By DESMOG
DeSmog continues to reveal more deceptions by the fossil fuel industry from a trove of documents released during last month’s congressional probe of the industry. And in a major development this week, leaders of the probe called on the Department of Justice to investigate Big Oil’s decades-long climate disinformation campaigns and take any necessary legal action, much as the government did with the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries.
We’ll keep our eyes on developments for you as more and more internal records are released.
DeSmog’s Cartie Werthman delved into the congressional-probe documents to show greenwashing at work. While ExxonMobil touted carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in numerous ad campaigns, internal documents show that behind the scenes, the company actually saw a “limited” role for the technology to combat climate change.
“In 2018, while ExxonMobil was employing advertising firms to loudly tout their CCS efforts as evidence that ExxonMobil is participating in the energy transition in good faith and that CCS was an extremely valuable tool to mitigate climate change, they internally believed CCS to be a mediocre-at-best contributor to carbon sequestration,” Lindsey Gulden, a data scientist formerly employed by ExxonMobil who reviewed the internal documents, told DeSmog.
Exxon’s role in greenwashing carbon capture comes as no surprise. This week, the only climate scientist on the company’s board is stepping down with nothing to show for broader hopes that she would make the company rethink its climate approach. Our story reignites debate about the role of a scientist on the board of a major oil company with a legacy of spreading science denial and ignoring internal expertise.
If you liked this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please do not take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.
