Jan 14, 2023 01:57 AM
https://gizmodo.com/exxonmobil-climate-c...1849980727
INTRO: ExxonMobil knew even more about how damaging climate change is than we thought, a study out this week shows.
In 2015, journalists obtained a trove of internal documents related to ExxonMobil’s work on climate change and published a series of investigations into how the company’s external PR didn’t match its internal research. “Exxon Knew,” which refers to the idea that Exxon knew about climate change and its dangers while continuing to mislead the public and perpetuating climate denial, has become a catchphrase of the climate movement. Much of the subsequent reporting and research into the uncovered Exxon documents has focused on how Exxon funded and encouraged climate denial while sitting on concrete knowledge of how its product causes climate change.
But Exxon wasn’t just listening to external scientists—the company had its own scientists working on creating models and projections. And until this week, no one had actually taken the models out for a test drive to see how they performed. As a paper published Thursday in the journal Science shows, it turns out they performed scarily well.
“We knew Exxon knew, but this is like Exxon knew 2.0,” said Geoffrey Supran, the study’s lead author and an associate professor at the University of Miami. “It produces an airtight and statistically rigorous insight into what [Exxon] knew in a way that is academically intriguing but also practically useful.” (MORE - details)
INTRO: ExxonMobil knew even more about how damaging climate change is than we thought, a study out this week shows.
In 2015, journalists obtained a trove of internal documents related to ExxonMobil’s work on climate change and published a series of investigations into how the company’s external PR didn’t match its internal research. “Exxon Knew,” which refers to the idea that Exxon knew about climate change and its dangers while continuing to mislead the public and perpetuating climate denial, has become a catchphrase of the climate movement. Much of the subsequent reporting and research into the uncovered Exxon documents has focused on how Exxon funded and encouraged climate denial while sitting on concrete knowledge of how its product causes climate change.
But Exxon wasn’t just listening to external scientists—the company had its own scientists working on creating models and projections. And until this week, no one had actually taken the models out for a test drive to see how they performed. As a paper published Thursday in the journal Science shows, it turns out they performed scarily well.
“We knew Exxon knew, but this is like Exxon knew 2.0,” said Geoffrey Supran, the study’s lead author and an associate professor at the University of Miami. “It produces an airtight and statistically rigorous insight into what [Exxon] knew in a way that is academically intriguing but also practically useful.” (MORE - details)