From The Just-In-Time File: Exxon Mobil Has No More Doubts On Warming - Houston Chronicle

[hatrack]

Thanks for all your help over the years, guys! Thanks a WHOLE FUCKING LOT.

Big Oil behemoth Exxon Mobil Corp. has dropped any pretense of questioning whether global warming is real. Now the company is seeking to position itself as an active player in efforts to lower greenhouse gases.

"The appropriate debate isn't on whether climate is changing, but rather should be on what we should be doing about it," Kenneth Cohen, Exxon's vice president of public affairs, told reporters on a conference call Thursday.

The call came less than a week after an international panel of hundreds of scientists said new research showed global warming was "unequivocal" and that human activity was primarily responsible for the most significant factor in temperature change — greenhouse gases.

"Climate is changing. It's a serious issue. The evidence is there," Cohen said on the call, which was arranged in part to allow Exxon to state its position on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report. When pressed, Cohen said "there is no question that human activity is the source of carbon dioxide emissions," and emphasized that Exxon is working with various policy groups and universities to find ways to produce energy while lowering greenhouse gases.

EDIT

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4539329.html

[phantom power]

1. I guess I'm forced to call this progress.

A year ago, they were still officially denying the entire thing.

[Ian David]

2. ExxonMobile should have their corporate charter revoked, n/t

[In Truth We Trust]

3. Have they paid the fine they owe to the people of Alaska re: the Exxon Valdez yet?

They can bribe scientists at 10k a clip for bogus science, and they post quarter over quarter world record shattering profits in the 30-40 billion dollar range yet they can't pay their measly 30 million dollar fine.

[Shoelace]

4. Exxon shareholder pressure? Bad pr from the AEI caper?

thanks Hatrack and a big thanks to Exxonmobil for playing, paying for the cadre of climate skeptics out there on every climate change blog, trolling them all to death with disinfo comments meant to plant doubt about the mechanics of climate change!

I did read that at least 28% of their shareholders had tried since about 2001, to pressure Exxon into acknowledging climate change and it's consequences (to no avail). However, it appears that their support of AEI, the guys who are paying out 10K to anybody who writes essays against IPCC's latest findings, are what really brought them to this timely pronouncement.

That they still will not invest in clean energy ("because it's not profitable" and the will need "subsidies") speaks to their insatiable greed. Yea, I really feel like subsidizing their ventures into clean energy after seeing their latest profit figures

I doubt that they will stop funding the various climate skeptics who continue to pump out disinformation faster than their own oil wells. :grr:

Exxon might stop funding a couple of think tanks but surely they'll find other ways to sabotage any policy changes that might affect their massive profits.

[Javaman]

5. Why don't I believe them?

color me skeptical but I just don't believe a multinational corp such as exxon/mobile who make their money by selling us stuff that pollutes the air suddenly changes it's mind.

Call me kooky, but I believe that they must have something up their sleeve.

[applegrove]

6. Must have been getting a little to "hot" for them out there...