. Black, 1977

The Big Picture RT  Published on Oct 21, 2015

After a 7 year federal investigation – the tobacco lobby was found guilty of violating federal racketeering laws. And now the prosecutor who tried that case is calling for a federal investigation into Exxon. Find out why…

See also:

• Exxon Business Ambition Collided with Climate Change Under a Distant Sea October 20, 2015
• Bill McKibben Wants Everyone to Know Why He’s So Mad at Exxon October 20, 2015
• Bill McKibben : Exxon Knew Everything There Was to Know About Climate Change by the Mid-1980s—and Denied It October 20, 2015

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

We Shouldn’t Honor Genocidal Colonialists – End Columbus Day Now

The Big Picture RT

Published on Oct 13, 2015

It’s time for the entire country to do what a growing number of towns and states are doing – re-name Columbus Day.

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Bill McKibben : Exxon Knew Everything There Was to Know About Climate Change by the Mid-1980s—and Denied It

Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil CEO and Chairman. (Reuters / Kevin Lamarque)

A few weeks before the last great international climate conference—2009, in Copenhagen—the e-mail accounts of a few climate scientists were hacked and reviewed for incriminating evidence suggesting that global warming was a charade. Eight separate investigations later concluded that there was literally nothing to “Climategate,” save a few sentences taken completely out of context—but by that time, endless, breathless media accounts about the “scandal” had damaged the prospects for any progress at the conference.

See also:

• Exxon Business Ambition Collided with Climate Change Under a Distant Sea October 20, 2015
• Bill McKibben Wants Everyone to Know Why He’s So Mad at Exxon October 20, 2015
• Exxon Research — James Black, 1977 October 20, 2015

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

shock doctrine – shock dogma

Stelios Pafios

Published on Apr 30, 2012

shock doctrine – shock dogma – A GREAT DOCUMENTARY

Global Climate Change
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The Shock Doctrine – Official Trailer

Autour du Monde Diplomatique

Published on Jul 28, 2012

The Shock Doctrine takes an in-depth look into “disaster capitalism”, analysing how such an ideal has asserted itself as a dominant presence in politics and society.
The film traces the doctrine’s beginnings in the radical theories of Milton Friedman, and its implementation in countries and situations as disparate as Pinochet’s Chile, Thatcher’s Britain, and most recently the neo-con invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It will expose the darker side of Friedman’s ideology, which could only be implemented through the use of torture and repression.

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Right-Wing Pegida Party Marks 1st Anniversary amid Protests + French Far-Right Leader Marine Le Pen Faces Trial for Hate Speech

In Germany, tens of thousands of demonstrators and counterdemonstrators gathered in the eastern city of Dresden as the right-wing, anti-Islam Pegida party marked its first anniversary. The regional chairman of the Green Party, Jürgen Kasek, was among those to protest Pegida.

Jürgen Kasek: “We have experienced a year in which divisions have become more deeply entrenched in society, a year in which the situation has become ever more radical and when anybody expressing a different opinion—media representatives, for example—are no longer safe on the streets on Mondays. Therefore, I believe it is extremely important and necessary to send a clear message today and then not to break off, but to continually make it clear that there must be opposition to attitudes that are hostile toward human beings.”

The rallies in Germany came as thousands of refugees seeking to reach Germany and other countries have been stranded in the rain and cold at borders in the Balkans as nations restrict entry.

French Far-Right Leader Marine Le Pen Faces Trial for Hate Speech

In France, Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, is going on trial today on charges of hate speech. At a rally in 2010, Le Pen compared Muslim public prayers to the Nazi occupation.

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

What Is… Glacial Retreat?

GreenTV

Published on Oct 20, 2015

The world’s glaciers are retreating at a concerning rate. Find out why, and why it matters to the world, in this short film, the second in our ‘What Is…?’ series that explains the concepts and busts the jargon behind climate science.

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

White House Champions of Change – Sustainable and Climate-Smart Agriculture

The White House

Scheduled for Oct 26, 2015

The White House Champions of Change event will honor eleven Champions of Change who are innovating in transportation and growing the American economy.

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Food-Matters