Exxon Shouldn't Be Able To Use it's $40 Billion Profit To Bury Evidence It's Killing Our World

Huffington Post
Jamie Court
Exxon Shouldn't Be Able To Use it's $40 Billion Profit To Bury Evidence It's Killing Our World

Britain's respected newspaper The Guardian reported that scientists have been offered $10,000 by an Exxon-backed think tank to trash today's landmark UN study finding global warning is on a collision course with life on earth and 90% likely to be caused by human activity (aka the fossil fuel economy).

Just yesterday, Exxon reported a $4.5 million per day profit, more than any corporation in the history of the world.

$40 billion per year in profit made not only at the expense of gouged motorists and a fragile economy but at the cost of human life on earth.

Isn't it time Exxon is forced to disclose every payment it makes to scientists, researchers and experts to hide the evidence of its crimes? Second hand smoke may have killed many Americans, but Exxon's products are killing the earth. It's time Congress forced oil companies to come clean about the junk science they fund.

According to The Guardian, the Exxon-financed American Enterprise Institute (AEI) was offering scientists and economists $10,000 each to write articles undercutting the report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Travel expenses were also being offered.

The AEI has received more than $1.6 million from Exxon Mobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration, which has resisted reports of global warming. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees, "The Guardian" reported.

The IPCC report released today in Paris says scientists' "best estimate" is that temperatures will rise 3.2 to 7.8 degrees by 2100. In contrast, the increase from 1901 to 2005 was 1.2 degrees. The report also projects that sea levels could rise by 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century.

Madame Speaker, it's your move, for motorists and for the planet.