Exxon Mobil documents call for a thorough investigation We expect prosecutors to investigate when evidence suggests a corporation may have committed a crime, especially when the company may have harmed the public or deceived investors. Houston Chronicle, By Chris Tomlinson May 21, 2016 That’s why the legal community was surprised that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton would try to stop an investigation by another attorney general into whether Exxon Mobil Corp. misled the public and investors about climate change.
Seventeen attorneys general, who unlike Paxton have criminal law experience, want to know when Exxon Mobil knew climate change was real, when it realized global warming would hurt its business, and whether it misled shareholders about the potential risk…….
Scientists working for Exxon Mobil in the 1970s and 1980s were among the first to recognize global warming, and that carbon dioxide was a major contributor, according to company papers published online by Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times in September 2015.
“There is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels,” Exxon Mobil senior scientist James Black told the company’s management committee in 1977. Black told senior managers and scientists the following year that a doubling of the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by 4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit and cause significant climactic changes, according to the documents…….
Exxon Mobil managers recognized the threat to the planet and their business model. Exxon Mobil scientists studied atmospheric CO2 and built climate models in the early 1980s. Company scientists worked alongside the world’s top climate experts and published academic papers, many of which are the basis for our understanding of climate change today.
A memo from 1980 called on Exxon Mobil managers to promote the company’s research into finding a solution to “the Greenhouse Effect.”……..http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Exxon-Mobil-documents-call-for-a-thorough-7887890.php?t=a90e275765&cmpid=twitter-premium
