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Originally Posted by Kirk  The truth hurts doesn't it....
Exxon cuts ties to global warming skeptics
Oil giant also in talks to look at curbing greenhouse gases
MSNBC staff and news service reports
updated Jan. 12, 2007
NEW YORK - Oil major Exxon Mobil Corp. is engaging in industry talks on possible U.S. greenhouse gas emissions regulations and has stopped funding groups skeptical of global warming claims — moves that some say could indicate a change in stance from the long-time foe of limits on heat-trapping gases.
Exxon, along with representatives from about 20 other companies, is participating in talks sponsored by Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit. The think tank said it expected the talks would generate a report in the fall with recommendations to legislators on how to regulate greenhouse emissions.
Mark Boudreaux, a spokesman for Exxon, the world’s biggest publicly traded company, said its position on climate change has been “widely misunderstood and as a result of that, we have been clarifying and talking more about what our position is.”
Boudreux said Exxon in 2006 stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit advocating limited government regulation, and other groups that have downplayed the risks of greenhouse emissions.
Warming war
May 19: View a TV ad produced for the Competitive Enterprise Institute that argues against regulating manmade carbon dioxide emissions as pollutants.
MSNBC.com
CEI acknowledged the change. “I would make an argument that we’re a useful ally, but it’s up to them whether that’s in the priority system that they have, right or wrong,” director Fred Smith said on CNBC’s “On the Money.”
Last year, CEI ran advertisements, featuring a little girl playing with a dandelion, that downplayed the risks of carbon dioxide emissions.
Since Democrats won control of Congress in November, heavy industries have been nervously watching which route the United States may take on future regulations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases scientists link to global warming. Several lawmakers on Friday introduced a bill to curb emissions. |
So did it ever occur to you that what you are saying here is proof positive that the oil companies are NOT bribing scientists to deny global warming? Did it ever occur to you that oil companies are as eagerl to make a buck off global warming as much as anybody else? Oil companies are not in the business of providing oil. Oil as it comes from the ground has little use to anybody. Oil companies are in the business of
providing energy in a usable form. So the oil companies are no more tied to oil than anybody else if they can figure out other ways to make money.
All the oil companies have been on the cutting edge of renewable energy sources including wind, solar, and bio. Recently ConocoPhillips invested mega millions to construct a new facility in Texas that converts beef fat for use as auto fuel and for other purposes. And don't think the oil companies aren't investing in mandated ethanol production even as they object to the principle of ethanol. (Ethanol is more expensive to refine for each unit of useful energy produced when compared to gasoline and diesel, it requires different storage tanks, pumps, and trucks, and must be transported by truck rather than piped.) But once oil companies are foced into making such investments, they don't want to see them go down the tubes.
A little common sense and following the money goes a long way to avoid making foolish errors in assessing the situation that currently exists.
So yes, if mega bucks are to be made--even when those paying bigger bills at the gas pump or whatever are us--the oil companies are not likely to refuse to jump on that bandwagon.