Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson said about global warming in January, "It is clear that something is going on. It is not useful to debate (the issue) any longer."
If that's the new company line, Mr. Tillerson, then how do you explain the $2.1 million that ExxonMobil and its corporate foundation spent in 2006 to fund dozens of global warming denier groups?
According to a new analysis by Greenpeace for the Exxpose Exxon Coalition, Exxon funded 41 climate skeptic groups last year, with the biggest checks going to fill the coffers of notorious denier groups including the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, Annapolis Center, Frontiers of Freedom and others.
This 'Carbon Cabal' has worked for a decade to mislead and confuse the public about the urgent threat from global warming due to manmade CO2 pollution. These groups gladly accept Exxon's support, which enables them to keep churning out misleading reports, to flood newspaper op-ed pages with bizarre arguments against action to curb rampant carbon emissions, and to appear on right-wing TV and radio where they're invited by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to tick off blatant distortions of climate science without challenge by actual climate experts.
ExxonSecrets.org has tallied nearly $23 million spent by Exxon since 1998 to fund this denial machine, and there's no real indication that the company plans to stop.
Exxon's blatant hypocrisy in continuing to cut checks to these groups while claiming to have changed its ways is pathetic. They're talking out of both sides of their mouth, just as the tobacco industry did for years.
It's time to stop lying to the public, Mr. Tillerson. Exxon should apologize for its key role in delaying action on global warming over the past decade, and stop funding all of the skeptic groups immediately.