ExxonMobil disinformation tactics on science

ExxonMobil disinformation tactics on science

    
January 2007  - ExxonMobil has adopted 
the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics to cloud the 
scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on 
the issue, the Union of Concerned Scientists claims in a new 
report published Wednesday. 
ExxonMobil, the world's largest publicly traded corporation, 
responded Thursday by calling the Union of Concerned 
Scientists' paper "deeply offensive and wrong." 
Rex Tillerson is chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil. (Photo 
courtesy ExxonMobil) 
"ExxonMobil engages in public policy discussions by 
encouraging serious inquiry, analysis, the sharing of 
information and transparency," the company said in a 
statement. 
According to the report, between 1998 and 2005 ExxonMobil 
"directed nearly $16 million to a network of 43 advocacy 
organizations that seek to confuse the public on global 
warming science." 
"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human 
causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied 
their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, director 
of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, 
a 200,000 member organization based in Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. 
"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," Myer said. 
Alden Meyer is director of strategy and policy for the Union 
of Concerned Scientists. (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations 
Bulletin) 
ExxonMobil acknowledged in its response that emissions from 
the burning of fossil fuels are linked with climate change. 
"While there is more to learn on climate science," the company 
said, "what is clear today is that greenhouse gas emissions 
are one of the factors that contribute to climate change, and 
that the use of fossil fuels is a major source of these 
emissions." 
The Union of Concerned Scientists report, "Smoke, Mirrors & 
Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to 
Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Change," states that the 
oil company, like the tobacco industry in previous decades, 
has "raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific 
evidence." 
It says the company "funded an array of front organizations to 
create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit 
group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent 
peer-reviewed scientific findings." 
The Union of Concerned Scientists, UCS, report says the 
company "attempted to portray its opposition to action as a 
positive quest for 'sound science' rather than business 
self-interest," and "used its access to the Bush 
administration to block federal policies and shape government 
communications on global warming." 
The company responds that its financial support of public 
policy organizations "extends to a fairly broad array of 
organizations that research significant domestic and foreign 
policy issues and promote discussion on issues of direct 
relevance to the company. These groups range from the 
Brookings Institution to the American Enterprise Institute and 
from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Center for 
Strategic and International Studies." 
ExxonMobil production platform in the North Sea (Photo 
courtesy ExxonMobil) 
"As these organizations are independent of their corporate 
sponsors and are tax-exempt, we don’t control their views and 
messages, and they do not speak on our behalf," ExxonMobil 
says. "In many cases and with respect to the full range of 
policy positions taken by these organizations, we find some of 
them persuasive and enlightening, and some not." 
A review of the company's 2005 list of contributions to public 
policy organizations totals $6,778,000. The recipients include 
political groups such as the Western Governors' Association 
and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, many 
universities, and think tanks such as the George C. Marshall 
Institute, prominently mentioned in the Union of Concerned 
Scientists report. 
Jeff Kueter, president of the George Marshall Institute, 
called the report an attempt at "censorship." In a statement 
Thursday, Kueter said, "We also want to be perfectly clear - 
no grant to the Institute is contingent on us supporting a 
specific point of view or conclusion. Our views on climate 
change long predate any support from any corporate entity." 
Kueter calls the report a "campaign to shut off funding of 
organizations that do not accept the global warming 
orthodoxy." 
"If the UCS disagrees with the views of those they label 
'skeptics,'" says Kueter, "they should explain why instead of 
attempting to censure free speech." 
The UCS states that the George C. Marshall Institute has 
received $630,000 from ExxonMobil, and recently "touted a book 
edited by Patrick Michaels, a long-time climate change 
contrarian who is affiliated with at least 11 organizations 
funded by ExxonMobil." 
Kueter responds, "The Institute’s book, Shattered Consensus, 
is cited as an example of “information laundering” (pg. 12) 
yet the UCS provides no refutation of the contents of the 10 
chapters in this well-reviewed book. Should the rights of 
these authors to publish a book be left to the UCS to decide?" 

"The book’s editor, Patrick Michaels, was a co-author of the 
climate science paper of the year for 2004 recognized by the 
Association of American Geographers," writes Kueter. 
The groups criticized by the Union of Concerned Scientists are 
those, like the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, a 
libertarian nonprofit research and education organization that 
promotes "market-based approaches to environmental 
protection." 
Exxon gas-fired power station at Wilton, Cleveland, UK (Photo 
courtesy FreeFoto) 
The Heartland Institute publishes writers such as Joseph Bast, 
who calls the global warming film, "An Inconvenient Truth," by 
former Vice President Al Gore "alarmist." He characterizes the 
film as "gorgeous propaganda." 
Bast attributes current melting of ice in Arctic, Greenland, 
and the Antarctic to "a natural cycle caused by ocean 
currents, not greenhouse gases," and Mount Kilimanjaro’s 
disappearing snow cap to "changes in land use at the bottom of 
the mountain, causing drier air to rise up the mountain’s 
side." 
"Gore ignores these inconvenient facts because, he says, the 
only people who disagree with him are oil company stooges. At 
one point he compares scientists who disagree with him with 
apologists for the tobacco industry," Bast writes. 
That is the very point made by the Union of Concerned 
Scientists in its report. 
"ExxonMobil’s funding of established research institutions 
that seek to better understand science, policies, and 
technologies to address global warming has given the 
corporation “cover,” while its funding of ideological and 
advocacy organizations to conduct a disinformation campaign 
works to confuse that understanding. This seemingly 
inconsistent activity makes sense when looked at through a 
broader lens," the UCS writes. 
"Like the tobacco companies in previous decades, this strategy 
provides a positive “pro-science” public stance for ExxonMobil 
that masks their activity to delay meaningful action on global 
warming and helps keep the public debate stalled on the 
science rather than focused on policy options to address the 
problem." 
"In addition, like Big Tobacco before it, ExxonMobil has been 
enormously successful at influencing the current 
administration and key members of Congress," the UCS report 
states. 
ExxonMobil Chemical's largest synthetics plant is in Beaumont, 
Texas. The company is a manufacturer of synthetic base fluids 
and additive packages. (Photo courtesy ExxonMobil) 
The world's largest refiner and marketer of petroleum 
products, ExxonMobil has a presence in 200 countries. Based in 
Irving, Texas, the company holds exploration rights to 109 
million undeveloped acres in 37 countries, and has underway 
more than 100 new development projects and global gas and 
power marketing activities. Its chemical division ranks among 
the world's largest petrochemical enterprises, the company 
says on its website. 
"When one looks closely, ExxonMobil's underhanded strategy is 
as clear and indisputable as the scientific research it's 
meant to discredit," said Seth Shulman, an award-winning 
journalist who wrote the UCS report. "The paper trail shows 
that, to serve its corporate interests, ExxonMobil has built a 
vast echo chamber of seemingly independent groups with the 
express purpose of spreading disinformation about global 
warming." 
"ExxonMobil’s cynical strategy is built around the notion that 
public opinion can be easily manipulated because climate 
science is complex, because people tend not to notice where 
their information comes from, and because the effects of 
global warming are just beginning to become visible," Shulman 
writes. "But ExxonMobil may well have underestimated the 
public. The company’s strategy quickly unravels when people 
understand it for what it is: an active campaign of 
disinformation." 
ExxonMobil responds, "Our support of scientific research on 
climate change is made public on our website and it includes 
more than 40 peer reviewed papers authored by ExxonMobil 
scientists, and our participation on the United Nations 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and numerous 
related scientific bodies." 
"As a scientist, I like to think that facts will prevail, and 
they do eventually," said Dr. James McCarthy, Alexander 
Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard 
University and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change's working group on climate change impacts. 
"It's shameful that ExxonMobil has sought to obscure the facts 
for so long," he said, "when the future of our planet depends 
on the steps we take now and in the coming years." 
To view ExxonMobil's list of grant recipients in 2005, click 
here. 
To read the Union of Concerned Scientists report, "Smoke, 
Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics 
to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Change," click here.