Reuters  [Printer-friendly version]
January 4, 2007

EXXON MOBIL CULTIVATES GLOBAL WARMING DOUBT

By Deborah Zabarenko

Washington -- Energy giant ExxonMobil borrowed tactics from the
tobacco industry to raise doubt about climate change, spending US$16
million on groups that question global warming, a science watchdog
group said on Wednesday.

"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of
global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused
lung cancer," Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists said at
a telephone news conference releasing the report.

An ExxonMobil spokesman dismissed the report as "an attempt to connect
unrelated facts, draw inaccurate conclusions and mislead the audience
with a fiction about ExxonMobil's true positions."

The union, a nonprofit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said
ExxonMobil, the world's biggest publicly traded corporation, had
succeeded in parlaying a relatively modest investment into unwarranted
public doubt on findings that have been overwhelmingly endorsed by
mainstream science.

ExxonMobil did this by using the same methods used for decades by the
US tobacco industry, the report said, including:

raising doubts about even the most undisputed science;

funding a variety of front organizations to create the appearance of a
broad platform;

recruiting a number of vocal climate change contrarians;

portraying its opposition to action as a quest for "sound science"
rather than business self-interest;

using its access to the Bush administration to shape federal
communications and policies on global warming. Tobacco Tactics

US tobacco companies used these tactics for decades to hide the
hazards of smoking, and were found liable in federal court last year
for violating racketeering laws.

Global warming has been blamed for stronger hurricanes, more wildfires
and worse droughts. While there have been cycles of warming and
cooling throughout Earth's history, the last 30 years have seen a
steep warming trend which most scientists say is due to emission of
so-called greenhouse gases by the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles,
factories and power plants.

ExxonMobil has funded legitimate scientific studies on climate change,
the watchdog report said, but noted it has also spent approximately
US$16 million between 1998 and 2005 on 43 organizations that have cast
doubt on the reality of human-caused global warming.

The report said these have ranged from US$30,000 for the group Africa
Fighting Malaria, which argues on its Web site against urgent action
on climate change, to US$1.6 million to the American Enterprise
Institute, a pro-business think tank in Washington.

James McCarthy, professor of biological oceanography and director of
the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, noted a 2005
statement issued by the US National Academy of Sciences and 10 science
academies from other countries, affirming that "climate change is now
sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action."

"This report reveals for the first time the degree to which efforts to
exaggerate uncertainty in climate science produce non scientific
reports designed to cast doubt on published scientific climate studies
have been orchestrated by ExxonMobil," McCarthy said at the news
conference.

Company spokesman Dave Gardner said in an e-mail that the company
acknowledged the burning of fossil fuels is a major source of
greenhouse gas emissions.

He said ExxonMobil supports various public policy groups but said
financial support does not mean it has control over the groups'
positions.

"We find some of them persuasive and enlightening, and some not. But
there is value in the debate they prompt if it can lead to better
informed and more optimal public policy decisions," Gardner said.