Bernie Sanders wants Exxon federal climate probe.
Oil companies have long been accused of secretly funding opposition to action on climate change. A pair of new reports, though, have raised the prospect that ExxonMobil understood the damage of man-made fossil fuels long ago and ignored its own climate research in possible violation of federal law. The revelations inspired presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to call for a federal probe of the company on Tuesday. Over the last few weeks, separate months-long reporting projects by the nonprofit InsideClimate Newsand by a collaborating team from Columbia University and the Los Angeles Timeshave revealed new information about what the energy company knew about climate change and when it knew it. The reports state that starting as early as 1977—more than a decade before former NASA scientist James Hansen’s famous Senate testimony that first brought widespread public attention to climate change—scientists at Exxon had discovered their product contributed to the problem in a big way, and hid the results from public view. Sen. Sanders sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Tuesday citing the reports and calling for a federal investigation. At issue is whether Exxon and other oil companies may have worked together for decades to deliberately mislead the public of the dangers posed by climate change and fossil fuel burning. “These reports, if true, raise serious allegations of a misinformation campaign that may have caused public harm similar to the tobacco industry’s actions,” Sanders wrote. “Based on available public information, it appears that Exxon knew its product was causing harm to the public, and spent millions of dollars to obfuscate the facts in the public discourse.” The two journalistic teams used internal company documents dating back to the late 1970s as well as interviews with former employeesto show that while Exxon’s own scientists were at the forefront of scientific understanding of the potentially severe impacts of global warming—performing some of the original research, in many cases—its executives chose to fund a public relations campaign to play down the connection to human activities. The Timesstory focuses on how the company used this scientific knowledge to plan its activities in the Arctic, including to measure the impact of melting permafrost on its pipelines. It was the latest report from the Timesand Columbia, released earlier this month, that seemed to spark a sense of urgency for those wanting to examine possible wrongdoing on Exxon’s part. When the Timesstory broke earlier this month, environmentalist and long-time activist Bill McKibben said no other story has made him as angry in his 28-year career. “No corporation has ever done anything this big and this bad,” he wrote in the Guardian. Late last week, McKibben was arrested at an Exxon station in Burlington, Vermont in a one-man protest designed to draw attention to the reporting. A follow-up from InsideClimate Newsshowed several legal avenues potentially available to federal prosecutors, including the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act that was successfully used against the tobacco industry in the 1990s. A similar effort against the fossil fuel industry could force them, in theory, to pay a share of global climate change damages, though a federal probe would likely require bi-partisan support in Congress. The Exxon allegations could also prove to be a wedge issue in the Democratic presidential primaries, where Sanders is currently mounting an upstart campaign against frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Lee Fang, an investigative journalist with the Intercept, tweeted on Tuesday that top Clinton fundraisers also lobby for Exxon. Clinton hasn’t yet called for an investigation into Exxon’s climate science activities
- 最近发表
- 随机阅读
-
- DNC 2024 speech: Barack Obama and Michelle Obama have a superpower no other Democrat has.
- 快评丨乡村游“流量”变“留量”,避暑经济大有可为
- 我市13家企业参加“川货全国行·长春站”活动
- 高州市水果产业协会发起“荔枝不成熟不采摘”倡议
- “笋货”上市采购旺!清远西牛麻竹笋迎秋季尝鲜热
- 我市再增8家“小巨人·成长型”中小企业
- 集中力量打好双攻坚战 提前全面建成小康社会
- 雨城、石棉等六县(区)获省级双拥模范荣誉
- Police bust crypto scammer who received plastic surgery to evade arrest
- 快评丨乡村游“流量”变“留量”,避暑经济大有可为
- 爱心汇聚能量 真情共筑希望
- “银发族经济”有待开发
- 水产品占“四席”!广州南沙十个农产品上榜“国字号”
- 广东兰花产销形势月报(2023年7月)
- 千村增绿先锋行,蕉岭党员干部为乡村植树添绿
- 广东客增长一倍!粤桂协作帮扶广西文旅产业对接会在深圳举行
- Cyrix: Gone But Not Forgotten
- 10天查处货车违法行为近600起
- 以全会精神为指引 科学谋划“十三五”
- 雅化集团雅安生产厂开展2015年“质量月”活动
- 搜索
-
- 友情链接
-