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<font size="+2"><i><b>October 28, 2021</b></i></font><br>
<i><br>
</i><i>[Congressional hearings begin today at 10:30 ET </i><i><a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://oversight.house.gov/legislation/hearings/fueling-the-climate-crisis-exposing-big-oil-s-disinformation-campaign-to">https://oversight.house.gov/legislation/hearings/fueling-the-climate-crisis-exposing-big-oil-s-disinformation-campaign-to</a>
]</i><br>
<b> </b><br>
<b>Fossil fuel companies are sponsoring some of the Beltway's
most-read newsletters in an attempt to win influence in
Washington, DC.</b><br>
Molly Taft and Emily Atkin<br>
Oct 27. 2021<br>
- -<br>
The statements use a misinformation technique called “paltering,”
said John Cook, a climate change communication researcher at Monash
University. The term refers to the practice of saying things that
are, on their own, literally true—but create a misleading overall
impression.<br>
<br>
“Paltering is commonly used in greenwashing, a form of climate
misinformation where companies attempt to distract from their
polluting behavior,” Cook said. “A company boasting about capturing
CO2 when their core business is emitting CO2 into the atmosphere
through burning fossil fuels is a textbook example of greenwashing.”<br>
<br>
Exxon is technically working to reduce emissions by using and
investing in carbon capture, a climate solution. But carbon capture
is only effective if paired with ambitious reductions in actual
emissions—and Exxon, the world’s fourth largest climate-polluting
fossil fuel company, is planning to increase its oil and gas output
over time. Exxon also doesn’t use carbon capture to reduce
emissions; it sells the captured carbon to businesses that use it to
produce more oil. The company is also aggressively lobbying against
climate policy and a lobbyist was recently ensnared in a sting
talking about its tactics.<br>
<br>
But Exxon needs the public to believe it is addressing climate
change in order to increase its social license to
operate—particularly right before a potentially damaging hearing on
the subject, said Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist and
visiting professor at Brown University. “As threats [to the oil
industry] increase, these [greenwashing] efforts increase,” he said.
“This is an old cycle.”<br>
Indeed, a joint analysis conducted by HEATED and Earther found that
oil company advertising has exploded in DC-based newsletters in the
lead-up to the hearing being put on by the House Oversight Committee
looking into what the committee calls “the fossil fuel industry’s
long-running, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about
the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming.”<br>
<br>
Moreover, most of the advertisements contain misinformation about
the oil companies’ climate efforts, making this yet another chapter
in a decades-long story. The results show that lawmakers, lobbyists,
policy professionals, and industry insiders—those involved in
shaping on-the-ground climate policy—have been barraged with
propaganda from fossil fuel interests with their morning news over
the past five months as lawmakers debate crucial climate legislation
and accountability measures. And some of these ads are purposefully
designed to make them look like the original reporting contained in
the newsletters, meaning audiences may not even realize they’re
absorbing climate misinformation...<br>
- -<br>
The responses appear to misunderstand the issue being raised. No one
has claimed Big Oil’s ads influence the reporting at these news
outlets. The issue is that news outlets are using their own quality
reporting to sell advertisers on opportunities to spread
misinformation on their platforms and making a lot of money from it.<br>
<br>
Climate Power said that according to their media buyer, a week of
sponsoring the Punchbowl newsletter costs more than $100,000. While
energy and climate newsletters are cheaper to sponsor than bigger
political heavy hitters—POLITICO Playbook and Axios can be above
$300,000 for a week of sponsorships—they can still cost “tens of
thousands of dollars per week,” Climate Power said in an email.<br>
<br>
When asked questions about the cost of newsletter sponsorships, how
far in advance sponsorships are booked, and specific numbers of the
newsletter’s audience, Bosserman said POLITICO couldn’t share that
information; Brignoni did not respond to those questions as of press
time.<br>
<br>
We’ve reached out to Exxon, Chevron, and API about their sponsorship
of these newsletters and what they hope to accomplish. As of press
time, none responded. But perhaps they’ll be asked on Thursday.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://gizmodo.com/big-oil-uses-newsletter-ads-to-spread-misinformation-ah-1847946590">https://gizmodo.com/big-oil-uses-newsletter-ads-to-spread-misinformation-ah-1847946590</a><br>
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</p>
<i>[ powerfully different view - giving up on politicians with an
animated video ]</i><br>
<b>We’re Facing a Climate Disaster. Why Is Greta Thunberg Hopeful?</b><br>
Greta Thunberg - October 27, 2021<br>
“All political and economic systems have failed, but humanity has
not yet failed.”<br>
- Animated cartoon -- <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000008010161/greta-thunberg-climate-crisis.html">https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000008010161/greta-thunberg-climate-crisis.html</a><br>
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<i>[ Criticizing Australia's coal policy in a sarcastic video ]</i><br>
<b>Honest Government Ad | COP26 Climate Summit</b><br>
Oct 27, 2021<br>
thejuicemedia<br>
The Australien Government has made an ad for the COP26 UN Climate
Summit, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIyKmqEdgR4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIyKmqEdgR4</a><br>
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<i>[ Almost like a tide ] </i><br>
<b>Chicago is at risk as climate change causes wild swings in Lake
Michigan water levels</b><br>
WED, OCT 27 2021<br>
KEY POINTS<br>
-- Heavier rainfall and more frequent droughts are now causing
extreme swings in the water levels of Lake<br>
-- Michigan and the Chicago River, wreaking havoc on the city and
prompting urgent action to find a fix.<br>
-- Record lake water levels in the winter of 2020 hampered the
city’s flood prevention system, contributing to flooding downtown.
This could become the new normal going forward.<br>
-- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is evaluating infrastructure
upgrades, taking climate change into account.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/27/chicago-and-great-lakes-hurt-by-climate-change-need-infrastructure.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/27/chicago-and-great-lakes-hurt-by-climate-change-need-infrastructure.html</a><br>
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<i>[ Saudi Arabia is a sovereign nation ]</i><br>
<b>‘Dangerous and delusional’: Critics denounce Saudi climate plan</b><br>
The kingdom announced plans to fight global warming, but
acknowledged it will continue to extract and export its vast
petroleum reserves.<br>
By Robert Kennedy - Published On 26 Oct 2021<br>
Under pressure to decarbonise, Saudi Arabia has announced a raft of
measures to deal with the intensifying climate crisis, but critics
say the moves are just a smokescreen to keep fossil fuels propelling
its economy.<br>
<br>
After holding the “Middle East Green Initiative” over the weekend,
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman presented a series of plans
to address the dangers of global warming, overwhelmingly caused by
rich nations over the past three centuries.<br>
The initiatives included achieving “net-zero” greenhouse gas
emissions by 2060, planting 50 billion trees in the Middle East in
the decades to come, and launching a $10.4bn clean energy project
for the region.<br>
<br>
The pledges, however, came days after Saudi Aramco, the world’s
largest oil producer, announced it planned to raise crude production
from 12 million barrels a day to 13 million barrels by 2027 – a move
scientists, energy experts, and activists say goes directly against
what is needed to stave off the most catastrophic effects of climate
change.<br>
All hydrocarbons must remain in the ground starting now, climate
researchers say.<br>
<br>
Saudi Arabia has justified the contradictory moves of reducing its
own carbon emissions while still taking oil out of the ground and
selling it worldwide as part of a plan to create a “circular carbon
economy“.<br>
<br>
This envisions continuing to extract carbon-filled fuel out of the
earth while employing new technologies to capture, store or sell its
emissions – essentially an offset scheme.<br>
<br>
The Saudis and other traditional energy producers say it is
unrealistic simply to turn off the oil-and-gas taps at the moment as
fossil fuels will be needed for decades to come during the
transition to renewables.<br>
- -<br>
It isn’t difficult to understand why the kingdom would be reluctant
to act fast and decisively on walking away from hydrocarbon
production.<br>
<br>
Saudi Arabia possesses about 16 percent of the world’s proven
petroleum reserves. Estimates indicate the oil and gas sector
accounts for about 87 percent of budget revenues, 42 percent of
gross domestic product, and 90 percent of export earnings...<br>
- -<br>
Matthew Archer, a researcher at the Graduate Institute Geneva, was
more direct when asked by Al Jazeera about Saudi Arabia’s “circular
carbon economy” plan.<br>
<br>
“It’s absurd to think that an economy based on the extraction and
combustion of fossil fuels can be ‘circular’ in any meaningful sense
of the word. The only way it works is if you rely on technologies
that don’t exist yet,” said Archer.<br>
<br>
“These initiatives are … full of language that’s as ambitious as it
is ambiguous, with very few concrete plans and no accountability
mechanisms.”<br>
<br>
Highlighting the dire warnings in the latest report by the United
Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change, he said the only way
to rapidly decarbonise to avert catastrophic consequences of global
warming is to ban new fossil fuel developments and invest massively
in renewable energy and public infrastructure projects.<br>
“Anything short of that isn’t just greenwashing, it’s dangerous and
delusional,” said Archer.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/26/green-or-greenwashing-saudi-arabias-climate-change-pledges">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/26/green-or-greenwashing-saudi-arabias-climate-change-pledges</a><br>
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</p>
<i>[ Openly naming the top 12 bad guys ]</i><br>
<b>The dirty dozen: meet America’s top climate villains</b><br>
Georgia Wright, Liat Olenick and Amy Westervelt<br>
Wed 27 Oct 2021 <br>
Few are household names, yet these 12 enablers and profiteers have
an unimaginable sway over the fate of humanity<br>
<br>
For too long, Americans were fed a false narrative that they should
feel individually guilty about the climate crisis. The reality is
that only a handful of powerful individuals bear the personal
responsibility.<br>
<br>
The nation’s worst polluters managed to evade accountability and
scrutiny for decades as they helped the fossil fuel industry destroy
our planet. The actions of these climate supervillains have affected
millions of people, disproportionately hurting the vulnerable who
have done the least to contribute to global emissions.<br>
<br>
Working- and middle-class people must stop blaming themselves for
the climate crisis. Instead, it’s time to band together to seek
justice and hold these profiteers accountable. Only in calling out
their power and culpability is it possible to reclaim the world that
belongs to all of us, together.<br>
<b><br>
</b><b>Mike Wirth</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE WOKE-WASHER</b><b><br>
</b><b>Chairman of the board and CEO of Chevron</b><br>
<br>
Mike Wirth captains Chevron, a notorious corporate polluter
responsible for one of the highest total carbon emissions of any
private company worldwide.<br>
<br>
Under Wirth’s direction, Chevron has pursued several greenwashing
tactics to downplay the company’s environmental impact. A coalition
of environmental groups filed a Federal Trade Commission complaint
against Chevron earlier this year saying it misled the public by
claiming responsibility only for carbon emissions associated with
refining and transporting oil, not the total emissions created by
the product it sells.<br>
<br>
Wirth also sits on the board of the American Petroleum Institute, an
oil industry trade group with a long track record of spreading
climate denial and delaying legislative efforts to curb carbon
emissions.<br>
<br>
In his own words: “Let them plant trees.”<br>
<br>
<b>Darren Woods</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE RINGLEADER</b><b><br>
</b><b>Chairman of the board and CEO of Exxon</b><br>
<br>
ExxonMobil is publicly known as one of the first oil companies to
become aware of climate change more than 40 years ago. Still, Exxon
spent millions of dollars spreading climate denial while
simultaneously contributing the fourth largest amount of carbon
emissions of any investor-owned company in the world.<br>
<br>
Woods, who’s been with the company since 1992, makes over $20m a
year. And though he expressed support for the 2015 Paris agreement
to substantially reduce global pollution, leaked documents showed
his plan for the company to increase its emissions by 17% through
2025.<br>
<br>
Earlier this year, Exxon lobbyists were also captured on video
revealing the company’s efforts to obstruct climate legislation in
Congress. Woods later tried to distance himself and the company from
the lobbyists, saying they “in no way represent” Exxon’s position.<br>
<br>
In his own words: Woods once called carbon reduction standards “a
beauty match, a beauty competition”.<br>
<br>
<b>Jamie Dimon</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE ENABLER</b><b><br>
</b><b>CEO of Chase Bank</b><br>
<br>
Billionaire Jamie Dimon is top dog at JP Morgan Chase, which has
provided $317bn in fossil fuel financing – 33% more than any other
bank – since the Paris agreement was adopted in 2015. Under Dimon,
Chase has also funneled more than $2bn into tar sands projects
between 2016 and 2019.<br>
<br>
When Chase’s managing director, Greg Determann, was asked early this
year if the company would still lend to oil and gas companies
despite the worsening climate crisis, Determann replied: “‘Mr Dimon
is quite focused on the industry. It’s a huge business for us and
that’s going to be the case for decades to come.”<br>
<br>
In his own words: “The solution is not as simple as walking away
from fossil fuels.”<br>
<br>
<b>Larry Fink</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE FINANCIER</b><b><br>
</b><b>CEO of BlackRock</b><br>
<br>
As the chief executive of BlackRock, Fink oversees one of the
world’s largest fossil fuel investment portfolios, with $87bn behind
the industry.<br>
<br>
And though Fink has made sweeping climate promises and even wrote an
op-ed about achieving a “net-zero” world, his company has profited
off deforestation – a major cause of rising emissions – more than
any other company globally.<br>
<br>
Fink has also pushed BlackRock to vote against pro-climate action
shareholder resolutions – all while angling for money from the
federal government that should go to climate projects.<br>
<br>
In his own words: “Without global action, every nation will bear
enormous costs from a warming planet, including damage from more
frequent natural disasters and supply-chain failures.”<br>
<br>
<b>Charles Koch</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE KINGPIN</b><b><br>
</b><b>Chairman and CEO of Koch Industries</b><br>
<br>
Alongside his now-deceased brother David, Charles Koch has a lengthy
résumé of climate malfeasance. The multibillionaire is the longtime
head of Koch Industries, a refining, petrochemical and pipeline
company labeled by Greenpeace as a “kingpin of climate denial”.<br>
<br>
The Kochs, and particularly Charles, moved early to politicize
climate change. Charles founded and funded the Cato Institute, a
libertarian thinktank known to coordinate and distribute climate
denial, which became the first organization to stoke the ideological
divide on the climate crisis. Koch Industries went on to spend
nearly $150m financing climate denial groups between 1997 and 2018
alone.<br>
<br>
Since his brother’s death, Charles has attempted to backtrack on his
legacy of sowing hyper-partisan division. But according to
OpenSecrets, Koch Industries is the top spender ($5.6m) on annual
lobbying on oil and gas so far this year.<br>
<br>
In his own words: “Boy did we screw up. What a mess!”<br>
<br>
<b>Mitch McConnell</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE OBSTRUCTIONIST</b><b><br>
</b><b>Senate minority leader</b><br>
<br>
Mitch McConnell only admitted to believing in human-caused climate
change in 2020. He is also the chief architect of ongoing Republican
obstructionism. Under President Obama, whose climate actions he
smeared as a “war on coal”, McConnell used the filibuster to block
even tepid climate reforms supported by a majority of Americans.<br>
<br>
Under Trump, McConnell nuked the judicial filibuster in order to put
three anti-science, pro-corporate justices on the supreme court,
including Amy Coney-Barrett, who maintains deep family ties to big
oil (her father worked at Shell for decades). And now, McConnell is
ensuring that 100% of Republicans will vote against all of Biden’s
climate agenda.<br>
<br>
McConnell is also heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry, to the
tune of more than $3m over the course of his infamous career.<br>
<br>
In his own words: “I’m not a scientist.”<br>
<br>
<b>Joe Manchin</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE SABOTEUR</b><b><br>
</b><b>US senator</b><br>
<br>
Today, Joe Manchin is most famous for being a swing vote for
important legislation, but the real story is how the fossil fuel
industry made him mega-wealthy through two coal companies he founded
in the 1980s.<br>
<br>
While even coalminers in his home state of West Virginia support a
Green New Deal, Manchin uses his position to hold climate
legislation hostage on behalf of the fossil fuel industry – which he
is currently doing by threatening to vote against Biden’s Build Back
Better climate agenda. The Exxon lobbyists caught on tape earlier
this year specifically identified Manchin as “their guy”, and said
they meet with him several times a week.<br>
<br>
According to OpenSecrets, Manchin takes more money from the fossil
fuel industry than any other Democrat.<br>
<br>
In his own words: “If you’re sticking your head in the sand, and
saying that fossil [fuel] has to be eliminated in America … and
thinking that’s going to clean up the global climate, it won’t clean
it up at all. If anything, it would be worse.”<br>
<br>
<b>Mark Zuckerberg</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE PROPAGANDIST</b><b><br>
</b><b>Facebook founder and CEO</b><br>
<br>
Zuckerberg, whose net worth is $120bn, shows a consistent
willingness to profit off the spread of climate denial on behalf of
the fossil fuel industry. In April 2021, Zuckerberg told Congress
climate misinformation was “a big issue”, yet Facebook has done
little to rein in climate denial or challenge the fossil fuel
industry.<br>
<br>
Facebook was born, lives and thrives in scandal. It’s been lawless
for years | Matt Stoller<br>
Last year, pro-fossil fuel Facebook ads were viewed 431m times. In
just the first half of 2020, ads on Facebook calling climate change
a hoax were viewed at least 8m times in the United States alone.<br>
<br>
In 2019, an article falsely attributing climate change to Earth’s
solar orbit went viral, accumulating millions of views without
intervention by the company. And this year, one report found that in
just the first two months of 2021, Facebook spread climate denial to
over 25 million people, including posts about wind turbines being to
blame after Texas froze over in February.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, Facebook has muzzled actual climate scientists trying to
share peer-reviewed research.<br>
<br>
In his own words: “Move fast and break things. Unless you are
breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”<br>
<br>
<b>Rupert Murdoch</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE TYCOON</b><b><br>
</b><b>Founder of News Corp</b><br>
<br>
The father of international media conglomerate News Corp and the CEO
of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and many other outlets,
Australian American tycoon Rupert Murdoch has overseen his
companies’ rampant spreading of misinformation and climate denial
for decades, netting him over $23bn.<br>
<br>
Although Murdoch has claimed his company does not support climate
denial, his news outlets have published article after article sowing
doubt in climate science. Meanwhile, as of 2019, more than 80% of
climate coverage on Fox News was steeped in denial, according to an
analysis by the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen.<br>
<br>
In his own words: “Climate change has been going on as long as the
planet is here, and there will always be a little bit of it.”<br>
<br>
<b>David MacLennan</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE DESTROYER</b><b><br>
</b><b>CEO of Cargill</b><br>
<br>
Rainforests are the most important climate regulators in the world.
But Cargill, a global food corporation helmed by MacLennan, has a
profit model based on rainforest destruction caused by soy and beef
production, particularly in the Amazon.<br>
<br>
MacLennan has been in charge of the company’s global strategy since
2013. He was calling the shots when, in 2019, former congressman
Henry Waxman called Cargill the “worst company in the world”,
referring to its track record on deforestation.<br>
<br>
Thanks to public pressure, Cargill did recently declare a moratorium
on buying agricultural products from illegally cleared rainforest,
but there is evidence that under Maclennan’s leadership, the company
is already ignoring its own commitment.<br>
<br>
In his own words: When asked why Cargill wasn’t eliminating
deforestation from its supply chain: “The supply chains in Brazil
are very complicated.”<br>
<br>
<b>Richard Edelman</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE FABULIST</b><b><br>
</b><b>CEO of Edelman PR</b><br>
<br>
Edelman heads the global communications firm Edelman PR, which made
tens of millions of dollars over the years by working with fossil
fuel companies. His firm has created multi-pronged PR, advertising
and lobbying campaigns with ExxonMobil, TransCanada, the American
Petroleum Institute and Shell – prompting high-profile clients and
executives to leave over the firm’s work pushing climate denial.<br>
<br>
In 2015, Edelman announced that the firm would stop accepting
climate denier assignments, but he has since claimed that the firm’s
work for Shell, ExxonMobil and more don’t technically qualify as
climate denial.<br>
<br>
Tax filings show that since that 2015 announcement, the firm has
raked in $12m for its work with the American Fuel and Petrochemical
Manufacturers alone, whose most recent focus has been increasing
criminal penalties for pipeline protesters.<br>
<br>
In his own words: “I’m proud of what our firm is doing to build a
house of trust through our mission, values, and actions.”<br>
<br>
<b>Ted Boutrous</b><b><br>
</b><b>THE SMOOTH TALKER</b><b><br>
</b><b>Partner of Gibson Dunn law firm</b><br>
<br>
As Chevron’s lead attorney and the main spokesman for all the oil
companies in some two dozen climate liability cases, Boutrous sets
the agenda in answering to the fossil fuel industry’s decades of
lies about climate change. His argument before the courts hinges on
the idea that every person shares equal blame for the climate
crisis, and that it’s “counterproductive” to hold the fossil fuel
industry particularly responsible.<br>
<br>
Law Students for Climate Accountability rates Gibson Dunn among the
worst of the worst on its climate scorecard for having the
second-highest amount of fossil fuel litigation work of all 26 firms
the group evaluated.<br>
<br>
In his own words: “Chevron is a great company and great client with
a strong culture of social responsibility.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/27/climate-crisis-villains-americas-dirty-dozen">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/27/climate-crisis-villains-americas-dirty-dozen</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ from the past - this is an edit of an earlier dirty list from a
decade ago ]</i><br>
<b>The BEAST 15 Most Heinous Climate Villains</b><br>
Some of the bastards responsible for subverting public understanding
of climate change*<br>
(broken link was
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://buffalobeast.com/the-beast-15-most-heinous-climate-villains/">http://buffalobeast.com/the-beast-15-most-heinous-climate-villains/</a>
purged from Archive.org)<br>
A restored version privately recovered<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DOC0ySeXjtiqozS4eBchvZ_5eM5xqdELAqc2qW38wNA/edit?usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DOC0ySeXjtiqozS4eBchvZ_5eM5xqdELAqc2qW38wNA/edit?usp=sharing</a>
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<i>[ oops, from within the beast ] </i><br>
<b>The Climate Denial Is Coming From Inside Facebook's House</b><br>
An internal staff discussion details Facebook's loose policy to deal
with climate misinformation—and skeptics fighting in favor of the
controversy.<br>
Brian Kahn - Oct 26, 2021<br>
n the midst of the second-hottest October in human history, a
question popped up on an internal Facebook message board. “Policy
for Misinformation - Climate Change Denial?”<br>
<br>
The question sparked a discussion, including with an employee
arguing that Facebook allowing climate denial posts to run unchecked
on the platform made sense because the science around a specific
type of ulcer once shifted. The post, available here, is part of a
tranche of documents released by whistleblower Francis Haugen’s
legal team that Gizmodo and other outlets have received access to.
(You can see what we’ve turned up so far.) The names of “low-level”
Facebook employees are redacted, so it’s unclear who specifically
engaged in the debate over climate change denial content. But the
chats are illuminating in just how hands-off Facebook has been with
climate denial, and how even within a company committed to net zero
emissions by 2030, a laissez-faire attitude about perpetuating
denial still reigns in some corners.<br>
<br>
The internal logs are from 2019, a year before Facebook opened its
climate science information center page for business. The initial
post features an employee asking what Facebook does to deal with
misinformation:<br>
<br>
I’m writing to find out if we have a policy regarding Climate Change
denial, specifically human involvement towards climate change. Is
this covered in our misinformation enforcement of inform treatments
and downranking? I’m wondering because this is science-based we
think differently about how this is treated to opinion-based fact
checking...<br>
- -<br>
This is one of the countless examples of real-world harm already
occurring due to the climate crisis. The political system has failed
to come to grips with this damage in large part because
misinformation has made the necessary actions nearly unattainable. A
separate internal thread in 2019 seems to acknowledge this reality,
with a post noting, “If someone is using Facebook Search to
deliberately sow doubt and slow down the public response to the
climate crisis, they are using our service to jeopardize the lives
of billions of people over the coming decades. Is that an attack we
are prepared for?”<br>
<br>
Why would Facebook allow denial to exist—and in some cases
flourish—on its platform is perhaps an ad dollars and cents issue.
But as the October 2019 thread reveals, some within the company are
also inclined to teach to the controversy. A response to the initial
post reads:<br>
<br>
It seems problematic to treat scientific consensus as the definitive
truth for the purpose of suppressing content that disagrees with it.<br>
<br>
Scientific consensus is occasionally overturned. It wasn’t too long
ago that everyone knew stomach ulcers were caused by stress and
excess stomach acid. The idea that they were caused by microbes was
debunked in 1954. If Facebook had been around at that time, we might
have faced pressure to stop crackpots from spreading their debunked
claims. ... Today, however, we know stomach ulcers are caused by
bacteria. ... The Nobel Prize came after many years of pushing back
against scientific consensus.<br>
<br>
“My immediate reaction is that this is the ‘skeptics as Galileo’
claim that climate deniers have sometimes appealed to in an effort
to position themselves as the victim of authoritarian suppression of
ideas,” Geoffrey Supran, a Harvard research associate and director
of Climate Accountability Communication at the Climate Social
Science Network, said in an email. He went on to note that “climate
scientists’ views are based on decades of peer-reviewed evidence and
reasoning. Climate deniers’ views are not.”<br>
<br>
Indeed, the Hal Turner post that sparked the discussion
misrepresents NASA’s findings and the preponderance of evidence that
humans are heating the planet by burning fossil fuels. Naomi
Oreskes, a science historian at Harvard who has written one of the
seminal texts on climate denial and also worked with Supran, said
that Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton actually deployed a
similar argument “that scientists had a consensus about eugenics.
Therefore we should not believe what they say today” about climate
change. She wrote an opinion piece in 2005 rebutting Crichton, which
rings true in light of the Facebook discussion today. Just because
“group X of scientists, decades ago, may have been wrong about Y,
does not mean that [a] different group, today, addressing a
different issue, are likely to be wrong now,” she wrote in an email.<br>
<br>
The Facebook Climate Science Center popped up in 2020 in response to
some of the criticisms of how the company was dealing with climate
science on the site. The center provides people with facts about
climate change and was updated recently with quizzes and a
$1-million influx of cash to beef up fact-checking. But it does
nothing to remove denial on the platform.<br>
<br>
“We combat climate change misinformation by connecting people to
reliable information from leading organizations through our Climate
Science Center and working with a global network of independent fact
checkers to review and rate content,” Facebook said in an emailed
statement. “When they rate this content as false, we add a warning
label and reduce its distribution so fewer people see it. We also
take action against Pages, Groups, and accounts that repeatedly
share false claims about climate science.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://gizmodo.com/the-climate-denial-is-coming-from-inside-facebooks-hous-1847939802">https://gizmodo.com/the-climate-denial-is-coming-from-inside-facebooks-hous-1847939802</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<i>[The news archive - looking back]</i><br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming
October 28, 2005</b></font><br>
October 28, 2005: The New York Times reports:<br>
<blockquote>"A sudden interruption in oil supplies sent prices and
profits skyrocketing, prompting Exxon's chief executive to call a
news conference right after his company announced that it had
chalked up record earnings. <br>
<br>
'I am not embarrassed,' he said. 'This is no windfall.'<br>
<br>
"That was January 1974, a few months after Arab oil producers cut
back on supplies and imposed their short-lived embargo on exports
to the United States. Oil executives, including J. K. Jamieson,
Exxon's chief executive at the time, were put on the defensive,
forced to justify their soaring profits while the nation was
facing its first energy crisis. <br>
<br>
"Three decades later, their successors are again facing
contentions that oil companies are making too much money and have
failed to expand production. <br>
<br>
"Politicians and other critics are asking why the industry allowed
its refining capacity to tighten. <br>
<br>
"Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, said yesterday that
its third-quarter net income jumped 75 percent, to $9.92 billion.
Its profit in the first nine months of this year - $25.42 billion
- already equals its full-year earnings for 2004. This year's
sales, which topped $100 billion in the last quarter, are expected
to exceed those of Wal-Mart.<br>
<br>
"Another oil giant, Royal Dutch Shell, reported a 68 percent jump
in profits yesterday, to $9.03 billion. Chevron is expected to
post a profit of more than $4 billion today.<br>
<br>
"This year is shaping up as an exceptionally lucrative one for the
oil industry, thanks to strong global demand, tight supplies and
high prices for oil and natural gas. While the idea that the Bush
administration was considering imposing a windfall profits tax was
knocked down yesterday by officials, longstanding resentments
against Big Oil are resurfacing and could end up imposing some
additional burdens on the industry. <br>
<br>
"The sense that government should step in to curb the phenomenal
wealth and power often enjoyed by oil companies goes back to Exxon
Mobil's corporate ancestor from the late 19th century, the
Rockefeller oil trust known as Standard Oil.<br>
<br>
"Today, Republicans and Democrats alike, aware of the politically
sensitive issue of high energy prices, are putting increasing
pressure on the oil and gas industry to return some of its
profits. The ideas include forcing the industry to invest in more
refining capacity, to increase inventories to cushion energy
shocks, or to provide money directly to the government program
that helps low-income people pay heating bills."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/business/28oil.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/business/28oil.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<p>/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/</p>
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