Climate Change Mitigation

Syria, Nicaragua, and now the United States of America:  Official Members of the Climate Change Ostrich Club

“Hello Mr. President, I hope you will take action on climate change,” CSPW founder and George W. Bush White House climate change whistleblower Rick Piltz said politely but firmly to President Bush in the White House Rose Garden on a sunny morning in June 2001. The President was just about to make a much-anticipated statement [...]

The Threat of Offshore Oil Spills: An Unheeded Cautionary Tale

Source: The Telegraph. Available at: http://bit.ly/2jIgVJZ By Adam Arnold When an oil production platform caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico near the Louisiana coast last week, a collective gasp would have been appropriate – from the residents of coastal Louisiana, who are no strangers to offshore oil rig disasters, from the fossil [...]

Why Are 21 Kids Suing the Federal Government, and Why Does It Matter?

Source: Our Children’s Trust Last year, on August 12, 2015, a group of courageous millennials filed suit against President Barack Obama and members of his cabinet for failing to adequately address the climate change problem commensurate with the threat, despite the fact that we have known for decades that human-caused global warming has [...]

ExxonMobil and Climate Change: A Story of Denial, Delay, and Delusion, Told in Forms 10-K (2009-2016) – Part Three (B): 2010

From left, ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, Chevron Chairman and CEO John Watson and ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva are sworn in before a June 15, 2010 Congressional hearing on the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. SOURCE: Associated Press This latest installment of our series addressing how the ExxonMobil Corporation has been engaged in [...]

Notes from Underground – Where the Pipeline Ends: How the Dakota Access Pipeline Could – Or Could Not – Happen Again

Source: “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein, adapted by Adam Arnold. The DC Court of Appeals has given the go ahead for construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which opponents say will threaten the environment, human health, and sites sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Despite the setback, there [...]

ExxonMobil Stays Precariously Above Water in Louisiana

Source: http://read.bi/2bOjSBJ A Flood of Floods Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has been inundated for over a week. Flooding brought on by torrential rains has left at least thirteen people dead and caused damage to tens of thousands of homes and businesses – including the Exxon Mobil Corporation, one of many petrochemical companies with facilities [...]

Floods, Fires, and Public Policy Failures: ExxonMobil Facilities are Among Those Being Slammed by Climate Change Impacts

Source: https://nemac.unca.edu/swannanoa-flood-risk-management-project The Exxon Mobil Corporation is being investigated by multiple state attorneys general (AGs) concerned that the company intentionally misled its shareholders regarding scientifically-established risks associated with climate change impacts – risks that not only endanger human health and the environment, but also threaten to devalue XOM shares. In the 1980s, when [...]

Notes From Underground: As With Climate Change, So With Fracking at ExxonMobil

The Exxon Mobil Corporation held its annual shareholders meeting on May 25, 2016. The company’s documentation of the meeting can be found here. The final proposal offered at the meeting, the eleventh of eleven shareholder resolutions, relates to the company’s involvement in hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The authors of the proposal did not demand the immediate [...]

ExxonMobil and Climate Change: A Story of Denial, Delay, and Delusion, Told in Forms 10-K (2001-2008)

Disparaging legitimate scientific data and conclusions regarding global climate change and the role of fossil fuel combustion by dubbing it “junk science” has been a favorite tactic employed by the oil industry. This cartoon, penned in 2005, aptly captures the dynamic at play throughout President George W. Bush’s first term in office. [Image source: [...]

Notes from Underground: Proceed with Precaution, Part II

Our prior Notes from Underground post offered Precautionary Principle 101. To reiterate, the Principle is simple and even obvious: one should not carry out a plan until one has some understanding of the likely consequences – that is, until one can be reasonably certain that enacting said plan will not lead to disastrous outcomes that [...]