ExxonMobil moved to squash discussion on climate science just 9 days after inauguration of George W

[kpete]

ExxonMobil moved to squash a well-established congressional lecture series on climate science just nine days after the presidential inauguration of George W Bush, a former oil executive, the Guardian has learned.

Exxon’s intervention on the briefings, revealed here for the first time, adds to evidence the oil company was acutely aware of the state of climate science and its implications for government policy and the energy industry – despite Exxon’s public protestations for decades about the uncertainties of global warming science.

Indeed, the company moved swiftly during the earliest days of the Bush administration to block public debate on global warming and delay domestic and international regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to former officials of the US Global Change Research Program, or USGCRP.

...........

The oil company is under investigation by 17 attorney generals for misleading the public about climate change, and is facing a shareholder revolt at its annual general meeting on Wednesday by investors pressing Exxon for greater disclosure about the effect of climate change on its profits.

In early 2001, however, after Al Gore lost the White House to George Bush, Exxon officials apparently saw a chance to influence the incoming administration, according to former officials of the research program.

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MORE:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/25/exxonmobil-climate-change-scientists-congress-george-w-bush

[Mister Ed]

1. Nine days after the inauguration...

I believe that was the very day that the oil companies sat down with Dick Cheney to begin mapping "energy policy".

[ghostsinthemachine]

2. In secret. Also Cheney, Lay and Ahhhnold met

To destroy Gray Davis via energy price gouging.

[Mister Ed]

5. And when the Sierra Club pressed a lawsuit to make the meeting info public...

...it went all the way to the Supreme Court, where it was voted down by the usual Conservative 5-4 majority. One of those five justices was, of course Antonin Scalia, who had spent the previous weekend duck hunting with his pal, defendant Dick Cheney.

His refusal to recuse himself was absolutely criminal.

We may never know, but there's every reason to suspect that the plans to invade and occupy Iraq on false pretexts was solidified in these "energy policy" meetings.

[angrychair]

3. I am sure that at least two of the possible outcomes

In this presidential race are in their favor to bury talk of climate change for good. With such a strong flip flopper on coal and a strong fracking advocate running on one side and a raging idiot on the other, I'm sure many in the oil and gas industry see the next four years as Christmas every day.

[Scientific]

4. You can always count on Republicans and their corps to support ignorance

[MisterP]

6. like sprading fracking around the world!