Unclear on the concept

Michael Tobis

Michael Tobis, editor-in-chief of Planet3.0 and site cofounder, has always been interested in the interface between science and public policy. He holds a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences where he developed a 3-D ocean model on a custom computing platform. He has been involved in sustainability conversations on the internet since 1992, has been a web software developer since 2000, and has been posting sustainability articles on the web since 2007.

“What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?” asks Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson.

PriceofOil.org has a timeline of Exxon’s positions regarding climate policy.

Comments:

I'm surprised to see you referring to the priceofoil timeline. They clearly hate Exxon; you can't possibly trust that page, or the timeline, to be either honest or accurate.

The quote and the recent assertion that there is no economic risk to their reserves appear to be real. I have seen both elsewhere.

It's not as though the assertions they're making are unverifiable, though some are easier to check than others. Do you think everyone should assume without checking that things you write about Anthony Watts can't be trusted since clearly you don't like him?

The Globe and Mail is reporting the same quote

What good is it to save logic if Rex Tillerson suffers?

Your statement, if you think about it, is interesting as a mirror image of what you imply. "you can't possibly" appears to be precisely the kind of unthinking reaction you criticize. I admire and respect your insistence on accuracy, but here you appear to promote an idea based on prejudice rather than fact checking.

The image at the top of the Priceofoil site does appear excessive to me, though it represents a point of view about the damn -the-torpedoes attitude of our headlong fossil-or-bust path to near-universal extinction. But the list is easily checked and based, afaik, on real events.

There's a lot of free-floating emotion about our situation, but on this side of the pond a lot of us have found, over the decades, a lot of cynical promotion of a dangerous path. While one may feel opensecrets and sourcewatch are too political, their reports are based on things like annual reports and tax returns, and the lines of corruption are clear for all to see.

Meanwhile, the wholesale campaign to maximize the half million lost by Solyndra is beggared by big fossil's subsidies, which worldwide over time have mounted into trillions.

Going elsewhere, I often wonder why they don't use their assets to push hard to develop and exploit clean energy. Big fossil is well positioned to do so, and might in the long run be quite profitable.

http://cdn.exxonmobil.com/~/media/Files/Other/2014/Report%20-%20Energy%20and%20Carbon%20-%20Managing%20the%20Risks.pdf See para. 3.

“We'll adapt”

– Horatio Algeranon’s adaptation of Exxon-Mobil CEO "T-Rex" Tillerson

Global warming?
We’ll adapt…
CAT 5′s forming?
We’ll adapt…
Searing hot-spells?
We’ll adapt…
Drying water-wells?
We’ll adapt…
Greater flooding?
We’ll adapt…
Cropland gutting?
We’ll adapt…
Harvest ruin?
We’ll adapt…
Order ungluin?
We’ll adapt…
Climate warring?
We’ll adapt…
Fact ignoring?
We’ll adapt…
Mass extinctions?
We'll adapt...
Denier fictions?
We'll adapt...