Michelle Innis from the New York Times wrote an ominous, if not horrifying, piece about the mass bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef off Australia. The acceleration and demise of this great coral reef seems inevitable as “These events occur so close together, due to global warming, that coral does not have time to recover.” I trust that this environmental disaster has the executives and brain trusts at Exxon-Mobil popping corks and exchanging high fives. The reason why of course is that in the mid 1970s, Exxon scientists confirmed and quantified the impending realities of global warming-this a direct result of fossil fuel burning and utilization.
Did Exxon alert the world to the catastrophic impact to the planet from continued fossil fuel use? No; Exxon buried its research and instead used the discovery to develop the kind of drilling equipment which would be of optimum use in a much warmer world. Exxon, in fact, replicated the “science” shared by U.S. tobacco companies for decades, which advised Americans that smoking was not only socially appealing, but in fact good for their health. Big Tobacco’s achievements here cannot be minimized as over 600,000 Americans died annually during the heights of these scientific revelations.
However, what Exxon has done far exceeds the collaboration and decades long deception of the U.S tobacco industry. What Exxon has achieved stands as perhaps the greatest corporate crime in human history. Exxon had a clear choice between honest disclosure and the opportunity to help safeguard human civilization or to maximize profit at any cost. They chose the latter and as a result future generations will pay an unimaginable price.
Jim Sawyer
Edmonds
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