by Judith Curry
AGU Board votes to continue relationship with Exxon-Mobil and to accept sponsorship support.
You may recall a recent post AGU, Exxon and the corporate funding dilemma, which was written in response to a letter from a group of AGU members urging the AGU to sever its relationship with Exxon- Mobil.
The AGU Board has deliberated on this issue, and AGU President Margaret Leinen has posted a statement AGU BOARD VOTES TO CONTINUE RELATIONSHIP WITH EXXON-MOBIL AND TO ACCEPT SPONSORSHIP SUPPORT. The complete text is appended below:
As you know from my previous messages, the question of AGU’s relationship with ExxonMobil (and our relationship with the larger oil and gas industry) has been a topic of great discussion for the last few months. When the most recent request to end ExxonMobil sponsorship and address questions about how our community should respond to the urgency of climate change was received in February, in the form of a letter signed by more than 170 AGU members and others in the climate science community, we treated it with the utmost concern and respect. The Board spent several hours over the course of our two-day meeting last week discussing the diversity of opinions amongst the membership of AGU, as well as the pros/cons of the various choices we might make, giving each equal importance and weight.
In my nearly 5 year tenure on the AGU Board, I can say that this was one of the most important and nuanced discussions* the Board has ever had. We knew that our decision would have implications for our members, our programs and our relationships with the many sectors and industries that comprise AGU’s broad membership. We knew that it could even result in the loss of members, as some individuals on both sides of the issue vowed to resign if our decision did not support their view. Given the importance of this decision, we proceeded carefully by reviewing more than 400 pages of background material** including a detailed report provided by the letter writers, every comment documented at our Council meeting and every communication sent to me by an individual member. We then conferred in a manner that allowed the range of opinions on the subject to be expressed and considered.
As with our members, board members presented various viewpoints and we thoroughly considered all of them. We had detailed discussions about whether ExxonMobil’s current actions are inconsistent with our organizational support policy in two areas: 1) promoting science misinformation and funding groups that are currently promoting misinformation about science, and 2) the potential impact of publicity about investigations into the company on AGU’s reputation. We concluded that it is not possible for us to determine unequivocally whether ExxonMobil is participating in misinformation about science currently, either directly or indirectly, and that AGU’s acceptance of sponsorship of the 2015 Student Breakfast does not constitute a threat to AGU’s reputation. We also discussed a multitude of options for moving forward, ranging from severing all ties with ExxonMobil, to maintaining our engagement with ExxonMobil but no longer accepting their sponsorship, to maintaining the relationship and sponsorship agreement, as well as developing new ways to strengthen our engagement and influence with the energy industry – and everything in-between.
In all of those discussions, we were careful to listen to each other closely and respectfully, even when we didn’t agree on a particular point. We did not take up our final votes until the Board affirmed that all viewpoints were heard and understood and that they were ready to make decisions.
In the end, by a majority vote, the board passed a motion that approved “continuing our current engagement between ExxonMobil and AGU including acceptance of funding from ExxonMobil.” (In 2015 that support consisted of a $35,000 sponsorship of the Student Breakfast at the Fall Meeting; based on current information, if we are offered support for 2016, we can accept it).
We were unanimous in our view that this issue has presented an opportunity and an obligation for us to exercise our convening role by bringing together those with diverse views across the science community to engage more directly with the private sector, and with ExxonMobil in particular. AGU is committed to creating an environment for dialogue about the roles of the science and business communities in all the sectors where science plays an essential role, and to exploring broadly and deeply the issues of energy, environment and climate change with the energy industry, our members and other stakeholders.
As always, I encourage you to share your thoughts and input on these decisions with us. You can do so by leaving a comment on this post, or by sending an email to president@agu.org. In particular, I ask that you share your ideas about how we can more productively engage with the energy industry moving forward. We are already working on plans for an event/events to bring together the many views on these issues in a civil dialogue, but that cannot be the end of our engagement. Our intent is to develop a longer-term effort that draws on our ability as a scientific community to engage with the private sector to grapple with the challenging issues faced by society – including not just climate and energy issues but also scientific integrity.
In closing, I want you all to know that, whether you agree with the Board’s decisions or not, I personally thank you for your commitment to your science and your commitment to AGU. Even though it has been difficult at times, seeing you speak out, passionately and thoughtfully, about an issue like this has made me incredibly proud of our community and honored to serve as your president. Please don’t limit that passion and action to just this one issue. AGU is your organization, and when you engage with it like you have these last few months, you make it a better place for science.
Because we know that you may have questions regarding the Board’s decision and the path we have chosen for moving forward, we have scheduled two times next week for interested AGU members to call in and share their thoughts with Executive Director/CEO Christine McEntee, President-elect Eric Davidson and me. The first call will be held on 20 April at 10 A.M. ET; the second will be held on 22 April at 3 P.M. ET. Space will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. To participate in one of these calls, please email your R.S.V.P. to feedback@agu.org.
*Prior to any discussion on these issues, all Board members were asked to declare any potential conflicts of interest. Three individuals declared potential conflicts of interest – though it was noted that nearly every university represented in the room receives some degree of funding from ExxonMobil. One Board member volunteered to recuse himself from voting on the issue and that offer was accepted.
**Prior to the meeting, Board members reviewed a nearly-400-page packet of background materials that included copies of all correspondence AGU has received on the subject: the letters sent to us (and our responses); the more than 150 emails we received; the numerous tweets and blog comments that have come in over the last few months; a detailed report on ExxonMobil activities presented by the originators of the letter (in addition to the letter itself and other supporting materials); published news reports and peer-reviewed articles on ExxonMobil’s activities; statements about climate change from ExxonMobil’s website, a transcript from one of its shareholder meetings, and a letter that ExxonMobil sent to us; a report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists; and a report on the feedback provided by the Council during their meeting in March.
JC reflections
Well, I couldn’t have said this better myself. Given the way the professional societies have been behaving on this issue, this statement from Margaret Leinen is really a huge breath of fresh air, and perhaps opens the door to saner perspectives from the professional societies in:
- recognizing the diversity of opinions and genuine scientific uncertainties and basis for disagrement
- seeking to support genuine grappling with the issues facing society over the climate and energy issues, not just demonizing energy companies
- seeking to engage productively with energy companies
This is really a very big deal – well it shouldn’t be, but it is, given the past behavior of AGU and other professional societies as advocates for specific public policies that have ‘overplayed’ their scientific ‘hand,’ to use a poker analogy.
Looks like I better get busy and renew my dues to the AGU. Kudos to Margaret Leinen and the AGU Board. It will be interesting to see how the members react.
Just read that in my Inbox. Good call.
Money talks. Bullsh!t walks.
AGU is proud to accept Exxon-Mobil’s filthy lucre. In the name of good science of course. Et vomere.
Yes cuz only taxpayer cash is clean cash.
Spoken like a true zealot of the faith, David. ExxonMobil MUST be dirty because they are making a profit. Of course most of the high priests and demagogues of the Climate Faithful are raking in the cash, whether from ‘climate science’ grants, subsidies for their ‘renewable energy’ programs, or some other government trough. But at least your thought leaders (who lead by doing all your thinking for you) aren’t making their ‘filthy lucre’ through the Capitalist method of selling something others actually want. Something so mercantile could never be contemplated be the true children of Lenin and Che.
It occurs to me I forgot a /sarc tag on my comment above and some m0r0n might think I was serious without it.
Sorry David, if you did mean it as a sarc. As Max shows below, some on the CAGW bandwagon think EXACTLy like that.
Though who that leaves as a moron might be anyone guess. <_<
In the past I have accused technical societies of being the marketing organization for their members financial interests. At least in this instance, the AGU has proved me wrong. These adults have allowed scientific principles to prevail. The better arguments can prevail only if they have a forum at which to make their arguments. Kudus to the AGU!
Plus many.
Adults indeed. Instead of taking a reflexive adolescent position this organization reminds us that the world is more complex and nuanced than some want to believe and it showed leadership in addressing the issue with thoughtfulness and circumspection.
The environmental movement, moving out of middle age, could learn a few things. Rabid, uninformed and oversimplified
passion solves very little. Adults know that.
During the Viet Nam engagement, there were groups advocating not paying a portion of their taxes to the US Government that was supporting the war effort. The IRS (Is April 15th upon us already?) ruled such selective tax payments were illegal and one had to pay all taxes due.
Now I realize that membership in trade group organizations is more voluntary than owing the IRS. These groups play an important role, in the aggregate for enhancing the viewpoint of the members in general:
“An industry trade association participates in public relations activities such as advertising, education, political donations, lobbying and publishing, but its focus is collaboration between companies. Associations may offer other services, such as producing conferences, networking or charitable events or offering classes or educational materials. Many associations are non-profit organizations governed by bylaws and directed by officers who are also members.” (Wiki)
When the directing officers go off the rail, as the AGU’s apparently did regarding outspokenness on Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, some reigning in of the leadership group becomes necessary. The only means to accomplish such guidance to the leadership usually falls to petition of grievances and, if that doesn’t work, referendum and recall; and, if that doesn’t at least get a hearing at the leadership court, the resignation from the organization.
Judith, reluctantly, did not renew her membership as I am told. There were other members who publicly resigned in letters, speeches and candid interviews. The message, that there is another viewpoint that needs airing may have come through to the leadership; or, the basis upon which the leadership had made it’s bold declaration in the name of the whole membership, has begun to crumble.
As things are now beginning to appear, CAGW may not be catastrophic; the Anthropogenic component may not be so large, and the Global Warming component may not be so bad. New information seems to be seeping through the censorship barrier and, the more one knows, the more one is uncertain, and less secure in one’s certitude. Hence, change. Of course, no apology for being too quick on the trigger declaring “we are all going to hell in a hand basket”, yet, as the crowds that had previously been large when one spoke, are now diminished, people heading for the exits as you speak, doubt enters one’s thoughts, and then words of doubt, and then actions, have you slinking off into the corner, hiding from scrutiny and the public eye.
Are the Greens in retreat? No, of course not. It is better to hold one’s ground, no matter how untenable one’s position, loose your life on the ramparts seems to be the message. Better suicide by the tide of negative public opinion, than concede you were wrong. The remaining less suicidal dedicated cadre will lurk in the darkness, sniping at those who have advanced the cause of science, once again. The Greens, reduced to gorilla warfare, survives until the leadership grows old and can’t even hear themselves let alone anyone near them.
“Judith, reluctantly, did not renew her membership as I am told. There were other members who publicly resigned in letters, speeches and candid interviews.”
_____
A drop in the bucket. Good riddance.
I’ll bet most of those who didn’t renew their membership were seniors who wouldn’t have been live members much longer anyway. No big loss to AGU.
Actually, JC is renewing her membership. She’s not a poor loser. She’s not a cry-baby. Good for her.
max10k
“A drop in the bucket. Good riddance.”
You speak too soon. There are a large number of climate catastrophists including POTUS. Whether motivated by an alternative agenda, a social agenda of conformity to equality for all, an agenda necessitating a change in the social order, economic stagnation, redistribution of wealth and an itinerary of ever diminishing financial resources, never the less, a large number of current US Greens cannot see that using other people’s money for a social order of their preference is dependent upon redistribution of what is available currently, to satisfy the many, means that one runs out of “other people’s money”. The Soviet Union collapsed when the people in power could no longer fleece the peasants. They, the peasants, had already been collectivized and had no resources of their own. The “State” already owned the means of production. The saying: “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us” speak to the last vestiges of an economic ideology that everyone is entitled to the gift of other’s productivity.
The Green Agenda means that others have to conform, not the Greens. And yet, Catastrophists require an allegiance that, frankly, is not sustainable. After you get home from the rally meeting, you have to do something, and, frequently that means paying your bills, look to the future of your family and one’s self.
Organizations like AGU are, like guilds of Medieval Ages, formed to further one’s cause, job, and skills to be recognized as valuable and worthy of protection. When one’s guild is to foster dissent and confusion as is the Green’s, as well as promote a nebulous future that has little or no grounds in reality, i.e., the climate of the here and now, one’s ideology ends in catastrophe, deservedly so.
In the so called “light of day”, when the earth’s temperature does not follow in lock step with the rise in CO2, when temperature rises of the past are not explained by the current paradigm, when there is more uncertainty than certainty, that is the time when the few who trumpet the loudest see no alternative than to fall on their swords. And the minions, who supported the leadership even in its fall, hide in the recesses of reality, and can be heard mumbling of what might have been.
The McKibben’s and Schmidts, the Manns and the Hansen’s are to be pitted, for their downfall is of their own making, and public.
Re AGO Motto.
‘Unselfish co-operation in research,’
sharing your data and its works,
allowing colliding theories and points of view,
kinda’ like the fizz experienced at sea-ports,
who knows what novel or seditious thoughts?
AGO motto ‘observed,’ like the Royal Society
‘Nullius in Verba,’ it’s the way to go for trial and
error evolution of knowledge that needs withstand
domination by rigid-top-down-authority …
or its societies.
Comments by RiHoo8 and Beth make me want to give more to Greenpeace.
RiHoo8 seems to think an individual should have the right to tell the government exactly how he wants his tax dollars spent. I think that’s a great idea. I would tell the government to spend all my tax dollars on green causes. Well, not all, but a lot.
max10k
Today is tax day. I have payed my fair share, filed the correct forms and voted in the Primary election for a Presidential candidate. I have done my duty. The US Government has my money and will get along without my guidance for another year.
Such is not true for Greenpeace and other activist NGOs. They are net destroyers; they tear things down. What environmental disrupters such as Greenpeace do by their illegal activities as in trashing GMO wheat fields or desecrating World Heritage sites (Nazca Lines in Peru), is create an activist cadre of immature “look at me” types, whose self-importance is greater than the respect due to others, who work in the environment industry. Those who actually do the work: ask the questions, write the grant, collect the data, and then try to make sense of the data that was collected have been marginalized to the extent that they no longer have a say in the direction of the narrative. This has been true for AGU, maybe, until recently. We will see.
https://7373-presscdn-0-43-pagely.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Greenpeace-nazca-lines.jpg
There was an apology and a lot of talk about prosecutions. They were also trying to identify the archeologist who led them to the site and presumably helped them damage the site with footprints, etc.
Some friends of mine were invited by Peru to fly over those drawings in a hot-air balloon. They were investigating a theory that the drawings were made because they were capable of flight.
JCH
That’s interesting about Peru. I seem to remember you saying you used to visit a store to buy material to make hot air balloons?
If so, was the technology (materials, ideas etc) available for a manned flight over Peru 300 years before the first officially recorded one? Seems unlikely, but certainly some monuments seem to have been designed from an aerial viewpoint
tonyb
That’s why they were there… to see if they could build a lighter-than-air craft out of materials that were available to the inhabitants who made the drawings. There is a lake there that has tall reeds. They make boats out of them that are light and strong. So a lightweight basket was easily possible. But I think the whole thing is highly unlikely. How would they have known everything had to be lightweight? How would they have known the fabric had to be sealed in some manner with a very lightweight substance? You can do it with smoke, but it doesn’t last very long.
But they had a great trip.
JCH
Intriguing.
Well, the ancient Greeks invented a steam driven door opener and a vending machine for holy water, so I suppose that someone 2000 years later could have thought through all the weight issues for a Peruvian hot air balloon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria
It seems unlikely though that sufficient flights could have been made to map and produce the finished lines on the ground even if a one off ‘flight’ had somehow been achieved, and here we are straying into Von Daniken territory better left un-strayed..
tonyb
FYI – the Nazca lines were made by people who lived there between the first and seventh centuries A.D. Chinese lanterns (a.k.a. sky lanterns) are small hot air balloons believed to have first been made in second or third centuries B.C. So the tech was already known in the ancient world.
Good news. My own view is that the professional societies climb down from failed CAGW ‘science’, and worse failed solutions (Abengoa and SunEdison in bankruptcy, China and India building out coal generation, unaffordable renewable subsidy cuts in Spain, UK,…) will just accelerate from now on.
Only question left is whether it all ends with a bang or a whimper.
From what I have read it will be bang.
Especially if it’s a wind turbine.
Not even a whimper. Much like Peak Oil, The Ozone Hole, The Population Bomb, and many other fraudulent scares, this one will slowly fade into the background as it’s proponents find less use out of it. There will be no admittance of error, no mea culpa. And those in the media who have helped to promote this issue will most certainly NOT be examining their failures in checking the evidence.
This is hardly the first time those with a thirst for power and control have warped the truth for their own benefit, and it won’t be the last. They are quite good at getting away with it.
If ExxonMobile will pay AGU $35,000 for a breakfast, what would the oil giant pay AGU to soften its position on climate change? I would ask for a million. For $5,000,000, I might even say global warming is mostly natural.
But seriously, AGU is taking a risk accepting any money at all from ExxonMobil since it looks like the company is under investigation for trying to mislead the public on climate change.
I’ll say one thing for ExxonMobile. The company favors a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
ExxonMoblile, to its credit, favors a revenue-neutral carbon tax, –
s
max1ok,
I appreciate your sentiments, but in this case the reality is that CO2 and H2O warm precisely nothing, so the AGU can say what it likes without affecting the facts one iota.
Any position the AGU takes is irrelevant.
You express worry that ExconMobil might be under investigation for trying to mislead the public on climate change (whatever you might imagine climate change to be). Who cares? What difference does it make?
Do you also worry that politicians mislead the public on a daily basis? What about the CIA, and all the other similar organisations?
I understand your obsession with promoting the fantasy that is CO2 warming. I don’t take much notice, least of all because you can’t even say what will happen if you stop climate changing, or stop the Earth warming. Care to try?
It’s all gloom, doom, and woe thrice woe! More Warmist predictions of the approaching Apocalypes and the End of Times! Nothing at all of use to man nor beast.
What’s the shortest book in the world? The Complete List of Uses for Climate Change Research. As I say, always good for a laugh!
Cheers.
Here we go again with Fantastic Flynn. All aboard the Denial Express. Next stop, Climate La La Land. Ha Ha !
Mike, you are right about one thing. You don’t need to worry about climate change affecting you in your lifetime, and if there’s no hereafter it can’t harm you after you’re gone.
But what if reincarnation is real? You could come back as a penguin and spend your entire life being terrorized by hungry polar bears who have been relocated to antarctica because of climate change. Climate deniers may be in for some bad karma. Hopefully, there’s still time to repent.
P.S. If you have noticed your walk becoming a waddle, be worried.
max1ok,
You wrote –
“You don’t need to worry about climate change affecting you in your lifetime, . . . ”
You will pardon me if I find your assurance about as useful as the usual Woeful Witless Warmist unsubstantiated assertion. I’ll worry if I feel like it. And when I feel like it. Why waste a good worry?
Of course the changing climate affects me during my lifetime. If you are really trying to avoid saying what you really mean, I understand. You might be worried that I would bring up the fact that changing weather patterns, (affecting the nominal 30 year average of weather, called climate), obviously only affect people in their lifetimes – that is, while they are alive.
Extended droughts, warm periods, glaciers gobbling up houses and then refusing to leave . . .
I’m not sure about your prognostication relating to the hereafter. Maybe you are confused about different religions and faiths. Or are you referring obliquely to Pascal’s wager, perchance?
In any case, I’ll leave you to worry yourself sick about impending doom. As a matter of fact, feel free to,worry twice as hard. That will take care of the hereafter for me!
I feel so much better now! Really.
Cheers.
“what will happen if you stop climate changing, or stop the Earth warming. Care to try?”
Might as well try to stop time….or stop the earth from spinning. The whole notion is entirely delusional.
“But seriously, AGU is taking a risk accepting any money at all from ExxonMobil since it looks like the company is under investigation for trying to mislead the public on climate change.”
Why is AGU at risk?
So far, this is just an accusation, is it not?
Should not an organisation like AGU base their decisions on evidence – so in this case, they may decide to act once the “investigation” is complete and it is public knowledge that ExxonMobil are guilty/innocent of the charges. If not, then who decides which accusers get listened to? Like science, criminal convictions are supposed to be based on evidence – why not assume innocence in good faith until guilt is proven?
Making it publicly known that AGU will not be intimidated by any accusation against their funders until it is proven, is by far the best course of action for a society whose purpose is improved dialogue between all interested parties.
“So far, this is just an accusation, is it not?”
True, it’s just an accusation. ExxonMobil may be clean. If I were in charge of the company, it would have nothing further to do with CEI, Heartland, or any other organization tainted with global warming denialism.
Ironically, descendants of John D. Rockefeller, who have The Rockefeller Family Fund, recently sold the Fund’s holdings in ExxonMobil Corp. stock, and said the company had “morally reprehensible conduct.” The Fund plans to divest all fossil fuel stocks.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-23/rockefellers-dump-exxon-holdings-that-made-family-s-fortune
“But seriously, AGU is taking a risk accepting any money at all from ExxonMobil since it looks like the company is under investigation for trying to mislead the public on climate change.”
There was a time when the merit of a scientific claim was determined by the science, not the funding. Claims that funding can bias science only undermines the efficacy of science. In response to A Hundred Authors Against Einstein, Mr. Einstein replied:
“Why 100 authors? If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”
Either a scientific paper is right or is it wrong, or somewhere in between, and that is all that should matter regardless of who funded it.
“…I would ask for a million. For $5,000,000, I might even say global warming is mostly natural.”
Max, I’m glad to hear you admit that money talks to you on a personal level and that science has a price for you; you’re not prejudiced where it comes from.
Now consider how much talking the first government transfer of a billion did in 1957 which served as the pivot point for the climate change movement.
I can provide citation if you like.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
I am pleased to congratulate AGU too !
the attack on exxon is not well thought out because if push comes to shove they would have to produce the empirical evidence that warming is related to fossil fuel emissions;
and the only evidence they have is a spurious correlation between cumulative values.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
chaamjamal,
And the CO2 AGW movement has no empirical evidence whatsoever. None. Any request for an actual reproducible experimental confirmation of the claimed GHG warming effect is summarily dismissed.
This is to be expected, as the Warmist GHE hypothesis is physically impossible. The Warmist view seems to be that comparing poorly designed computer program outputs counts as an experiment.
From Richard Feynman’s “Cargo Cult Science” speech –
“And now you find a man saying that it is an irrelevant demand to expect a repeatable experiment. This is science?”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Correlation by itself is worthless.
Cheers.
I appreciate it when there are adults in the room.
This sounds like an adult in the room: “Our intent is to develop a longer-term effort that draws on our ability as a scientific community to engage with the private sector to grapple with the challenging issues faced by society – including not just climate and energy issues but also scientific integrity.”
And not to pour water on the fire, I’m guessing we’ll hear about this part the most: “Three individuals declared potential conflicts of interest – though it was noted that nearly every university represented in the room receives some degree of funding from ExxonMobil.”
especially that the funding of universities influenced.
(Geez, that’s sounding cynical)
Danny, I have a small stake in ExxonMobile stock through a mutual fund. If the corp. did what it’s accused of doing, I will have to reconsider my investment.
What crime is it accused of?
CG,
Crime of affiliation? Better watch where ya shop.
You might ask who has sold out here. It is more like Exxon is now on board with AGU-type climate statements, because Exxon’s own statement includes this – “We are committed to positive action on climate change and dedicated to reducing the risk of climate change in the most efficient way for society.” I think Exxon have come a long way from the days that they funded anti-action thinktanks in the 90’s and 00’s. They are now committed to action because they recognize the importance, somewhat a similar position to the AGU.
The kudos goes to Exxon. They are not the denier-funders you may remember them as. Read their climate pages here. They are on the same page with the IPCC and AGU, and have ripped out the skeptical page.
http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/current-issues/climate-policy
Jim D, some may feel ExxonMobile is just doing it for public relations and really doesn’t mean it. I don’t know how sincere the company is. But not having anything to do with skeptics and deniers seems like good corporate policy.
Weasel-wording. I doubt they mean the same thing as you do by that.
You might try actually looking at the timeline, and the potential for effective action. Exxon predicted the economics of solar power back in the 1980’s. Their strong reminders about the uncertainty while solar (also wind) was still very immature were effective in blocking “action on climate change” that very much was not “positive”, nor “the most efficient way for society.” Now that solar is becoming cost-effective, they can let the pressure off.
Well, not really. Drill down a little:
Also:
Did you read the part where they use carbon pricing in their planning nowadays, apparently because they realize that there are costs of doing nothing or not enough? What they are saying is so close to the IPCC, AGU or even the CPP that you are splitting hairs to divide them off. Climate change is costly. Action is needed. Emissions need to be reduced and soon. These are their positions in writing.
Or perhaps because the cost of solar PV has now come down far enough that moderate carbon pricing might actually work to drive widespread adoption?
If Exxon want to stay in energy, their cost analysis should lead them to some investment in future cheaper and cleaner energy sources, which they can see is where the market will be.
They’re funding R&D into ambient carbon capture and power→gas/liquid fuel. Also biofuels.
IMO that’s their best option, as it leverages their investments in storage and distribution.
The solar PV (and perhaps wind) to power it will probably be 1/4 to 1/5 its present cost in a decade or so. Even with ~30% round trip efficiency, it’ll probably be cheaper to deploy massive solar farms and create methane (and perhaps longer-chain hydrocarbons) from solar electrolytic hydrogen and ambient CO2 than to dig it up under deep water.
I wonder when Obama realizes that there are costs of doing nothing or not enough.
I regret to report that, as AGU merits kudos,
1. The paper submitted to Nature on “Solar energy” on 15 March 2016 was with-drawn by someone else, and
2. The London GeoEthics Conference that Swedish Professor Nils-Axel Mörner planned in September 2016 appears to be, at least temporarily, disrupted or on hold:
https://geoethic.com/london-conference-2016/
Powerful forces seek to shape public-reality.
A lot of taxpayer’s money is involved. No one likes a disruption of his/hers money flow.
Everyone ends up investing in or taking from Big Oil through such organisations as Gates and Clinton foundations. And I dare say if Warren Buffett wasn’t doing so well carting oil on his rairoad, Big Oil would have no difficulty donating its way to Keystone. It got the Clinton-led State Department to okay the Alberta Clipper pipeline after millions delivered to the Clinton Foundation and more to Clinton campaign bodies. Then there’s the Clinton Library, for all you readers!
It’s all too silly. The whole bloody world runs on fossil fuels, and that includes the anti-fossil fuel movement and many an individual posturing against fossil fuels. Prominent disinvestors are blatant with their selectivity anyway, especially when disinvesting from Israel (the chick peas and SodaStream get boycotted, the Intel stays inside).
This fuss over Big Oil contributions is a beat-up, akin to expressing shock that people are stuffing money in offshore accounts or that gambling is going on in Monsieur Rick’s nightclub. And the contributions are legal. (Nothing happened to Sierra Club over the tens of millions it took from Big Oil to fight Big Oil’s real problem, namely coal.)
Take the money. Everyone else does.
There seems to be an excessive amount of hand wringing about “bias’ of some sort or another in our society today.
It has become pathological.
A prejudiced position is required to form any hypothesis.
Or have a pulse.
The only ‘unbiased’ or neutral observer is the scientific method.
Don’t matter who funded it or wrote it if it ain’t right.
Bias is not a threat to science
Science threatens bias.
‘Tis why the warmists are in a tither.
.
rebelronin,
Mind if I quote this in my next edition of Serf underground Journal?
Want to know why Big Oil doesnt fund skeptics?
They believe in AGW.
Nope. They fear politicians. From the article:
…
A combination of low commodity prices and regulatory action has crushed fossil fuel companies’ ability to operate, a former Commodity Futures Trading Commission head contended Thursday.
“It’s really pouring on the fossil fuel industry,” former Commissioner Bart Chilton said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”
Chilton’s comments came after two more energy companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week, joining dozens of others. Coal producer Peabody Energy made the move Wednesday, citing “unprecedented” challenges like low coal prices, a weak Chinese economy and regulatory changes. On Thursday, oil and gas producer Energy XXI followed suit as oil prices hover around $40 per barrel.
…
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/14/its-pouring-on-fossil-fuel-industry-chilton.html
Its not either or.
1. They know the science will prevail
2. They know which way the political wind is blowing.
3. The skeptics they did back ( willie soon) turned out crap
“They fear politicians”
So skeptics failed to convince politicians..
sounds right.
debates over.
Steven Mosher, still whistling in the dark!
Few things in life are certain. But it is certain that oil companies will be in favour of cute kittens, motherhood and climate action.
And if I was cooking up policy for any business these days, I’d have climate action ahead of the kittens. If I was selling oil and gas I couldn’t be green enough. I’d be as green as Norway, the North Sea Sheik.
After donating to anyone who is against my real competitor (coal, duh) I might even hire an ethicist or consultant, preferably female, to check I’m doing everything right. She’ll no doubt say I’m making good progress but that more needs to be done and then she will give me a conditional tick till the next round of consultancy. Such bribery costs hundreds of thousands, failure to bribe costs millions.
(Trigger suggestion: cross out the word “bribery” and put in something like “ethical appropriateness” or “appropriate ethics” if “bribery” is too unsafe for your space.)
“Few things in life are certain. But it is certain that oil companies will be in favour of cute kittens, motherhood and climate action.”
Note the real argument. It’s not what they LIKE that is at issue.
It’s their total abandonment of the skeptics.. you know the bloggers
in pajamas and the emereti
They can also game the development of regulations to inhibit competition, limit supply and drive up profit margins. Cap-and-trade would especially benefit oil producing nation-states; drive profit margins up and own a stake in future production (selling or leasing rights) when yours drops off.
“2. They know which way the political wind is blowing.”
No need to list the rest.
An industry that questions the veracity of climate science has no reason to fight against the grain, especially if they have no direct skin in the game (i.e. they don’t produce CO2). They know that they couldn’t convince a politician because they believe the argument IS mostly politics; it’s more to their interests to simply protect themselves from litigation which means they’re happy to play the game, that could be perceived as abandoning the skeptic, but not really, just call it legal separation.
Like any good business a company looks at how they can either profit from the trends or they look to follow a path of least resistance that’s agnostic to policy.
“and grants from Exxon Mobil totalled $335,000 between 2005 and 2010. Other coal and oil industry sources which funded him include the Mobil Foundation, the Texaco Foundation” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Soon
Thanks Mosh. Your comment proves then that Dr. Soon is not a skeptic as skeptics have said all along.
Phew. Finally ONE thing has been cleared up after all this climate discussion.
NEXT?
find something after 2010.
Big Oil has seen the writing on the wall
The skeptics dont have science on their side
The skeptics dont have politicians on their side
The skeptics dont even have the public.
The got a couple blogs and some radio hosts..
game over.
Dammit. Those goal posts which keep moving are harder and harder to hit.
“find something after 2010.”
Now ya tell me.
Ya Danny,
After soon failed to nail the final nail in the AGW coffin, Exxon
and others decided it made no sense to waste money on “skeptics”
science..
Thanks for making my point even stronger.
The skeptics have climate on their side.
The pause has killed the pause.
No binding agreement in Paris. No carbon trading markets.
Write that down.
Mosher,
Richard Lindzen provided a good explanation of the motivations for the various groups involved in climate alarmism advocacy.
‘Global Warming and the Irrelevance of Science‘ http://euanmearns.com/global-warming-and-the-irrelevance-of-science/
“Guest essay by Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences (Emeritus) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is the text of a lecture delivered on August 20, 2015 to the 48th Session: Erice International Seminars on Planetary Emergencies”
Excerpt:
“The current issue of global warming/climate change is extreme in terms of the number of special interests that opportunistically have strong motivations for believing in the claims of catastrophe despite the lack of evidence. In no particular order, there are the
Leftist economists for whom global warming represents a supreme example of market failure (as well as a wonderful opportunity to suggest correctives),
UN apparatchiks for whom global warming is the route to global governance,
Third world dictators who see guilt over global warming as providing a convenient claim on aid (ie, the transfer of wealth from the poor in rich countries to the wealthy in poor countries),
Environmental activists who love any issue that has the capacity to frighten the gullible into making hefty contributions to their numerous NGOs,
Crony capitalists who see the immense sums being made available for ‘sustainable’ energy,
Government regulators for whom the control of a natural product of breathing is a dream come true,
Newly minted billionaires who find the issue of ‘saving the planet’ appropriately suitable to their grandiose pretensions,
Politicians who can fasten on to CAGW as a signature issue where they can act as demagogues without fear of contradiction from reality or complaint from the purported beneficiaries of their actions. (The wildly successful London run of “Yes, Prime Minister” dealt with this.) etc., etc.
All of the above special interests, quite naturally, join the chorus of advocates. Strange as it may seem, even the fossil fuel industry is generally willing to go along. After all, they realize better than most, that there is no current replacement for fossil fuels. “
Executives at Big Oil probably read and understood George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” saw pigs take control and destroy US Coal Industries, and decided to “toe the party line” – as leaders of all industries did in the old USSR.
Steven Mosher,
You wrote –
“Want to know why Big Oil doesnt fund skeptics?
They believe in AGW.”
Deny, divert, confuse. Who is Big Oil? Is he also the Big Kahuna? Why should he be funding anything, anyway? What do you mean “fund”?
Who the skeptics who have been refused funding by the Big Kahuna (or Big Oil)? Do they know? Do they care?
What is AGW? Shouldn’t there be some reference to CO2 in there somewhere? I presume you are aware that burning stuff creates heat. That’s what warms things. Are you opposed to making things warm and comfortable when it feels cold, or making things cool and comfortable, when it’s too hot?
Finally, it doesn’t matter what Big Oil, the Big Kahuna, or even Mr. Big, believe or don’t believe. Facts are facts. Have you any new ones?
I didn’t think so.
Cheers.
“Who is Big Oil?”
The post is about Exxon.
Dont be illiterate.
Big Oil has seen the end game
The scientific end game: AGW wins
The political end game: AGW wins
The public sentiment? AGW has already won.
The few skeptics they threw down with ( like Willie soon ) got eviscerated.
Look, when you cant get funded by people with skin in the game ( exxon) That is your first clue.
Steven Mosher,
Thank you for clarifying that you wrote “Big Oil” when you really meant “Exxon”. Good try, accusing me of being illiterate, in order to excuse your attempt to employ Warmist Weasel Words, rather than normal English.
Do you still mean Exxon instead of Big Oil when you write –
“Big Oil has seen the end game”?
Why not just say so?
It’s hard keeping up with the Warmist tactic of confuse, divert and deny.
As to your other silliness, I can only guess that when you AGW, you really mean something to do with CO2 in the atmosphere. When you say “wins”, I assume you are peering into the future, as usual. As you haven’t said what you mean by either “AGW” or “wins”, your pronouncements seem worthless.
Facts don’t depend on funding, consensus, or ethical or moral considerations. They just are. You don’t mind being identified as a scientist, but you do seem a little averse to producing just one reproducible experiment to support the CO2 greenhouse effect assertion. And this is called science?
Regardless of how passionate you wish it were so, the CO2 greenhouse effect as preached by Warmists, simply doesn’t exist.
Cheers.
“Thank you for clarifying that you wrote “Big Oil” when you really meant “Exxon”. Good try, accusing me of being illiterate, in order to excuse your attempt to employ Warmist Weasel Words, rather than normal English.”
You’d have to be illiterate to miss that.
The article is about Exxon.
Did you miss that?
head in the sand much?
Simple questions..
Steven Mosher,
Deny, divert, confuse.
You wrote –
“The article is about Exxon.
Did you miss that?
head in the sand much?”
The article is actually about Exxon-Mobil, if I read “AGU Board votes to continue relationship with Exxon-Mobil and to accept sponsorship support.” correctly.
The Warmist transliteration algorithm first changes “Exxon-Mobil” to “Exxon”, and from there to “Big Oil”. I can understand Exxon as an abbreviation for Excon-Mobil, but Big Oil is a bit of a stretch.
So to answer your pointless questions –
No.
No.
As to Exxon-Mobil’s support for the Warmist movement generally –
“ExxonMobil recognizes the risks posed by climate change, and we believe that everyone should be engaged in meaningful action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” A politically correct content free motherhood statement, or not?
Greenhouse gas emissions? Everyone? Calling on you to exhale less CO2 and H2O? Do you really believe the company is going to go out of its way to reduce its profits? I don’t, but Warmists tend to be more gullible than me!
Cheers.
What prizes did they win, Steven?
Cap & trade is dead. No binding agreements in Paris.
What then?
Meanwhile, back in the real world, “Who is Big Oil?”
the top 5:
1. Saudi Aramco (12.5 million barrels per day)
2. Gazprom (9.7)
3. National Iranian Oil Co. (6.5)
4. ExxonMobile (5.3)
5. PetroChina (4.4)
We can be sure that 4 of them aren’t playing by our rules, and don’t give a flaming fume who buys breakfast. They get along just fine without us, so lets beat up on our own and let the others eat our lunch.
“The Warmist transliteration algorithm first changes “Exxon-Mobil” to “Exxon”, and from there to “Big Oil”. I can understand Exxon as an abbreviation for Excon-Mobil, but Big Oil is a bit of a stretch.”
Actually it’s not a stretch
Read much?
http://www.saudiaramco.com/en/home/news-media/news/COP21.html
The best thing that could happen to oil and gas companies is that the coal companies be driven out of business. Cha Ching.
Want to know why Big Oil doesnt fund skeptics?
They believe in AGW. …
First, among the PhD people, probably yes most of the time. In the executive offices and the boardroom maybe not so much, but they hear one thing from their legal departments: tobacco lawsuit. It’s all very much about avoiding that outcome.
And their legal department says..
“Who are we going to call as expert witnesses?”
Goddard? Flynn? Soon? Doug Cotton? Bob carter?
Like I said, if they thought they a scientific leg to stand on they would fund skeptics.
And their legal department says..
“Who are we going to call as expert witnesses?”
Goddard? Flynn? Soon? Doug C*tton? Bob carter?
Like I said, if they thought they a scientific leg to stand on they would fund skeptics.
Curry, Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Pielke, Lomborg, Dyson, Ebell, Itoh, Giaever, Happer, Plimer, Carlin, Michaels, Bengtsson, Svensmark, Easterbrook, Ball, Freitas, Gray, Legates, Salby, Scafetta, Goklany, Koonan, Loehle, Schmidt, Tsonis…
Thanks for asking!
Curry, Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Pielke, Lomborg, Dyson, Ebell, Itoh, Giaever, Happer, Plimer, Carlin, Michaels, Bengtsson, Svensmark, Easterbrook, Ball, Freitas, Gray, Legates, Salby, Scafetta, Goklany, Koonan, Loehle, Schmidt, Tsonis…
Yup!
Steven Mosher,
Define expert witness. Let know how much you’re prepared to pay. In the past, I’ve worked for $AUD 1000 per diem, plus expenses. Probably around five times that figure would be acceptable now.
I suspect you’re just regurgitating irrelevant Warmist Wishful thinking – if I’m wrong, of course you’ll back up your silly claims with a fact or two.
Over to you.
Cheers.
JCH
Damn, you are good. Spot on analysis. An adult analysis about how the real world functions and how adults in charge think. This is all very simple. The executive suite has made a risk analysis. There is no downside to be on the other of a bunch of civilized skeptics who are capable of having intellectual debates centered on the science. But they know the negative public relations value of having some 18 year olds chained to gas pumps threatening self-immolation.
A big Mosher fail. He goes to the back of the room for spending too much time at the student union. The company you keep concept, and all that stuff.
David Springer | April 15, 2016 at 3:56 am |
Curry, Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Pielke, Lomborg, Dyson, Ebell, Itoh, Giaever, Happer, Plimer, Carlin, Michaels, Bengtsson, Svensmark, Easterbrook, Ball, Freitas, Gray, Legates, Salby, Scafetta, Goklany, Koonan, Loehle, Schmidt, Tsonis…
Springer makes Moshers point quite succinctly. In any event, I am sure Dr Curry is thrilled to be put on the same intellectual plane as the complete nutter Salby and the incompetent bumblers like Easterbrook, Svensmark, Scarfetta, Michaels, Ball, etc.
One of my favorite oil guys is Lee Raymond. He is very intelligent. Could have been a highly successful scientist in his own right. He came off looking like a dunce on the Sargasso Sea thing. That is when they changed corporate directions and wised up. They cannot turn on a dime. There are always rogue elements. Takes awhile. Some people are stubborn and political. Mosher is dead on here. Even the redneck Gomer Pyle billionaire fracker from Oklahoma stays out of this.
No lawyer would ever bet the corporation on that list of clowns. Good grief. They’re not like you people. They do not believe in the fairy tale religion of AGW skepticism. Among intellectually mature people, it is given that scientific bodies are likely to be mostly correct. You folks do not have a single scientific body even remotely close to being in your court, and you never will.
Why? Because you have no science. None. Tidal gauge record since 1900. LMAO. With each tick of the clock, you get wronger and wronger. You picked a fight with physics. Not bright. Not mature.
JCH
How about waking me up when Cap & Trade returns from the grave. Or when a big international climate conference like this year in Paris with people like Barrack Obama in attendance results in any binding Climate Change burdens.
The idea that the climatariat has won anything is a laugh. Name something concrete.
Cap and trade is politics, where extreme retardation is part of the calculus.
The conversation the in-house physicists had with the CEOs was about physics, but you would not understand a physics discussion where politics and religion were left at the door.
The discussion they had with their lawyers was about the liability of being complete dunces by ignoring their own physicists versus the liability of listening to their physicists.
David Springer | April 15, 2016 at 9:34 am |
JCH
How about waking me up when Cap & Trade returns from the grave. Or when a big international climate conference like this year in Paris with people like Barrack Obama in attendance results in any binding Climate Change burdens.
The idea that the climatariat has won anything is a laugh. Name something concrete.
This is where Springer is absolutely spot on. The consensus on AGW is 95%, however on CAGW it’s only about 5% given the warmunist reviews of Hansen’s latest sermon.
“Curry, Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Pielke, Lomborg, Dyson, Ebell, Itoh, Giaever, Happer, Plimer, Carlin, Michaels, Bengtsson, Svensmark, Easterbrook, Ball, Freitas, Gray, Legates, Salby, Scafetta, Goklany, Koonan, Loehle, Schmidt, Tsonis…
Thanks for asking!
###############
yes.. perfect
And the legal department looked at that list and said
NFW !
Ball? oh ya nazi references are good
Salby? opps lost his case
Scafetta? refuses to share code, uses bad data
Loehle? threw in with Scafetta
Basically.. the only real experts ( Curry, Tsonis, Schmidt,Pielke,Lomborg, Christy, Spencer) would all
agree c02 warms the planet.
But david Go ahead tell the legal department they are wrong.
Guess what?
your opinion doesnt matter
Flynn
‘Define expert witness.”
That is the courts job.
Your best bet at a definition would come from looking at the Legal
departments ACTIONS.
What do their actions say?
There are no credible expert witness to testify that C02 is not a risk.
Semantics like everything can be operationalized.
here is the key. you dont get to decide.
Big Oil decides. they decided not to back the loser skeptics.
Ask them the definition. They wont give you the time of day.
“The discussion they had with their lawyers was about the liability of being complete dunces by ignoring their own physicists versus the liability of listening to their physicists”
you mean the legal department didnt consult Springer?
or Flynn?
OMG
Actually my opinion appears to matter a lot. Cap & Trade is dead just like I wanted. No binding agreements were made in Paris just like I wanted. Wake up from that dream where you came out on top. LOL
“Note the real argument. It’s not what they LIKE that is at issue.”
Note the real argument. It’s not what they LIKE that is at issue. It’s what they have to SAY they LIKE.
And to be left alone to compete with any advantage available, a business will be willing to see the virtues of black jellybeans, SS guards and even Achy Breaky Heart.
But I’m guessing you actually grasp all this, Steven, and that you are just being coy.
It’s not what Mosher might LIKE that is at issue. It’s what he must SAY he LIKES.
I focus on peoples actions.
Looking at Big Oil their behavior says they did not believe in climate skeptics.
but go ahead, convince them. You guys can convince yourselves all day long….
Convince Someone else
Skeptics basically lost their big money allies by being incompetent.
Had skeptics focused on uncertainty, they would have had a chance.
But they didnt.
How lame do you have to be to lose the support of Big Oil that has trillions in play?
Steven Mosher, “Looking at Big Oil their behavior says they did not believe in climate skeptics.”
Exxon Mobil’s action seem to indicate that don’t believe warmunists either.
Yeah that’s what I thought Mosher. You can’t name what you won. That’s because you lost, dummy. Wake me up when oil isn’t at historically low prices, when cap & trade is a reality, and/or when the United States signs and ratifies Kyoto II or whatever the green goblins are calling their next failure.
It is not about convincing Big Oil of anything so they will bring their billions to my skeptic party. Big Oil doesn’t do opinion, it does business. It makes the necessary noises to go on doing business and to avert criticism and litigation.
If I was asked for my opinion by Big Oil I’d tell them to hug trees, spruik half-heartedly for a carbon tax or emissions trading that will hurt coal far more than it will hurt them, and promote wind and solar because they suck and need lots of Big Oil’s products as supplementation. Also, a good nuke scare wouldn’t go astray. That’s all the “convincing” I could give them while keeping a straight face. And that’s all the convincing they’d listen to.
But Big Oil would not need my opinion, because it is capable of working out such obvious things on its own.
Big Oil is not in competition with wind and solar. It likes that stuff because it likes to sell gas and oil. Selling gas and oil is kind of all it does.
What Big Oil does not like is its direct competitors, coal and nukes. Is this so hard to understand?
Coca Cola versus Pepsi, Sam Goldwyn versus television, gas versus coal. Do you think Sam put out a rumour that television would send kids blind because he believed it?
It’s such a naughty world, but there are worse things than fossil fuel companies. Like Big Green and lawyers, for example.
Wow! Mosher is not only prescient, he is also clairvoyant! He knows not only what “Big Oil” says, he also knows what they think, believe, and really mean.
“Mosher is not only prescient, he is also clairvoyant!”
And can use CAPS to assert his authority! Skillz!
Andrew
Ah yes.. they believe in your cause, but wont give you money.
Bottom line.. talk about what they believe can be operationalized.
They dont act like they believe.
walks and talks like a duck
You go ahead and express doubt about what they believe.
take that doubt to the bank.. DOH!
“Want to know why Big Oil doesn’t fund skeptics?
They believe in AGW.”
A related question, Why doesn’t the ‘Money’ fund libertarians? The ‘Money’, those that have lots of it, doesn’t really believe in economic freedoms or capitalism. Yes there are a few exceptions with a little success. JCH brought up picking a fight with physics. A libertarian might similarly say, picking a fight with economic reality. What I mean is failed things like Soviet economic policies around the middle of last century. China’s great leap forward. Many failed economies. Success comes from markets. Not public opinion and markets can do pretty well against large amounts of non-market forces. As to whether or not skeptics are a bunch of crackpots, the physics will eventually decide that.
There is no such thing as economic reality.
JCH, “There is no such thing as economic reality.”
Economic reality is like climate reality, after it happens you might be able to figure it out if the figures are played with too much.
Someone thinks the minimum wage should be $15 an hour. Another person can only command $10 an hour. Economic reality may say that someone is newly unemployed. Someone then says, you can’t fire someone because they only command $10 an hour. A new commission will hire judges to enforce the new rule. This is what I call economic reality. Legislating market behavior doesn’t change the underlying economic reality. It distorts it I suppose, but it’s always trying to re-emerge. Robots for instance will flip burgers. Are we happy then? Time for another commission. Politicians may argue they don’t have to obey or answer to economic reality. Called it whatever you like. I argue it’s there.
Mosher writes- “Want to know why Big Oil doesnt fund skeptics?
They believe in AGW.”
Steve—you seem to be writing things only to get reactions from readers. You know better.
“They believe in AGW.”
As evidenced by ‘not funding skeptics’ and???????????
“The world’s 8th largest company by revenue, ExxonMobil is also the third largest publicly traded company by market capitalization.[4][5] The company was ranked No. 6 globally in Forbes Global 2000 list in 2014.[6] ExxonMobil was the second most profitable company in the Fortune 500 in 2014.”
“ExxonMobil is the largest of the world’s supermajors[8] with daily production of 3.921 million BOE. In 2008, this was approximately 3 percent of world production, which is less than several of the largest state-owned petroleum companies.[9] When ranked by oil and gas reserves, it is 14th in the world—with less than 1 percent of the total.[10][11] ExxonMobil’s reserves were 25.2 billion BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) at the end of 2013 and the 2007 rates of production were expected to last more than 14 years.[12] With 37 oil refineries in 21 countries constituting a combined daily refining capacity of 6.3 million barrels (1,000,000 m3), ExxonMobil is the largest refiner in the world,[13][14][15] a title that was also associated with Standard Oil since its incorporation in 1870.[3]”
“As of December 2013, ExxonMobil occupied five out of ten slots for Largest Corporate Annual Earnings of All Time and two out of ten on Largest Corporate Quarterly Earnings.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil
Belief is a funny thing.
If a convincing case could be made that GHG emissions are damaging or that the benefits of GHG emissions abatement will exceed the abatement costs, the case would have been made long ago. It would be clearly stated on one page and backed up by a succinct, coherent explanation of the relevant evidence. IPCC would have presented it long ago. The fact they have not been able to do so after 30 years of trying is a pretty clear demonstration that the arguments for damaging human caused climate change cannot be supported.
It’s time to move on from CAGW. There are far more important issue to deal with.
Want to know why Big Oil doesnt fund skeptics?
The skeptics they did fund (soon) could not deliver the good.
Its pretty simple. Big Oil has huge assets that will be stranded if we stop using FF. They got skin in the game
Ask yourself why they dont fund skeptics
A) They know the science is correct.. dont throw good money away
B) They tried before ( Soon ) and failed
C) There are no capable skeptics to give money to
D) its a lost cause, politically.
I mean think about it. Imagine youre an Oil company and the consensus of scientists was that the earth was flat and they suggested banning drilling.
Would you just walk away and not fund some counter science? ya right.
Agree. It’s called throwing in with the winners. (point D). Then there’s the not inconsiderable fact that the US Government and some state govts (e.g. CA) are subsidizing the alternative energy biz. My guess is that for the right folks, there are near monopoly markets where the govt pick up a great deal of the risk. You’d have to be crazy to turn that down.
Throwing in with the winners obviously plays a role.
But if the winners were engaged in a demonstrable hoax,
you would not throw in with them. especially if it stranded trillions
in assets.
you might stand on the sidelines or you might lower prices and try to maximize your return..
Cap and Trade is deader than a door nail. No binding agreement came out the big Paris climate confab among world leaders.
This isn’t Exxon-Mobil joining the winners. It’s Exxon-Mobil throwing a bone to the losers.
Sheesh. The self-delusion is powerful in the climatariat. I’m convinced you boys actually you’ve somehow won something.
You are partly right. They aren’t throwing a bone to the losers, they are getting in front of the mitigation policy which, as you accurately point out, is a blank slate.
Mosher, as you say the game is over for the climate alarmists. There have not managed to make a persuasive case to support their belief. If they could have, they would have, but haven’t. Now a slowly diminishing number of the desperate hangers-on (which includes you) are left clutching to their belief like the members of the Flat Earth Society.
Your silly, mostly nonsensical gibberish comments and assertions, are convincing that there is no persuasive case.
Peter Lang,
Warmists apparently believe the Earth is flat, is permanently illuminated by an unchanging Sun, has a fixed and unchanging albedo, and is subject to realclimate physical principals, rather than the physics that apparently govern the real universe. They deny normal reality, and substitute their own!
At least it makes life interesting!
Cheers.
Is this in the same way that the Chinese say “May you live in interesting times” ?
Greg Cavanagh,
Unfortunately, yes.
I can merely hope that, as the Sufi story has it – “This too shall pass.”
Cheers.
Exxon Disagrees.
Talk to them.
Another silly, baseless assertion and trying to justify your beliefs by appeal to authority – Exxon in this case. What a joke.
Put up or shut up – that is link to a succinct clear presentation of the case that human caused GHG emissions will cause dangerous or catastrophic climate change and that the benefits of GHG emissions abatement policies will do more good than harm – i.e demonstrate positive net benefits.
If you going to post silly comments and snide remarks, don’t bother.
Steven Mosher | April 15, 2016 at 12:45 am | Reply
Exxon Disagrees.
Talk to them.
———————————————————————–
Saudi Aramco and Sinopec agree and they are both nearly twice the size of Exxon-Mobil.
You lose.
Thanks for playing,
Ding!
Next!!!
No evidence of money paid to skeptics?
No evidence of collusion for 6 years ?
Exxon operations must be very good.
Better than the Blacklist.
Even Mosher cannot find any sign of a conspiracy.
Best if you speak to the Senator and let him know he is wasting his time son, if you cannot find the problem.
Soonest mended [pardon the pun] ,soonest ended.
Then I could go back to getting my checks for blogging in peace.
Peter. you miss my point
Peter: “Mosher, as you say the game is over for the climate alarmists. There have not managed to make a persuasive case to support their belief”
We have made a persuasive case to people who matter,
to businesses that matter (Exxon) and Institutions that matter.
We have not convinced you or Springer or Flynn.
That’s ok.. You dont matter.
In other words, If your position had any weight, if your endorsement mattered, then of course Big Oil would throw some money at you.
Persuading you is not important. Your consent or approval of an argument in unnecessary.
Oh, how’s your case for cheaper nuclear going?
suceed much?
Pragmatically speaking Big Oil listened to the AGW argument and decided that backing loser skeptics was not wise.
If you think they were wrong
like I said
Talk to Exxon
Peter: “Mosher, as you say the game is over for the climate alarmists. There have not managed to make a persuasive case to support their belief”
“We have made a persuasive case to people who matter,”
Somebody took the bait and now self-identifies as an alarmist.
That’s forgivably human, of course.
But the better angels of our scientific nature is to remain dispassionate observers, whose only jihad is truth.
“You dont matter.”
Someone got Mosher to trade cool breeze for hot air.
Andrew
“Saudi Aramco and Sinopec agree and they are both nearly twice the size of Exxon-Mobil.
You lose.
Thanks for playing,”
You didnt convince them either
http://www.saudiaramco.com/en/home/news-media/news/COP21.html
http://english.sinopec.com/media_center/news/20140925/33346.shtml
“You dont matter.”
So Mosher, when skeptics start getting prison sentences, is this still going to be your attitude?
Andrew
So Mosher, when skeptics start getting prison sentences, is this still going to be your attitude?
Andrew
#################
1. You failed to convince scientists
2. you failed to convince the public
3. you failed to convince politicians
4. you failed to convince business.. who had an INTEREST in believing you.
If you fail to convince a judge and jury, what can I conclude?
TE its pretty simple
“Somebody took the bait and now self-identifies as an alarmist.”
The problem is this. The voices of calm reason– yes guys like you and me– who agreed that C02 was a risk, were drowned out . It’s essentially been a battle between two extremist positions. A debate between the “no risk crowd” and the existential threat crowd.
Noting that the extremists skeptics failed to make their case ( its all a hoax) doesnt mean you are an alarmist. ( your fallacy is false dilemma) It means simply this:
The better of two weak arguments won. So yes, truth was the victim.
Had skeptics fashioned an alternative vision, the result may have been different.
The problem is this. The voices of calm reason– yes guys like you and me– who agreed that C02 was a risk
Oh, wait – I think we diverge.
I agree that CO2 causes warming, but not so sure about risk,
at least not significant risk and at least not for another century.
Certainly not much evidence of risk for the 2+ centuries of past warming.
JC’s Week in Review has this link, though:
Know This First: Risk Perception Is Always Irrational.
Steven Mosher:Exxon Disagrees.
Talk to them.
There is no point there for anyone to miss.
TE
“I agree that CO2 causes warming, but not so sure about risk,
at least not significant risk and at least not for another century.”
Oh so you have settled science that says there is ZERO risk?
or do you agree that
A) ECS is uncertain, it could be high
B) the risk is Non zero and could be low or high?
Steven Mosher:Exxon Disagrees.
Talk to them.
There is no point there for anyone to miss.
############################
Peter: You have not made a convincing case.
Mosher: Look like we convinced Exxon, talk to them.
Its really pretty simple; Who exactly have skeptics convinced?
It is in exxons interest for skeptics to be correct.
Were skeptics able to convince them?
Nope.
When Peter shifts the argument to “convincing” people, he is
shifting it to grounds where he loses.
Its not that hard to understand.
Steven Mosher: We have made a persuasive case to people who matter,
to businesses that matter (Exxon) and Institutions that matter.
We have not convinced you or Springer or Flynn.
That’s ok.. You dont matter.
Everyone matters. Worldwide, no more than a few percent of any voting populace ranks global warming in the top 15 most important problems. As pointed out elsewhere, no AGW proponent has reduced air travel or ground travel; Japan and Germany have built new coal-fired power plants to supplement and replace their nuclear power plants; and to back up all their solar and wind plants. Colorado’s subsidies to the electric car buyers has resulted in an increase in electricity production from the coal-fired power plants. In the US, CO2 reduction has been achieved by a combination of recession and natural gas from fracking (which, paradoxically, or hypocritically, electricity consuming greens want to halt.). California has moved its CO2 production out of state, along with all the manufacturing jobs that generate CO2, but Californians have not reduced their carbon footprint.
Steven Mosher: Steven Mosher:Exxon Disagrees.
Talk to them.
There is no point there for anyone to miss.
############################
Peter: You have not made a convincing case.
Mosher: Look like we convinced Exxon, talk to them.
Its really pretty simple; Who exactly have skeptics convinced?
It is in exxons interest for skeptics to be correct.
Were skeptics able to convince them?
Nope.
When Peter shifts the argument to “convincing” people, he is
shifting it to grounds where he loses.
Its not that hard to understand.
After you elaborated you had a at least a half a point.
In the “convincing” field, almost no one has been convinced to change behavior, and among those few who have been convinced, the changes are disparate: e.g. CA continuing to purchase imported manufactured goods (and travel all over) while trying to substitute expensive electricity from wind and solar for cheap electricity from fossil fuels.
Oh so you have settled science that says there is ZERO risk?
Is zero your baseline for risk?
I don’t think so or you wouldn’t have gone to work today.
Zero is a very BAD baseline for risk ( you would very quickly impoverish and exhaust yourself, not to mention missing out on opportunity if you really lived for zero risk ).
That aside, the onus is not on me to prove there’s no monster under your bed ( not possible ) – if you’re claiming there’s a monster under your bed, the onus is on you to prove there IS a monster under your bed.
Now, you say, “Well, the monsters not here yet, but he’s coming!”
To which I’ll say, can you at least give me an example of the monster? Or point to him out the window?
The difference between fear and anxiety is:
fear is real and imminent
anxiety is idealized and intangible
Global warming is a trend. Trends taken long enough accumulate, perhaps to ill effect. But it would appear radiative forcing is already on decline, coincident with decelerating population.
Get your shades, the future is bright. ( At least until open android warfare breaks out ).
Mosher,
you’re so convinced
let me ask you something
you (must) use some sort of climate model voor Best because you say you can predict temperatures
and Best does that all be it in the past
why don’t you use that model to predict the temperatures of the future?
Mosher, by “result might have been different” had skeptics not lost what exactly might have been different? Cap & Trade is dead. Kyoto II is dead. Oil is at historically low prices. Fossil fuel consumption is higher than ever before. With “losses” like that I don’t need any victories.
Again, *what* do you think you won? All I see is things the way I want them and nothing the way warmists want them.
Richard Lindzen provided a good explanation of the motivations for the various groups involved in climate alarmism advocacy.
Global Warming and the Irrelevance of Science
http://euanmearns.com/global-warming-and-the-irrelevance-of-science/
Guest essay by Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences (Emeritus) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is the text of a lecture delivered on August 20, 2015 to the 48th Session: Erice International Seminars on Planetary Emergencies
Excerpt:
“The current issue of global warming/climate change is extreme in terms of the number of special interests that opportunistically have strong motivations for believing in the claims of catastrophe despite the lack of evidence. In no particular order, there are the
Leftist economists for whom global warming represents a supreme example of market failure (as well as a wonderful opportunity to suggest correctives),
UN apparatchiks for whom global warming is the route to global governance,
Third world dictators who see guilt over global warming as providing a convenient claim on aid (ie, the transfer of wealth from the poor in rich countries to the wealthy in poor countries),
Environmental activists who love any issue that has the capacity to frighten the gullible into making hefty contributions to their numerous NGOs,
Crony capitalists who see the immense sums being made available for ‘sustainable’ energy,
Government regulators for whom the control of a natural product of breathing is a dream come true,
Newly minted billionaires who find the issue of ‘saving the planet’ appropriately suitable to their grandiose pretensions,
Politicians who can fasten on to CAGW as a signature issue where they can act as demagogues without fear of contradiction from reality or complaint from the purported beneficiaries of their actions. (The wildly successful London run of “Yes, Prime Minister” dealt with this.) etc., etc.
All of the above special interests, quite naturally, join the chorus of advocates. Strange as it may seem, even the fossil fuel industry is generally willing to go along. After all, they realize better than most, that there is no current replacement for fossil fuels. “
The AGs jumped the gun. Exxon (and all the other big politically connected players) had already boarded the rent-seeking, government handout bandwagon. Now Exxon and companies in like situations will be forced to defend with hard, empirical facts. AGW speculation is taking a knife (models) to a gunfight.
The other shoe just dropped. API revelations. What they knew and when.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oil-cover-up-climate_us_570e98bbe4b0ffa5937df6ce?utm_hp_ref=climate-change
From the link: They warned that “man is now engaged in a vast geophysical experiment with his environment, the earth” — one that “may be the cause of serious world-wide environmental changes.”
The scientists went on: “If the Earth’s temperature increases significantly, a number of events might be expected to occur including the melting of the Antarctic ice cap, a rise in sea levels, warming of the oceans and an increase in photosynthesis.”
“May” and “might”, some of my favorite words.
matthewrmarler.
I agree. I am a little partial to “if”. If there was an increase in photosynthesis, who knows what might occur? Evil global greening? More crops? A chicken in every pot?
The world wonders!
Cheers.
They knew “maybe” and “might”. And 40 years later some in the scientific community are still using those terms. Here is a start. There are no “facts” about the climate in 2100. None Nada. There are still robust debates about what “facts” will be in 2100. There are still open questions about exactly what percentage of scientists think what as to what will happen in 2100. After all, that is what the issue centers on, the future. Clairvoyance is in short supply.
Kudos to AGU. To some degree, the statement covers all the universities that get funding from the oil companies. They only need small variations on the wording.
The question about Exxon-Mobil is did they disregard their own research on AGW? If they did, then it can be argued they mislead their shareholders.
I look forward to seeing how this plays out, it will be interesting.
That will not take long with todays AGW science.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/science/nasa-takes-facebook-shut-down-7756979
Nasa, gives support to science-guy, only using Facebook too. Soon Pee-we Herman, is going to do a movie about the weather. Rumor has it that it is to be, a Big Budget super colossal happy film all about the end of the world.
Bully for NASA.
Harry Twinotter: If they did, then it can be argued they mislead their shareholders.
With all the “might[s]” and “maybe[s]”, all the “if[s]”, “seem[s]”, subjunctives and other caveats, and with the experts’ “projections” (scenarios, expectancies, forecasts, etc) running high over the last few decades, a judgment of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” might be hard to achieve. In case the plaintiffs push this to trial, I hope that ExxonMobil mounts a spirited, well-informed defense. Nothing else I have read or heard of can do more damage to the global warming movement than a bunch of well-known experts being cross-examined under oath.
I look forward to seeing how this plays out, it will be interesting.
matthewrmarler.
It sounds like you are a person who want a black and white world. Sorry to disappoint.
Odd that you call established science a “movement”. It’s probably not odd for someone who is more interested in ideology than established science.
If Exxon-Mobile have a case to answer, then they will go to trial. They are not above the law just because they are a large fossil fuel company.
It isn’t “established science”. It’s just as anti-science as the deniers who claim there’s no risk from fossil CO2.
The IPCC is (putatively) “established science”. And the IPCC’s actual reports on the science (WGI) acknowledge large amounts of uncertainty. Amounts that have increased in the latest report.
The ideological “movement” is dedicated to using their pseudo-science to advance their ideological/political/socialist agenda. They more or less deny the level of uncertainty even the IPCC has acknowledged.
As with the tobacco lynching, it’s the trial itself that’s the punishment. Their defense most likely will compare the level(s) of uncertainty their research highlighted with the levels of uncertainty in the science today, including the latest IPCC WGI report.
The purpose of the CAGW barratry is simply to harass and persecute large companies that have funded perfectly reasonable science questioning the CAGW religion/party line by forcing them to the expense and inconvenience of defending themselves against frivolous charges.
Big oil doesn’t need to fund skeptics. It knows that the global-warmers will continue using their products whatever they say or claim. It is as true today as it was during the Arab oil embargo in 1973. Around the world, Big oil routinely does “business” every day with people more unpleasant than greenpeace and more deluded than Steve Mosher and max10k.
Worldwide automobile production:
http://www.statista.com/graphic/1/262747/worldwide-automobile-production-since-2000.jpg
Yep, Big Oil just wants more oil and gas consumed and less coal and nukes. South Australia, now a green basket case, is a great customer for gas, emergency diesel and expensive Open Cycle Gas Turbines when it’s not importing Victorian brown coal power. (Basket case Tasmania’s great green experiment is even daffier, maybe too daffy to be believed.)
With fossil fuel prices in the toilet, volume is the key. Every wind turbine is a gas sale. Ivanpah is a gas producer’s dream.
Go green! Let’s make Arabia great again!
Saudi Aramco can produce oil at $1 BBL. So it is ok to experiment with Ivanpah in rich countries to develop solar for use in other solar climes with poor economies. Wind too. except for the ;bird deaths. No one expected that. Same for fusion and advanced nuclear generation. Lots of developments to be worked for raising living standards around the globe. People cooking with dung and firewood and drinking contaminated water could use local energy sources if they can be made economical. Same for desalination, lets get it worked on to provide water to the lower strata in Africa and parts of Asia. Local energy sources are needed to desalinate, treat sewage and improve cooking in huts.
Scott
Sounds like the AGU’s board is calling out radical, Leftist warmanism before it totally consumes Western academia.
Steve Mosher,
I think some people have been effectively making a case that GHG driven warming is real and potentially a problem, but far from an existential threat. Nic Lewis immediately comes to mind with defensible empirical estimates that put sensitivity near the lower end of the IPCC’s likely range (somewhere south of 2C per doubling). Nic is by no means alone, and there have been several other similar estimates made. There are some working actively in climate science (Bjorn Stevens in Germany, Stephen Schwartz at BNL, Carl Wunsch at MIT, and others) who consistently look for better constraints on aerosol effects, cloud effects, and ocean heat uptake to better define climate sensitivity… often raising the hackles of the most alarmed when those constraints suggest fairly low sensitivity to GHG forcing.
While the histrionics of the most alarmed will for some time slow progress toward a clearer definition of climate sensitivity by publishing (IMO, nonsensical) papers like Marvel et al, in the end the plausible range for future warming will become much better defined, if only by the evolving reality of measured warming. Likewise for sea level increases. It is difficult to say exactly when that will happen, but when it does, policy decisions will no longer be driven by predictions of doom and demands for extreme and immediate action based on the ‘precautionary principle’… rational public policy choices can then be made by considering costs and benefits for each alternative. Seems to me the period for any plausible transition plan away from fossil fuels will be long enough (>30 years?) to allow reality to confront the GCMs; my guess is the models don’t stand much of a chance when they face reality 20 years from now.
Steve Mosher,
I think some people have been effectively making a case that GHG driven warming is real and potentially a problem, but far from an existential threat. Nic Lewis immediately comes to mind with defensible empirical estimates that put sensitivity near the lower end of the IPCC’s likely range (somewhere south of 2C per doubling). Nic is by no means alone, and there have been several other similar estimates made. There are some working actively in climate science (Bjorn Stevens in Germany, Stephen Schwartz at BNL, Carl Wunsch, and others) who consistently look for better constraints on aerosol effects, cloud effects, and ocean heat uptake to better define climate sensitivity… often raising the hackles of the most alarmed when those constraints suggest fairly low sensitivity to GHG forcing.
While the histrionics of the most alarmed will for some time slow progress toward a clearer definition of climate sensitivity by publishing (IMO, nonsense) papers like Marvel et al, in the end the plausible range for future warming will become much better defined, if only by the evolving reality of warming. It is difficult to say exactly when that will happen, but when it does, policy decisions will no longer be driven by cries of doom and demands for extreme and immediate action based on the ‘precautionary principle’… rational public policy choices can then be made by considering costs and benefits for each alternative. Seems to me the period for any plausible transition away from fossil fuels will be long enough to let reality confront climate models; my guess is the models don’t stand a chance.
Steve F
+ 1 for a rationale evaluation of the situation.
No threats of jail time for the unconvinced and flat earth society name calling.
Big problem is the adjustment of data in temperatures and sea level rise that can fuel the perception that some have thumbs on the scale to validate positions before the science can catch up.
That is what is fun about snow in the NE and Mwest while the CAGW activists claim BIGGEST PROBLEM ever!!
calm, logical discussions of the data and improving models to match observations can improve the climate of discussion. No chance at this point of controlling or improving the real climate.
Scott
Mosher makes the following assertions in several comments (which I responded to but he ignored or didn’t acknowledge):
I didn’t shift the argument. Mosher did that. He’s trying to divert from waht’s relevant.
He’s correct that the relevant facts are not that hard to understand. After 30 years of research and advocacy, at enormous cost to tax payers, the climate alarmists have not made a persuasive case that GHG emissions are dangerous or catastrophic of that the benefits of GHG emissions abatement would be greater than the cost of the abatement policies.
Probably less than 1% of adults in the world (i.e. less than 50 million people out of about 5 billion) would support policies that will cost them money. That’s the important fact.
Once the alarmists can acknowledge this fact, they may begin to start advocating for policies that have some potential of success. The only policies that can succeed are no regrets policies – i.e they are net beneficial irrespective of whether or not they may deliver some intangible benefits of avoided climate damages at some time in the future.
Policy is not an area Mosher has much understanding of and he’d have more credibility if he stopped making silly comments, assertions and snide remarks and ask questions instead.
Here’s my original comment that Mosher dodged – he shifted ground to use his words.
As Mosher says:
Mosher shifted ground to irrelevancies. By shifting ground, i.e. dodging the relevant point, he demonstrated he has no answer. My point is correct.
Peter Lang,
Steven Mosher seems to rely on the outmoded Warmist tactics of deny, divert, and confuse.
It seems that Warmist delusional denialism is infectious. Maybe a psychologist or social “scientist” could produce a peer reviewed paper or two on the subject of shared delusional psychosis.
It might not change anything, but might help to explain why Warmists tend to deny, divert, and confuse, rather than attempt to provide scientific evidence for their wild claims.
Cheers.
Peter: Mosher and Exxon are talking AGW, not CAGW and not policy. That is the shift Mosher is talking about. Then you expected Mosher to shift over with you to your meaningless and off-point topic that you could then get into an endless blog loop of trivia and half-baked rumors of data. This was the straw-man you propped up and knocked down so you could earn your participation trophy.
Well done
No. Lang called Mosher out and Mosher lost as usual.
If skeptics lost then what exactly did we lose given Cap & Trade and Kyoto II are both dead.
Months ago I got an answer out of Mosher. Alternative energy subsidies is the cost of skeptics losing. But that’s not true. I bought my first gov’t subsidized solar energy collector in 1984 which was before there was any climate change war going on. That was back in the “gas crisis” days when OPEC went on the warpath and caused hours-long lines at gas stations to get the tank filled.
So I haven’t heard f*ck-all from the winners about what they won. The warmists lost. They wanted Cap & Trade. The Chicago Exchange carbon exchange died several years ago. They lost. Warmists wanted a Kyoto II with binding international agreements to cut carbon emissions. That never happened either. They lost.
So I ask again, what do you clowns think you won?
No. Lang called Mosher out and Mosher lost as usual.
Skeptics were against Cap & Trade. The Chicago Carbon Exchange closed its door several years ago. Skeptics won.
Skeptic were against Kyoto II. There is no Kyoto II. Skeptics won again.
What exactly is that we lost and how do you measure it?
Jeebus, Springer. Get a clue. Aren’t you tired of riding the pine on the JV? Nobody is paying attention except a few thousand of us blog junkies. Everything on the public policy side is taking it’s natural course of wait and see. This is just entertainment.
Chicago Carbon Exchange closed it doors several years ago. Cap & Trade is dead. Skeptics killed it. We won.
Kyoto II is dead. Skeptics killed it. We won again.
What exactly is it that skeptics lost?
Funny how there is never any hand-wringing over taking money from government, despite government’s monumental and blatantly obvious vested interest in a finding of CAGW alarmism.
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