Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Exxon has just challenged attempts by Al Gore’s climate witch hunt to “investigate” them, by demanding to know what crime they are supposed to have committed.
Exxon Fires Back at Climate-Change Probe
Argues subpoena represents unwarranted fishing expedition into its records that violates its constitutional rights
Exxon Mobil Corp. went to court Wednesday to challenge a government investigation of whether the company conspired to cover up its understanding of climate change, a sign the energy company is gearing up for a drawn-out legal battle with environmentalists and officials on the politically charged issue.
The company filed court papers in Texas seeking to block a subpoena issued in March by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, one of several government officials pursuing Exxon. Wednesday’s filing argues that the subpoena is an unwarranted fishing expedition into Exxon’s internal records that violates its constitutional rights.
“The chilling effect of this inquiry, which discriminates based on viewpoint to target one side of an ongoing policy debate, strikes at protected speech at the core of the First Amendment,” the filing says.
Exxon also dismisses the notion that there is any suggestion of a crime, saying Attorney General Claude Earl Walker “issued the subpoena without the reasonable suspicion required by law and based on an ulterior motive to silence those who express views on climate change with which they disagree.”
A request for comment to the U.S. Virgin Islands’ attorney general’s office wasn’t immediately returned.
Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-fires-back-at-climate-change-probe-1460574535
To date, most companies seem to have been happy to simply pay a bit of Danegeld, and get on with business, when unfairly targeted by green campaigners, rather than engage in a costly and potentially damaging PR battle with groups of fanatics who mostly don’t matter in the long run.
But a government backed investigation, with the possible threat of future RICO charges, is far more serious than a simple PR attack on a company’s corporate image. Exxon appears to have courageously decided to stand their ground, to put an end to this nonsense once and for all – a strategy which may lead them to challenge the increasingly shaky scientific basis of the entire climate scare.
Of all the majors, ExxonMobil has taken the most ethical approach to the alleged global warming issue.
Other majors have attempted to “play” this issue for political and market gain. Exxon has been more principled.
In general, the global oil and gas industry has failed to take a principled stand on this issue and has avoided its responsibility to speak the truth, and has thus prolonged and exacerbated the global warming scam. Senior management has failed their shareholders and the public with this unprincipled stance.
Cheap, abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple.
The global warming scam has wasted many trillions of dollars and cost many lives due to excessive energy costs and increased winter mortality.
Remember, none of the IPCC’s scary predictions of runaway global warming and wilder weather have materialized. These global warming alarmists have a consistently negative predictive track record – one should confidently assume that their future track record will be equally false.
Regards to all, Allan
References:
Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather
June 13, 2015
By Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Presentation of Evidence Suggesting Temperature Drives Atmospheric CO2 more than CO2 Drives Temperature
September 4, 2015
By Allan MacRae
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
A message to Sheldon Whitehouse, Bill McKibben, James Hanson, the IPCC, the ideologues in government esp. the Obama administration, and the legions of climate minions (including mainstream media) protesting and broadcasting their “Chicken Little” story of doom and gloom of CO2 catastrophically causing a tipping point bringing to and end the world as we know it: the only thing that would justify federal RICO charges on the oil companies would be if the major oils conspired to turn off all the oil spigots at the refineries, completely shutting them down. This would severely affect the transportation sector incl. personal, commercial – trucking and aviation, and public (municipal and regional rail and bus) transportation, the chemicals and plastics industries and downstream products manufacturing, along with other key sectors of the economy; by coordinating scheduled maintenance shutdowns coincidentally, for one month “turnarounds.” It would basically shut down the entire economy, dramatically exposing the melodrama being played out to sway public opinion on climate policy issues. These fanatics have no concept of how the economy works and the critical role of carbon based energy in the economy. It would be useful to perform an economic analysis of all the input-output linkages to carbon based fuels and raw materials derived from oil and gas – it can be done using the U.S. Input-Output Tables, 6-digit NIPA accounts, Census of manufactures and USITC or UN bilateral U.S. trade data. Of course I am not suggesting this.
On Energy:
I have worked in the energy industry for much of my career.
When challenged on the global warming question by green fanatics, I explain that that fossil fuels keep their families from freezing and starving to death.
Cheap abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple.
Furthermore, I suggest that recognition of this reality is an ethical and a professional obligation.
The following numbers are from the 2015 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, for the year 2014:
http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review-2015/bp-statistical-review-of-world-energy-2015-primary-energy-section.pdf
Global Primary Energy Consumption by Fuel is
86% Fossil Fuel (Oil, Coal and Natural Gas),
4% Nuclear,
7% Hydro,
and 2% Renewables.
That 2% for Renewables is vastly exaggerated, and would be less than 1% if intermittent wind and solar power were not forced into the electrical grid ahead of cheaper and more reliable conventional power.
This is not news – we have known this energy reality for decades. As we published in 2002.
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
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On Grid-Connected Wind and Solar Power:
Wind Power is what warmists typically embrace – trillions of dollars have been squandered on worthless grid-connected wind power schemes that require life-of-project subsidies and drive up energy costs.
Some background on grid-connected wind power schemes:
The Capacity Factor of wind power is typically a bit over 20%, but that is NOT the relevant factor.
The real truth is told by the Substitution Capacity, which is dropping to as low as 4% in Germany – that is the amount of conventional generation that can be permanently retired when wind power is installed into the grid.
The E.ON Netz Wind Report 2005 is an informative document:
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
(apparently no longer available from E.ON Netz website).
Figure 6 says Wind Power is too intermittent (and needs almost 100% spinning backup);
and
Figure 7 says it just gets worse and worse the more Wind Power you add to the grid (see Substitution Capacity dropping from 8% to 4%).
The same story applies to grid-connected Solar Power (both in the absence of a “Super-Battery”).
This was obvious to us decades ago.
Trillions of dollars have been squandered globally on green energy that is not green and produces little useful energy.
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On Global Warming Alarmism:
We also write in the same 2002 article, prior to recognition that the current ~20 year “Pause” (actually a Plateau) was already underway:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
I (we) now think global cooling will commence after the current El Nino runs its course, prior to 2020 and possibly as soon as 2017. Bundle up!
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Regards to all, Allan