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Scientists Urge American Geophysical Union To Cut Ties With Exxon (insideclimatenews.org)

mdsolar writes: More than 100 geoscientists are calling on the American Geophysical Union to drop ExxonMobil as a sponsor of its annual earth science conference in response to the company's years of spreading climate denial views. The call appeared in an open letter posted Monday morning on a science website called The Natural History Museum. The oil giant Exxon has a history of funding organizations that perpetuate climate misinformation and try to thwart policies that address climate change (in direct conflict with the earth science association's mission and funding policies), the scientists said in their letter to Margaret Leinen, president of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). "AGU has established a long history of scientific excellence with its peer-reviewed publications and conferences, as well as a strong position statement on the urgency of climate action," the letter said. "But by allowing Exxon to appropriate AGU's institutional social license to help legitimize the company's climate misinformation, AGU is undermining its stated values as well as the work of its own members," it added.

5 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. More than that by mdsolar · · Score: 4, Informative

    Exxon studied the science, found it to be persuasive, even raising rigs to adapt to sea level rise, but lied about the science to the public for years. http://insideclimatenews.org/c...

  2. Re:Climate denying views by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Freeman Dyson doesn't believe human activity is causing global climate change, nor does he believe a changing climate is necessarily harmful. Historically, warmer times have been better times.

    "Generally speaking, I'm much more of a conformist, but it happens I have strong views about climate because I think the majority is badly wrong, and you have to make sure if the majority is saying something that they're not talking nonsense." - Freeman Dyson.

    If Freeman Dyson says your maths are rubbish -- They are.

    You need to read up on what he's said in the past 10 years, and how the IPCC has been iterating on the process. Because your shit is out of date.

  3. Re:Kind of like down-modding a post you disagree w by slashping · · Score: 4, Informative
  4. Re:Climate denying views by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 5, Informative

    Freeman Dyson doesn't believe human activity is causing global climate change...

    This is incorrect. Here's Wikipedia summary, but here are some choice quotes

    'One of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas.' (Heretical Thoughts about Science and Society, by Freeman Dyson)

    'In 2008, he endorsed the now common usage of "global warming" as synonymous with global anthropogenic climate change, referring to "measurements that transformed global warming from a vague theoretical speculation into a precise observational science.' (from the above linked Wikipedia article)

    If Freeman Dyson says your maths are rubbish -- They are.

    He doesn't appear to be making any claims about the math.

    My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have. I think that’s what upsets me. (Freeman Dyson Takes on the Climate Establishment)

    --
    People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
  5. Re:$21.4 BIllion by riverat1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    So I went and looked at the report you cited. They split the expenditures into 5 categories:

    1) Scientific research into climate change, about $2.5 billion.
    2) Clean energy technologies, about $6 billion.
    3) International assistance, about $0.9 billion.
    4) Natural resource adaption, about $0.09 billion.
    5) Energy tax provisions that may reduce GHG emissions and energy payments in lieu of tax provisions, about $10 billion.

    So direct climate research is only about 11.6% of the total expenditures and by far the biggest chunk is tax provisions that aren't actually expenditures but just reduce the taxes collected.

    Regarding the tax provisions and other breaks fossil fuel producers get plenty of that sort of support as well. For example coal mines that pay less than $5/ton for coal mined on government lands that they can sell to China for around $50/ton.