Tread with care Exxon Mobil, you are walking on thin ice

So, in my first post I touched upon the 1989 Exxon Mobil oil spill. ExxonMobil is the largest publicly traded international oil and gas company, yet it hasn’t been a good week for them!

Inside climate news (2015) published an article exposing the controversial research occurring within the company during the 1980s. Turns out Exxon Mobil have known about the prospects of climate change as early as 1979 (Shocker!). Research (conducted by Exxon Mobil), on impacts of potential global warming on oil prices, concluded unless fossil fuel use was constrained, there would be noticeable changes to atmospheric temperature. This was furthered by the prediction of 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 2010. Turns out this is remarkably accurate as currently, ppm stands at 397.65 (c02now, 2015)

What is alarming is this information was solely circulated within the company. Despite being described as a “great and urgent” (Kinsley, 1979) problem, this theory never went public. This spurred the investment of vast funds into researching the theory and by 1981 the trajectory of atmospheric change has been confirmed. The treats of policy change were too great. Exxon Mobil hid the results out of fear of the implications for the fossil fuel market, stating the results were too murky to act. Yet if they had been published would we have acted? Could we have limited the current extent of climate change?

This post strolls a bit from the path of polar threats, yet Exxon Mobil is one of the largest stakeholders in the Poles, with exploration projects in the Beaufort Sea since the 1970s (FuelFix, 2015). This acts as a reminder; when looking at the polar debates, always be critical, always consider the possibilities ulterior motives of stakeholders and never believe everything you read. The fact this research was not publicly published was unbelievable and gives an example of the vested interests which some stakeholders (particularly in relation to exploration) hold. Tread with care Exxon Mobil, you are walking on thin ice.