Never lose sight of how Al Gore said at the 2008 Davos conference that “Exxon Mobil has funded 40 different front groups that have all been a part of a strategic persuasion campaign to, in their own words ‘reposition global warming as theory rather than fact.’” And don’t forget how Gore was a prominent part of a March 2016 announcement by seven Attorneys General (including Massachusetts AG Maura Healey, led by NY AG Eric Schneiderman) regarding their prosecution of Exxon, where he cited Naomi Oreskes in reference to the way Big Oil employed the same people who operated in disinformation campaigns for the tobacco industry to hide the harm of cigarette smoking.
Exxon, in other words, knew their oil products were harming the planet by causing global warming, but hired ‘shill experts’ to hide that by saying global warming was naturally occurring.
Do these Attorneys General-led New York / Massachusetts lawsuits against Exxon present evidence to back up that accusation? Not so much. Or strangely, not at all for the New York one. Continue reading