This post is a little strange.

First, it reads into Tillerson's comments. There might have been more to the quote to make Tillerson's meaning actually as nefarious as the interpretation offered above, but what was written above is pretty unsurprising for Exxon. In fact, for Exxon, it's almost refreshing, given their often propagandist propensities of the past.

Second, Paul S is right - the producers are not the problem unless they are acting powerfully to manipulate consumption by actively engaging in disinformation and obfuscation or manipulating politicians to change policy. At this point, the naysayers' statements are so utterly loopy that they are pretty much only mainstream in the National Post and Exxon's power to move the debate is very limited: their claims have become so shrill that only their major shareholders choose to believe them. And perhaps a few western politicians. So, the dangerously unbalanced remainder of this equation is consumption.

And on the consumption score, very few of us really get it. Of course, it would be immensely helpful if western governments chose to offer convincing leadership on this issue, but what is OUR excuse? Next time you're on the highway (presumably, in your bus seat, RIGHT??), check to see how many people in rush hour are the only occupants of their vehicle. Check to see what they're driving. And then draw two histograms, the first one revealing the frequency of single drivers and the second the relative gas mileage of what they're driving.

And then ask whether these people are waiting to do something about climate change because Exxon has not yet started supporting ... primary research and issuing reassuring public relations drivel????

The problem is us. Sure, Exxon is still overbearing, but whose resistance are they overcoming?

The answer is us, and we're putting up hardly any fight at all.

JTK

Um, next time you're in a hospital, do a survey to see how many people have cancer. Check to see what their respective ages are. Then draw two histograms. Obviously, the survey will show us that old people want to have cancer.

Sorry, the "people love cars" argument just doesn't wash. At least, not with those of us who hope to see good public transport systems so that we don't need cars.

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"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce

Huh?

You seem to be challenged by basic logic and have responded to my plea for reduced driving with a cancer analogy. Perhaps I am also challenged by basic logic, because I have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

Let's be crystal clear, completely straight, totally simple: there are too many cars and consumers need to consume less oil and gas. Simple. Not easy to accomplish, but a simple concept. Exxon is not a helpful presence on the scene, with their long term, typically reprehensible interference in public policy, but consumers make Exxon's job easier by doing nothing, or nearly nothing, to put them out of business.

Climate change is here and scientists are no longer being indictably overcautious about warning policy makers and the public of what we, as societies, are getting ourselves into. But if consumers do not change their behaviour, it's easy to make politicians believe they are powerless to reverse the problem. Then Exxon is little more than a convenient vehicle for our collective guilt, although they certainy have earned a little extra bad karma through long term, bad behaviour in the public policy arena (like big Tobacco).

Most of the anthropogenic part of climate change (i.e. a lot of it) has been caused by the small proportion of the world's population overconsuming, and not just through their driving habits. It is certainly BOTH a supply and demand problem, but reducing only the demand part of that balance moves both sides of the equation in a helpful direction. So consume less! Drive less, wherever possible. Is that such a bad suggestion?

Any more off-topic cancer analogies? Or could you try for something constructive instead?

JTK

"You seem to be challenged by basic logic and have responded to my plea for reduced driving with a cancer analogy."

Well, "logic" as in your insistence on shoehorning everything into a short and sweet "supply and demand" talking point? Yeah, indeed I'm "challenged" by this sort of "logic".

So here's a clue: There are two kinds of "demand". One is "need". One is "want".

Some people want cars. They don't actually need them to do anything important. Yeah, they're part of the problem.

Some people -- lots of people -- need cars. Probably because public transport sucks, they need to get cars, to drive cars, just to avoid a crappy experience when getting to work. The problem here is the lack of good public transport. But of course, this won't gel well with "it's the collective's fault" talking point now, will it?...

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"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce

I still don't get why you're pouncing on me over my comment that we have to take much greater responsibility for our actions. Perhaps an excess of bile? Truly, I don't see how you managed to get upset at my initial comments. You had to have been trying to have managed it.

It's silly to argue this point - and WTF are you doing trying to suggest anything I wrote is a talking point? Seriously, I made a number of constructive remarks about how Exxon is hardly a good corporate citizen but the general public continues to consume at an utterly unsustainable pace. Exxon can be controlled in any number of ways, the more the better, but an indispensable part of solving global warming as a threat to us and the species we share the planet with is reducing demand.

Tell me, is that an unreasonable argument? If you think so, I guess I won't be that likely to bother continuing to rebut your weird, over-the-top vitriol because you will have revealed yourself for just another troll. Trolls on either side of the debate are pretty annoying.

Alternatively, you could miss out all the hate-filled crap you spilled above and get to your rather simple, but not irrelevant, point: that we should do more to improve public transportation. Sure, I'd buy that. But I think most of the driving public will be disinclined to stop driving unless public transportation is so convenient that it requires almost no difference in effort. And that is not likely.

Or are you just feeling grumpy because I didn't write something angry at Paul S, who does not usually agree at all with the purposes of this blog?

JTK

After 3 paragraphs of non-vitrolic non-vitriol explaining why I shouldn't be spewing so much "vitriol", JTK says:

"But I think most of the driving public will be disinclined to stop driving unless public transportation is so convenient that it requires almost no difference in effort. And that is not likely."

Um, you know this how?

http://tinyurl.com/5hy58w

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"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce

What did you think it was?

So much for presenting careful arguments and trying to make what I was thinking clear.

What is wrong with you? Disappointing that you turned out to just another of those folks who shows up here for their two minutes hate. Like ZOG, Rob, and so on.

And that's the end of attempts to communicate with you. Enjoy your two minutes hate by yourself.

What did you think it was?

So much for presenting careful arguments and trying to make what I was thinking clear.

What is wrong with you? Disappointing that you turned out to just another of those folks who shows up here for their two minutes hate. Like ZOG, Rob, and so on.

And that's the end of attempts to communicate with you. Enjoy your two minutes hate by yourself.

I have been reading your posts with interest. I agree that we can't just point at Exxon-Mobil and say it's all their fault. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult for me to use public transit where I live, as it consists of one bus that would whisk me away at 7:00 am (no schedule options), and one bus that comes back at 6:30 pm. I am about to relocate, and the first consideration for location is whether I can use mass transit efficiently to get to work.

Somewhere in between is a huge number of people who would gladly accept some slight inconvenience to use the bus/LRT/whatever. Here in Ottawa they built a park & ride on the edge of a huge suburban development. It was so quickly overwhelmed by demand that they have tripled the size of the lot, added a train depot and built another lot further out to catch the rural crowd.

Yes, there are also people who won't give up their cars unless the bus unless it comes when they call, has Bose speakers, leather upholstery, they get to drive, and it drops them at their office door. But along the way many many people can be persuaded out of their cars. And as the critical mass of ridership rises, the cost effectiveness and efficiency of the system will also improve.

To the point of Mr Tillerson's about-face from "We recognize that greenhouse gas emissions are one of the factors affecting climate change" to "Anybody that tells you that they got this [climate change science] figured out is not being truthful."

Tillerson's slippery flip-flop is disappointing, but if we really expected anything else, we were probably deluding ourselves. It's an oil company, and an effing big one. What else is he going to say?

Fern Mackenzie

Phew! I'm glad someone actually read my comments rather than just finding keywords they could use out of context for flaming purposes...

We certainly need better public transportation, even in Ottawa where the service is (I think) pretty good relative to other cities. Your own example is a case in point - bus service to outlying communities is kind of useless - there has been some interesting commentary on this issue on Radio 1 recently that you probably already know about.

I am ALL for much stronger public transportation - perhaps the new transportation plan will work out well in that respect! Whatever happens next for public transportation in Ottawa, it could hardly be less useful than the expensive O-Train, which carries riders from places where few live to places where few want to go! Never quite understood why that one was a priority, at least in practical terms...

What I would like to believe is that improvements to the public transportation system here or elsewhere will convince people whose lives are busy, stressful, and so on, to use the system! I am sure there will be incremental shifts in ridership with every improvement, but we need more than increments, I think we need a significant cultural shift. There's good, empirical evidence to suggest that climate change could be running away a little bit right now and we can't just wait to see what happens.

What I am actually disturbed about is that there seems to be a broad belief in the importance of climate change and the urgency in solving it as a threat, but a lot of hypocrisy about doing something practical. The present government certainly seems disinclined toward substantial action but that doesn't prevent individuals and families from doing something immediately. It's just that the "something" has to be as big and effective as possible, and has to happen immediately.

JTK

I am complete agreement, but how do we get the message across to people who need all of their energy just to keep on keepin' on? How do we get across to people that they should use a good ground cover that doesn't require mowing, hang out their laundry to dry, buy fruit & veg in season, cut down on meat consumption & buy it locally, set up a rain barrel for garden watering, compost, etc etc etc. A lot of us are already doing these things, and more, but the groups that needs to be reached are the ones who face a daily struggle to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, and the ones who figure they are exempt from such concerns(the ones with the Bose speakers in their Cadillac SUVs).

There is little doubt that the "something" has to be as big and effective as possible, and has to happen immediately. In order for that the occur, some people are going to need help, and some are going to be dragged kicking & screaming. In either case, our elected reps at all levels have a responsibility to take the lead.

Now stand back while the trolls elbow their way to the microphone to call me a commie bitch who wants to control their lives and so on ad nauseum.

Fern Mackenzie

Well, you have definitely hit the nail on the head. I don't know what the answer is but I bet there is not just one. Instead, I think solutions to these issues have to be nearly all-encompassing.

We are in trouble right now: leadership is badly lacking on this topic. I think we could make that case even in parts of the world that are taking the climate change issue far more seriously than Canada currently does. I doubt anyone is achieving emission reductions commensurate with what is needed.

So we need it all. Governments have to lead, rather than build policies on loud-mouthed PR campaigns (as we currently have in Canada and the US) with hardly any substance. Individuals also have to take responsibility. And there can, probably should, be a lot of interplay between what governments do and individuals do: governments should make it as easy and attractive as possible to behave helpfully on this topic precisely so the people you identify can do the "right" thing and often save money doing it. Individuals should also demand that governments address climate change effectively and immediately.

Given how much we now know about the implications of climate change, how the heck can we still be making energy conservation and the use of alternative energy sources so darned difficult? Here's an area where governments really have to step in to make things better using the "if you build it, they will come" strategy. Vague, I know. But there's too much to put into this kind of post.

There is a lot of room still to have rational discussions about what strategies are best, although desmog's troll population is large enough to make it hard to have one here. One strategy that should NOT be acceptable is inaction that is justified because we aren't sure what the optimal solution will turn out to be. Strong scientific evidence suggests that inaction, which I think is close to where we are right now despite much heated rhetoric from all sides, is a risky idea.

What I hope we won't do is waste a lot of time pointing fingers at corporations that everyone knows are the worst examples of egregious, sustained dishonesty (Exxon, for instance). No one learns anything new from that, nor is anyone surprised when they issue some PR statement about how they wish the world actually worked. It's just noise. It would be better to spend our energies moving the situation forward. We need concerted action. Now.

JTK

Record profits announced by Exxon in February 2008:

"Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said fourth-quarter net income rose 14% to $11.66 billion, or $2.13 per share. The company earned $10.25 billion, or $1.76 per share, in the year-ago period" - CNN

It would almost appear that you would like us to believe that they somehow care for us by supplying us with oil and gas. Evidently profit is what they're really after.

Living in Dallas, and protesting at this year's shareholders' meeting, I would have no problem calling Rex Tillerson a "kinder, gentler Lee Raymond."

All you denialists, wake up.

Not so big after all.

Saudi Arabia is No. 1 (with total oil production of 10.66 million barrels a day). Yes, Russia is No. 2 (with 9.67 million barrels). Nigeria, however, is not No. 3. Venezuela is not No. 3. Kuwait is not No. 3. The United States is No. 3 (with 8.49 million barrels).

Ironically, many people who minimize American domestic oil production exaggerate the global influence of Big Oil – especially of Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, the big U.S. companies. Exxon, the largest, is the world's biggest non-government company in the energy industry – yet it produces only 3 per cent of the world's oil. In a world that requires 87 million barrels of oil a day, Exxon delivers 2.61 million barrels. Ranked against government-owned oil companies, Exxon doesn't make the top 10.

What's your problem with ocean acidification? As the ocean absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere, pH decreases. Lower pH has been shown to reduce the ability of many marine organisms to form shells. This is bad for critters like pteropods, it will certainly not help corals which will already be stressed by rising sea levels and increased temperatures (among other things). You think this is not worthy of concern or you don't believe it, or both?

Glad you mentioned acid rain. You know, that real problem that was solved by government intervention. I don't like government very much, but here is a case where it worked well and cost little.

But Steve, I thought that the oceans are supposed to be warming along with everything else. Warmer water = less capacity to absorb CO2.

Shouldn't that result in higher or, more likely, stable pH levels? Please explain.

Acid rain was an observable phenomenon with an observable cause. No modelling, no wild hypothesising, no repressed anti-social mania and no relation to AGW.

It's all about equilibrium, ZOG. It's correct that it's harder for a warmer ocean to absorb CO2. But when you double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, that increase in partial pressure will cause more to be absorbed by the ocean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_pressure. There are many, many analogies. Let me know if one would help.
The ocean is not in equilibrium with the atmosphere as it is (ie, we are committed to further reductions in pH even if atmospheric CO2 is stabilized, and even though the oceans are expected to continue to warm), but by limiting CO2 emissions in the near term we can lessen the speed with which pH decreases and we can increase the equilibrium pH in the long term.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain
Anthropogenic acid precipitation and anthropogenic global warming are more similar than you think. AGW is observable (glaciers are more visible than aurora trout); acid rain studies use lots of models (they have to because the acidification often happens quite some distance from point sources).... As Wilbert seems to show, there's the same unreasonable denial, too. See the bottom of the wikipedia page -- emissions trading. (I would prefer the user-pay carbon tax option to battle AGW.)

PS. Where did you go after you asked me about evidence for Rob being indecent and hypocritical?

Yes, I did overlook the question of partial pressure but, the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is so infinitesimally small that I question the capacity of a concentration change to override the solubility index. However, I have neither the data nor the expertise to work that one out, so I yield the point.

"...AGW is observable..."

Damnit Steve, you once chided me for equating the underpinnings of AG warmism with those of religious fundamentalism, and now you go and print something like that. You're offering the existence of an observable phenomenon as evidence that the phenomenon is caused by AGW. Think carefully about what you said.

Glacial melt could, with equal justification, be offered as proof of any conceivable driver of climate change or, if you will, of the intervention of the Holy Trinity. In a previous post, I mentioned my experience with New Guinea highlanders who tended to attribute every natural event or community misfortune to human actions. Surely, in 21st century Canada, we've progressed beyond that!

Have you considered the observed fact that glacial melt in Canada has exposed well-preserved remnants of modern trees? In the Alps, a few human artifacts have appeared when glaciers recede. Therefore, there must have been periods of "deglaciation" before the SUV was invented.

BTW, glacial melt isn't a universal phenomenon. Some glaciers are static, and a few are growing.

Okay, my bad. I wrote that glacial melt was more observable than declining aurora trout populations. I was stating that the effects of AGW were as observable as the effects of acid rain. Let's focus on the anthropogenic part. For extra credit, can you describe how acid rain was attributable to anthropogenic sources whereas global warming is not? You may get me to concede a point here, but I don't think they (AGW and AAR) are as distinct as you say.

The attribution of acid rain to specific human sources (e.g.Sudbury smelter, electric plants using high-sulphur coal) was pretty straight forward because lake acidification was most pronounced downwind from the sources, and its intensity was inversely proportional to distance from them. As soon as the hypothesis was proposed, simple map overlays produced the verification. Perhaps I'm having a senior's moment, but I don't remember any significant contoversy about the meteorology.

It's not easy to find the controversy because it largely predated internet use. The wikipedia link I provided has this:

"In 1852, Robert Angus Smith found the relationship between acid rain and atmospheric pollution.[2] Though acid rain was discovered in 1852, it wasn't until the late 1960s that scientists began widely observing and studying the phenomenon. Canadian Harold Harvey was among the first to research a "dead" lake. Public awareness of acid rain in the U.S increased in the 1990s...."

The meteorology came well after the fact and well after a lot of damage was done. If acid rain effects were distributed more locally rather than being displaced downwind (note, not always inversely proportional to distance), then it would have been more obvious. Wikipedia again: "some places like California and areas around Mexico City have polluted the atmosphere and burn lots of sulfur and nitrogen compounds but still have no unusally acidic rainfall."

But if you google "acid rain hoax" you can find this:
"The big hoax that went on int e 70's and 80's was "Acid Rain". It was just as big a story as global warming is now. Every newspaper and media outlet had it on constantly. Every scientist that tried to tell the truth was ignored by the media. Evey scientific paper that came out proving it was a hoax was ignored. Finally 60 Minutes (usually a 100% liberal show) had a segment entitled The Acid Rain Hoax...POW it was as if the spigot had been turned off. There was essentially never another story about it." -- http://tinyurl.com/42x6wo

And this ("acid rain 60 minutes")!
"At that time, much of the scientific community, holding to the mineral titration theory, believed that lakes and streams that were located in watersheds dominated by acid soils would only increase in acidity if acid rain fell on them. In 1983, however, Krug published an article in the prestigious journal Science that showed that acid rain might have almost nothing to do with acid lakes." -- http://tinyurl.com/53n5kc

= Since ExxonMobil is so rich, I wonder why they can't simply fund some real scientists to do real, solid, rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific work? - Frank Bi

Why would Exxon do that? The taxes Exxon pays already go to fund government scientists and researchers.

"The taxes Exxon pays already go to fund government scientists and researchers."

Excuses, excuses, ...

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"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce

" Since ExxonMobil is so rich, I wonder why they can't simply fund some real scientists to do real, solid, rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific work"
They could also "peer-reviewed" each others work like the IPCC.
then they could quote each other's "scientific work" Like Gavin S. M Mann WM Connelly and J Hansen.

More excuses. None of which explain why ExxonMobil prefers to fund PR flacks instead of real climate scientists.

Go, equal science, go!

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"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce

Steve L
Here is my first post on the Statement:
Man Made CO2 will cause 2+ degrees of warming by 2100.

The first article below discusses the Climate Sensitivity to CO2 and concludes that the warming effect decreases logarithmically as the concentration increases and is nearly maxed out now.
It therefore states that CO2 cannot cause much more warming than it already has and also that Tipping Points are not possible.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/climate-sensitivity-and-editorial.html

Excerpt:
In particular, there exists nothing such as a "runaway effect" or a "point of no return" or a "tipping point" or any of the similar frightening fairy-tales promoted by Al Gore and his numerous soulmates. The formula above simply does not allow you more than 1.5 Celsius degrees of warming from the CO2 greenhouse effect. Similar formulae based on the Arrhenius' law predicts a decrease of the derivative "d Temperature / d Concentration" to be just a power law - not exponential decrease - but it is still a decrease.
……..
And :
When you substitute the concentration of 560 ppm (parts per million), you obtain something like 1 Celsius degree increase relatively to the pre-industrial era. But even if you plug in the current concentration of 380 ppm, you obtain about 0.76 Celsius degrees of "global warming". Although we have only completed about 40% of the proverbial CO2 doubling, we have already achieved about 75% of the warming effect that is expected from such a doubling: the difference is a result of the exponentially suppressed influence of the growing carbon dioxide concentration.
As Richard Lindzen likes to say, it is just like when you paint your bedroom. The first layer of white makes a lot of difference in the amount of light in that room; additional layers make a smaller contribution.
Etc.

The second article illustrates how CO2 concentrations lag behind temperatures. We all know about the Vostok Ice Core records that show this lag, but this article talks about the same lag in modern times.

http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/images/co2vstmacrae.pdf

There is also mention of the cooling from 1945 to 1976. A recent paper has proposed that a change in measuring methods is responsible. (Buckets Vs Engine room coolant) However, this hypothesis has long since been shown wrong through work done by Macintyre at ClimateAudit. Also, the finding is inconsistent with the land surface record that shows a definite cooling during that peruid.
Still doing research, finding some interesting facts.
Over to you…….

Gary, you're replying to the wrong guy and wrong thread. And besides you still haven't explained why ExxonMobil -- being so rich -- can't fund some real climate science, and prefers instead to fund a bunch of PR hacks.

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"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce

Go to the open thread at scienceblogs.com/deltoid
I'll read this posting with interest.

Gary, I haven't had the time to go over this very thoroughly or even to figure out some ways that my mind could be changed (although I think I can do better than the conspiracy theory angle the youtube guy [http://youtube.com/watch?v=YLhLpG0HWkQ] talks about).

I asked you what evidence you would need, but you haven't really answered that. Unless, that is, you are saying you could be convinced if someone showed that positive feedbacks occur (motl is wrong) and if someone changed the past or our understanding of it. I assume the former could be turned into a falsifiable hypothesis. The latter seems quite unscientific and I'm not sure what you're getting at. If a planet comes out of an ice age due to changes in orbit and thereby has higher atmospheric CO2, then CO2 cannot warm the planet -- is that your contention? This is a bit like, "climate changes naturally anyway, so humans can't affect climate." I think it's wrong -- it's certainly incorrect in terms of logic, so I don't know how to derive a meaningful hypothesis from it.

Anyway, I've saved what you wrote for future reference and I appreciate the effort even if I don't see how it specifically addresses my challenge to you.