ExxonMobil has been busy lately trying to rectify what Exxon chief Mr. Rex Tillerson essentially
admitted was a PR problem. Now the company is spending millions of dollars to counter the problem - not by changing its policies - but rather by trying to superficially green its image.
Due to the help of hundreds of thousands of Exxpose Exxon activists and Exxpose Exxon coalition members - and others - ExxonMobil's been under intense pressure to stop funding front groups and think tanks that put out disinformation on global warming.
A new report released last month by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a core member of Exxpose Exxon, documented how ExxonMobil employs the same tactics, and some of the same personnel, to deceive the public on global warming as the tobacco companies did with smoking (
see Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Change).
The report ties about a dozen scientists whose views on global warming are discredited by the scientific community to scores of Exxon-funded front groups and think tanks and shows how this tobacco-style technique insidiously spreads false doubt around global warming.
America's vocal disgust over oil has also played an instrumental role. Recently
Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) wrote ExxonMobil to urge the company to "come clean" about its funding of global warming denier groups and be a more responsible corporate actor.
The U.S. Senators' letter was not the first one ExxonMobil received. In September 2006, Rex Tillerson received a hard-hitting request from Britain's world renowned scientific academy, the Royal Society, which was published in the U.K. press.
The Royal Society revealed that Exxon had said it would stop funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a U.S. group that claims carbon dioxide is good for you and that global warming isn’t a threat. CEI is one of Exxon's favorite front groups, receiving over $2,000,000 from the company since 1998.
Prior to that, Exxpose Exxon activists had sent close to a million letters and protested loudly about Exxon's funding of front groups which received wide scale
coverage in the press.
When asked last May why Exxon was funding junk science from the global warming denier groups, Rex Tillerson was described by the
Washington Post as combative and said that the company was simply taking part in the "debate" over global warming.
Due to public pressure
ExxonMobil claimed it stopped funding "five or six" of the groups. Exxpose Exxon quickly faxed ExxonMobil
a letter asking the company to disclose the names of the groups and to clarify its actual position on funding junk science. Exxon did not respond.
