ExxonMobil: SEC says vote! vote!

Environmental Leader reported last week on a Securities and Exchange Commission ruling that ExxonMobil must allow its shareholders to vote on a climate change resolution.

That would be a first for the oil major, which has consistently denied or avoided shareholder votes on resolutions designed to determine the long-term impacts of its business decisions on climate, and perhaps force—or shame—it to make changes. If that all seems rather nebulous and, in the end, pointless—given Exxon’s business model (oil exploration and production)—it’s because it is. But it might be a small step in the right direction for a company that has lied (or covered up) for decades about what it knew about climate change and that continues to fund climate science deniers.

The latest resolution that shareholders will vote on at its annual meeting in May would force the oil giant to disclose how climate change would affect its business. According to the EL report, New York comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli co-filed the shareholder proposal in December, asking Exxon to publish an annual assessment of the long-term portfolio impacts of climate change policies.

Exxon Oils the Palms of Climate Science Deniers

Word that ExxonMobil is still funding climate science deniers comes as no surprise but does reveal much about how feckless and arrogant the company is. Basically, the oil major is playing with us while thinking we won’t notice.

A long piece this month in the Huffington Post by Elliott Negin, a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, outlined ExxonMobil’s current approach on climate change. It also noted this carefully parsed statement from spokesman Richard Kiel: “We do not fund or support those who deny the reality of climate change.”

A Shell game?

When the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell chats up the importance of renewable energy as part of the globe’s future energy mix, one might well be a tad suspicious—after all this is an oil major speaking, right?

Could it be that Ben van Beurden has seen the light, powered by things other than fossil fuels? Is it possible he is thinking about the future in a way that’s perhaps more enlightened than simply rhetorical?

Speaking recently at OPEC‘s 167th meeting in Vienna, van Beurden said traditional energy sources should integrate and work together with clean technologies to provide sustainable and economically-sensible power for the future.

25 years later and

we’ve learned very little, except that fighting Big Oil and especially ExxonMobil is never-ending.

It’s been 25 years since the Exxon Valdez disaster. It’s a major reason for this blog’s existence; I’ve learned that ExxonMobil is bigger and more powerful than ever, and it’s grip on our lives is unrelenting.

ExxonMobil is an empire with it’s own set of rules; it does nothing that will weaken that empire.

A case in point from Friends of the Earth:

Despite the tragic damage to the ocean, wildlife and people, to say nothing of the score of spills since 24 March 1989, the oil industry and its supporters in Congress are pressuring the Obama administration to rescind a 40-year old ban on the export of U.S. crude oil. Lifting the ban would unleash a flood of oil tankers on our ports, significantly increasing the risk of another disaster.

“The Obama administration is turning a blind eye to the anticipated climate and environmental impacts of exporting fossil fuels like Bakken shale and Powder River Basin coal from the U.S., while at the same time touting a climate plan that claims to reduce our damaging impact here at home,” said Marcie Keever, Friends of the Earth’s Oceans and vessels program director. “On top of that, the administration may actually be considering lifting the ban on U.S. crude oil exports, which would exponentially increase climate change and the risks of more Exxon Valdez and Gulf oil spill disasters.”

An infographic, “Gateway to Extinction,” from Friends of the Earth and Healthy Planet/Healthy People details the potential threats posed by the proposed fossil fuel export terminal and pipeline projects in the Northwest. It also shows how lifting the ban would exponentially increase those threats.

ExxonMobil Adapt to Climate Change? Hah!

The question posed by a guest blogger on ThinkProgress was, “How will ExxonMobil adapt to climate change crisis it helped create?”

Given the oil major’s history the answer should have been pretty obvious, until one saw who wrote the piece: Jane Dale Owen, the granddaughter of Robert Lee Blaffer, one of the founders of Humble Oil and Refining Company, the parent company of ExxonMobil.

Owen is president and founder of Citizens League for Environmental Action Now (CLEAN) www.cleanhouston.org, an organization that provides news, information and education about global and local environmental issues.

Given that background, the premise got somewhat interesting, so let’s see what Owen had to say.

ExxonMobil flush with bucks, gushes with confidence

Ever since the then Exxon Co. devastated the Prince William Sound environment in Alaska and the livelihoods of thousands workers in that area following the Exxon Valdez oil spill 21 years ago, I have to admit the company leaves me cold. And that’s a polite way of putting it.

Each year at about this time I take a moment to consider developments surrounding the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, spilling about 11 million gallons of crude oil. The spill spread oil on more than 1,200 miles of coastline, closed fisheries and killed thousands of marine mammals and hundreds of thousands of sea birds.