[✔️] January 22, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*January 22, 2022*/

/[  Not unexpected -  video and text ] /
*House panel broadens probe into climate disinformation by Big Oil*
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform has invited members of 
fossil fuel companies’ boards of directors to testify at a hearing next 
month on their commitment to addressing climate change
By Maxine Joselow - - Jan 21, 2022

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform has broadened its 
investigation into the role of fossil fuel companies in misleading the 
public about climate change, asking members of the boards of directors 
of ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Shell Oil to testify before Congress next 
month about their firms’ commitments to curbing global warming.

The move by the powerful Oversight Committee comes as Senate Democrats 
struggle to pass sweeping climate and social spending legislation. 
President Biden acknowledged Wednesday that further cuts to his Build 
Back Better proposal may be necessary, and climate-fueled extreme 
weather events are intensifying around the country.

Oversight panel members previously grilled the CEOs of the four oil and 
gas companies, as well as two trade associations they fund, at a 
historic six-hour hearing in October. The proceedings grew heated at 
times as Democrats argued that the oil industry has deceived the public 
for decades about the perils of burning fossil fuels, which releases 
large quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are 
dangerously warming Earth...
- -
ExxonMobil has been in the committee’s crosshairs since July, when 
Greenpeace UK released a secretly recorded video of an ExxonMobil 
lobbyist boasting about the company’s efforts to undermine climate 
science and block climate legislation. Keith McCoy, who at the time 
thought he was talking to a job recruiter, said the company had relied 
on “shadow groups” to fight climate science and had lobbied influential 
senators to undercut Biden’s climate agenda.

Karsner will not be the only board member in the hot seat next month. 
The Oversight Committee also fired off a letter to Susan Avery, an 
atmospheric physicist who serves as president emerita of the Woods Hole 
Oceanographic Institution and was elected to ExxonMobil’s board in 2017.

To answer for Chevron, Democrats called on Enrique Hernandez Jr., CEO of 
a security services company who chairs the Chevron board’s public policy 
and sustainability committee. The other two directors called to testify, 
Melody Meyer of BP and Jane Holl Lute of Shell, also sit on their 
boards’ respective sustainability panels.

Chevron, the second-biggest American oil company, announced in October 
an “aspiration” of net-zero emissions from its operations, a move 
similar to ExxonMobil’s pledge. BP and Shell, which are both 
headquartered in Europe, have done more to transition toward low-carbon 
endeavors such as renewable energy projects and electric vehicle 
charging stations.

Curtis Smith, a spokesman for Shell, said the company was still 
reviewing the letter.

“In the meantime, we’re working hard to provide the Committee with 
materials requested in November of 2021,” Smith said in an email. “In a 
relatively short period of time, we have delivered to the Committee 
thousands of pages of documents that speak directly to Shell’s position 
on climate change over several decades, our strong support for the Paris 
Agreement and our efforts to be an industry leader in the transition to 
a lower-carbon future.”

Karsner and spokesmen for BP, Chevron and Shell did not respond to 
requests for comment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/01/21/house-panel-broadens-probe-into-climate-disinformation-by-big-oil/

- -

[ Reuters ]
*Oil industry board members to testify to Congress on climate 
disinformation*
Officials from Exxon, Shell, Chevron and BP have been summoned to appear 
before the House oversight committee in February
21 Jan 2022
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/21/oil-industry-board-members-to-testify-congress-climate-disinformation



/[ Then back in December -- from the Boston Globe ] /
*Marketing companies are culpable in climate delay, report says*
A first-of-its-kind, peer-reviewed study points to public relations 
agencies’ influence on public perception of the challenges and solutions 
of climate change...
It’s well-known that the fossil fuel industry and other major polluters 
have used misleading advertising to sway public opinion on climate 
issues. But a new peer-reviewed analysis brings the influence of those 
efforts into sharp relief, showing they’ve had an enduring impact on 
environmental politics.

The study from Brown University scholars provides the most comprehensive 
picture to date of the public relations firms behind those ads and 
argues they are partially culpable for the lack of sufficient climate 
action in the United States.

The report, published in the scientific journal Climatic Change on 
Tuesday, examines the influence of PR agencies on climate politics over 
the past three decades. The authors identified hundreds of campaigns 
that agencies orchestrated for polluting industries, including oil and 
gas, utilities, coal, and steel...
- -
The authors found that a small number of big-name PR firms handled most 
of the campaigns they identified and that the firms used a slew of 
tactics to promote climate delay, including advertising, social media, 
and the creation of faux-grass-roots “front groups.” All told, polluting 
companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on such efforts, the 
authors said.

The analysis found that PR has had a major impact on domestic climate 
discourse. The term “carbon footprint,” for instance, was first 
popularized by the Beyond Petroleum campaign that Ogilvy, a leading PR 
agency, conducted for the energy giant BP in 2000. Ogilvy swapped out 
BP’s 70-year-old, shield-style logo for a new green and yellow sunburst 
and rebranded the firm as environmentally conscious. The effort included 
an online “carbon footprint calculator” that told users about the 
environmental toll of personal eating, traveling, and spending habits, 
encouraging individuals to make changes. Hundreds of thousands of people 
used the calculator, and the term soon reached ubiquity...
- -
“What PR firms are able to do so well is continue to obstruct climate 
action by claiming that companies are doing all these things to try to 
address climate change as a social and political problem.” Today, she 
sees companies using the same tactics to promote questionable solutions 
like the use of algae-based biofuels and plastic recycling instead of 
transforming their business models.

Brulle said that despite its clear influence, PR’s role in delaying 
climate action has been largely overlooked. Much more focus has been put 
on the think tanks that promote doubt in climate science, like the 
Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the American 
Enterprise Institute. Yet his research shows that while polluting 
companies and lobbying groups spend some $36 million annually to fund 
those organizations’ efforts, that number pales in comparison to the 
stunning $500 million to $700 million per year they spend on advertising.

“We’re looking at the 5 percent of money being spent on outright climate 
science denial, and we’re missing the other 95 percent of the political 
and cultural manipulation that goes on,” he said.

Scrutiny of PR is increasing. Last year, the advocacy group Fossil Free 
Media launched the Clean Creatives project to push for PR and 
advertising industries to cut ties with fossil fuel companies. Yet major 
PR agencies are still resisting public pressure to break off these 
relationships. Earlier this month, Edelman — the world’s largest PR firm 
and the firm most frequently contracted by the US oil and gas sector — 
announced a new plan to “put science and facts first” when it comes to 
climate change, yet refused to halt its contracts with oil companies.

Earlier this month, oil executives testified before Congress about their 
obstruction of climate policy, and in recent years, states and cities — 
including Massachusetts — have sued energy giants over alleged 
greenwashing. Kert Davies, the founder of the Climate Investigations 
Center, who studies climate-related disinformation, said to hold PR 
firms accountable for their role in climate delay, they should be drawn 
into such hearings and lawsuits.

“The PR industry has been a silent accomplice in the long campaign by 
oil and gas companies, electric utilities, and other fossil fuel 
interests to control the court of public opinion around climate change,” 
he said.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/12/01/science/report-marketing-companies-are-culpable-climate-delay/

- -

[  academic publication from November ]
*The role of public relations firms in climate change politics*
Robert J. Brulle & Carter Werthman
Climatic Change volume 169, Article number: 8 (2021) Cite this article
*Abstract*

    Climate change policy has long been subject to influence by a wide
    variety of organizations. Despite their importance, the key role of
    public relations (PR) firms has long been overlooked in the climate
    political space. This paper provides an exploratory overview of the
    extent and nature of involvement of PR firms in climate political
    action by organizations in five sectors: Coal/Steel/Rail, Oil & Gas,
    Utilities, Renewable Energy, and the Environmental Movement. The
    analysis shows that the engagement of public relations firms by
    organizations in all of these sectors is widespread. In absolute
    terms, the Utility and Gas & Oil sectors engage the most PR firms,
    and the Environmental Movement engages the fewest. Organizations in
    the Utilities Sector show a statistically significant higher use of
    PR firms than the other sectors. Within each sector, engagement of
    PR firms is concentrated in a few firms, and the major oil companies
    and electrical-supply manufactures are the heaviest employers of
    such firms. PR firms generally specialize in representing specific
    sectors, and a few larger PR firms are widely engaged in climate and
    energy political activity. PR firms developed campaigns that
    frequently relied on third-party groups to engage with the public,
    criticize opponents, and serve as the face of an advertising
    campaign. Our analysis shows that PR firms are a key organizational
    actor in climate politics.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-021-03244-4



/[  let's not try to delay   ] /
*The Cost of Delaying Action on Climate Change*
Jan 21, 2022
Ralph Izzo Chairman, President and CEO at PSEGF

The transition to a decarbonized economy – whether we’re talking about 
deploying renewable energy resources, electrification of transportation, 
or R&D into grid-scale battery storage and carbon-capture technologies – 
is typically met with the same questions: How much will it cost? And 
where will we find the money?

For a challenge as far reaching as climate change, that’s a reasonable 
question. We should be striving for equitable, affordable solutions that 
leave no one behind.

The costliest impacts of climate change, in both lives and property, are 
growing worse by the year. At a time when many households are stretched 
financially, we should maintain our focus on affordability. However, we 
must also remember that, while there is a price tag attached to our 
clean energy transition, the cost of failing to act will be even higher.

According to new data from NASA and the National Oceanographic and 
Atmospheric Administration, 2021 was the sixth-warmest year in 142 years 
of recorded history. Last year also featured the second-highest number 
of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters on record in the Lower 
48 states, according to NOAA’s new report. That’s not a coincidence.

Extreme weather events affect the lives and health of millions of 
Americans, destroy homes and property and disrupt economies – providing 
evidence of the rising costs of dealing with global warming with every 
passing year.

What’s more, as extreme weather events grow more frequent, more 
dangerous and more expensive to recover from, it is increasingly clear 
that the cost of addressing the causes of climate change, as well as the 
health and environmental impacts that are already here, ultimately will 
still be cheaper than the cost of doing nothing at all.

Take one example: The House-approved version of President Biden’s Build 
Back Better plan contains $555 billion in spending proposals for climate 
and clean energy efforts over the next 10 years. Meanwhile, the 
estimated cost of 2021’s extreme weather events is upward of $145 
billion and nearly 700 lives lost. And that’s just one year. The largest 
event of 2021 was Hurricane Ida, whose powerful winds and record 
flooding were supercharged by climate change – with damage estimated at 
$75 billion.

Unfortunately, the greenhouse gas emissions that trap the sun’s energy 
and cause global warming are moving in the wrong direction. After global 
emissions dropped in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, 
worldwide electric demand grew 6% in 2021, leading to an increase in GHG 
emissions, as well as the biggest jumps in more than a decade. U.S. 
emissions rose at a similar rate, driven by a surge in coal use brought 
on by rising natural gas prices.

That raises another important point: America’s recent emissions 
reduction successes have been largely the result of the economics – 
abundant natural gas that costs less than coal – and are NOT related to 
actual environmental or carbon-reduction policies. Last year’s rising 
emissions proved this point. Once the economics of gas became 
unfavorable, power producers turned to cheaper coal, driving emissions 
back up.

That should bring greater focus on the need to recognize the economic 
impacts of carbon emissions, whether through a price on carbon or tax 
incentives for carbon-free energy sources. Without the economic systems 
or policies in place driving toward a goal, such as a carbon pricing 
mechanism driving toward net-zero emissions, U.S. emissions can be 
influenced by factors as simple as an uptick in the price of gas. This 
is just one of several viable solutions to help us act on climate change 
today.

Climate change is here and it’s one of the most daunting challenges we 
face. From wildfires to extreme temperatures to record-setting floods, 
climate change already is costing us a tremendous amount. Addressing the 
human activities that are causing it comes with a cost, too. But extreme 
weather events will force us to divert billions of dollars from critical 
climate change efforts every year – impeding our ability to reach our 
global carbon-reduction goals and avoid ever-worsening impacts of our 
changing climate.

Addressing climate change will be expensive – but not nearly as 
expensive as delay.
https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/735211-cost-delaying-action-climate-change
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cost-delaying-action-climate-change-ralph-izzo/



[ general talk on the topic --  video 48 min]
*Nationalize Fossil Fuel to Fight Climate Change and Inflation - Bob Pollin*
Jan 20, 2022
theAnalysis-news
By purchasing controlling interest of the major American fossil fuel 
companies, the federal government can phase out fossil fuels, transition 
to sustainable energy, and enforce a lower price of oil which will 
alleviate inflationary pressures. Bob Pollin joins Paul Jay on 
theAnalysis.news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=344Mrnr7CTQ



[The news archive - looking back to Nixon]
*On this day in the history of global warming January  22, 1970*

January 22, 1970: In his State of the Union address, President Nixon 
declares:

"The great question of the seventies is, shall we surrender to our 
surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make 
reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land, and to 
our water?

"Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and 
beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of this 
country. It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because 
they more than we will reap the grim consequences of our failure to act 
on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later.

"Clean air, clean water, open spaces—these should once again be the 
birthright of every American. If we act now, they can be.

"We still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and neither 
is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high. Through our 
years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature, and now that 
debt is being called...

"The automobile is our worst polluter of the air. Adequate control 
requires further advances in engine design and fuel composition. We 
shall intensify our research, set increasingly strict standards, and 
strengthen enforcement procedures—and we shall do it now.

"We can no longer afford to consider air and water common property, free 
to be abused by anyone without regard to the consequences. Instead, we 
should begin now to treat them as scarce resources, which we are no more 
free to contaminate than we are free to throw garbage into our 
neighbor's yard."
http://youtu.be/5LpspwT0ZwA


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