Climate Change is Real, So What? Look for More of This Spin
July 30, 2012
I featured the money quote by Exxon-Mobil Chairman Rex Tillerson in my recent video “Welcome to the Rest of Our Lives”.
Here’s his whole statement, including the set up question by David Fenton.
We know that people in industry have understood the science for a long time. The old “Global Climate Coalition” of the 1990s fell apart as the science became clearer on the human causes. No serious company wants to look like idiots in the face of settled science. In light of this week’s admission by the Oil funded BEST project that climate change is real and humans are causing it, watch for repositioning on the corporate side of the denial camp. Tillerson rolled out this no-doubt focus-grouped response at a recent meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Look for this as the template for future climate discussions.
The gist, –
“Yeah, its warming.
We’ve always said it was warming.
We’re doing it.
We’ve always said we were doing it.
We’re well briefed on the science.
We’re going to keep doing it, so we hope those climate models are wrong.
If the models are right, I’m sure the little people will adapt.
I’ll be dead, and my kids will be in gated communities at a comfortable latitude.
We produce oil/coal/gas because, like Jesus, we love all the little people in all their diversity.
In half a million years, it will all be fine.
Screw you.
Next question.”
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
July 30, 2012 at 5:22 pm
A company like Exxon is only concerned about making a profit (a symptom of the psychopathy of corporations). The profit is in keeping their market share as high as possible for as long as possible, and then providing monetized “solutions” for adaptation when that is needed.
Ignore the externalities, make a profit off the outcome. Tillerson’s reponse can be fully understood.
I get angry when these guys use third-world poverty as a justification for their actions. They’ve been raping the third world for decades. And they have no interest in providing clean, renewable energy to these people or even clean and free access to water when they can provide them with a substance that they have to continually buy and rely on (keeping them in poverty).
July 30, 2012 at 5:26 pm
(Apologies to Cat Stevens): ‘Oil For The Tillerson’
Burn oil says Rex Tillerson
Bake in the sun
Whine all you want when the rain doesn’t come
Hippies cry your hearts away
Cause when the oilman wins,his children play
Oh Lord how they play and play
For that happy day, for that happy day!!!
July 30, 2012 at 11:09 pm
For those who aren’t familiar with the original:
Short but sweet. Ahhh…1970…a good year (for me at least)
July 30, 2012 at 5:56 pm
So terrible is this man’s message for our us. Mr. Tillerson is himself a fossil. Sad thing is that he and his kind have the power as long as we accept their power by buying fossil fueled energy. Without the money and power we give him he is nothing but an old man with stupid and selfish ideas. Time to show him his place. Do not buy fossil fuels!
July 30, 2012 at 7:14 pm
In my opinion this man is a criminal. But if he doesn’t do what he does, someone else will, The system demands it. As long as the whole economic system stays exactly like it is, it will keep spawning such criminals.
If those poor people need electricity, Mr Tillerson, why not provide it to them on a non-profit basis?
July 30, 2012 at 7:42 pm
I read the IPCC report and see that even if we achieve 50% CO2 emission reduction, CO2 levels will continue to rise.
The Earth has been diagnosed with a cancer.
Mr. Tillerson believes we should go from smoking 2 packs a day to 3 packs a day and maybe chemotherapy. That’s insane.
But won’t we need chemo even if we stop? And does his (and those like him) insanity make the idea of what kind of chemo (geoengineering) we need that much harder to evaluate and support?
July 31, 2012 at 2:33 am
I don’t know if this tactic is going to sit well with most people, even some current contrarians.
July 31, 2012 at 3:13 pm
You know, this is coming from the CEO of a company that has a history of always assuming the best-case scenario, and often getting it wrong.
Why anybody would listen to this guy is beyond me.
July 31, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Reblogged this on Climate Force.