By Aaron Regunberg & David Arkush , Truthout
Do you believe that statement’s misleading?”
“All the clauses in there are patently false. And I told them so.”
So reads an exchange from the deposition of Joseph Weissman, an ExxonMobil scientist with the company’s former algae biofuels program. The “patently false” statement in question was a corporate press release claiming algae biofuel was a viable solution to climate change that the company would soon be producing at scale. Extensive reporting has already uncovered how ExxonMobil spent nearly half as much advertising its algae research as it spent on the research itself. But testimony like Weissman’s shows just how clearly the company understood that this much-touted project was, in Weissman’s words, a “dead end.” The goal was not to create a viable alternative energy source, but simply, as one internal memo put it, to make consumers “ believe ExxonMobil is committed to helping solve climate change.”
Weissman’s deposition was taken by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office as part of its lawsuit against ExxonMobil alleging consumer protection violations. In an under-the-radar filing in April, Massachusetts disclosed this deposition, as well as a range of other documents it had uncovered, to demonstrate the relevance of additional investigative targets that ExxonMobil had been furiously attempting to shield from discovery. These newly released materials cover a range of topics and time periods, from memos on the company’s more recent deceptive advertising campaigns to evidence of its decades-old climate knowledge.
One of the documents is a 1992 paper, “Climate Change Impacts on Northern Offshore Petroleum Operations,” which analyzes how Exxon’s operations in the Beaufort Sea would be affected by its predictions of a “much thinner ice sheet” and other anticipated effects of global warming caused by the use of its products. The upshot for Exxon: “[I]f ice conditions become less severe as predicted, then offshore petroleum operations will become easier and less costly.” Papers like this, demonstrating ExxonMobil’s sophisticated understanding of the realities of global warming, were produced at the same time the company was ramping up its public efforts to, in its own words, “emphasize the uncertainty in scientific conclusions” on climate change in order to prevent the “development of nonfossil fuel resources.”
Needless to say, the contrast between oil companies’ internal climate knowledge and external climate denial is profoundly damaging to the industry. This helps explain why it is going to such extraordinary lengths to attack these climate cases. These corporations are not just afraid of losing these lawsuits; they’re also afraid of the damning evidence the suits will uncover.
This is the skeleton key for understanding Suncor v. Boulder, the high-profile climate case the Supreme Court heard in early October.
Suncor began in 2018, when Boulder, Colorado, sued fossil fuel companies Suncor and ExxonMobil for damages from climate change and the companies’ lies about their role in fueling it. After the Colorado Supreme Court rejected the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case, Suncor and ExxonMobil — likely terrified of what would happen if Boulder were allowed to have its day in court — asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, repeating a request the fossil fuel industry has made again and again in recent years, alongside parallel efforts to lobby Congress and state legislatures to grant it immunity from all climate-related liability.
There is a reason why oil and gas companies are so desperate to stop these cases by any means before they proceed any further. We have likely seen just a sliver of the evidence they have that shows they’ve spent decades knowingly deceiving the public about climate science, climate harms, and their commitment to climate action. How many more reports are they sitting on like the 1992 paper laying out ExxonMobil’s projected opportunities for profiting off a melting Arctic? How many more internal communications like Weissman’s saying that “all the clauses” in a 2018 press release about ExxonMobil’s signature climate solution were “patently false?” The current offensive isn’t just about defeating the cases. It’s also about preventing the public from learning the extent and severity of the industry’s wrongdoing. It’s about fossil fuel CEOs’ profound fear of sitting in front of a jury of 12 Americans and trying to defend their companies’ deceptive conduct — because they know it’s indefensible.
Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules in Suncor, it’s hard to imagine these companies can bury the evidence of their lies and escape accountability indefinitely. Whatever the onetime value of fossil fuels to the economy, their harms now massively outweigh their benefits, particularly since the vast majority of fossil fuel use can be replaced by cleaner, cheaper, safer forms of energy — and this has been true for a long time. Instead of adapting, the industry has clung tightly to a civilization-endangering business model and engaged in a massive deception campaign to do so. Along the way, its conduct has become some of the most harmful and culpable in human history. Eventually, it will be held to account.
