Daily Campus

Did the gentleman from Exxon Mobil also address the offer from the think tank that his company funds to give any scientist $10,000 to write an article that criticizes the recently released UN global warming report? Or did he forget those power point slides back in his office?

The truth is, ExxonMobil invests $0 in renewable energy (definitely far from 5%). The company has so far given $9 million to Stanford for R&D, mostly focused on carbon capture and hydrogen. It has promised $100 million over 10 years for technology that may not be available for at least that long. When it is available there is no commitment by Exxon that they will adopt it. Meanwhile, leading scientists, such as Dr. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, caution we are within 10 years of "tipping point," beyond which large-scale, dangerous impacts of climate change would become unavoidable.

Exxon's growth of fossil fuel demand are based on a worst case scenario projected by the International Energy Agency, which emphasized the unlikelihood that such a scenario would ever come to pass. Why? Because it "would accentuate consuming countries' vulnerability to a severe supply disruption and resulting price shock...and amplify the magnitude of global climate change." In fact, the EIA's 2006 World Energy Report shows that if such a scenario passed it would result in a jump of carbon dioxide emissions 55 per cent over today's level. The EIA then gave a better scenario where governments do pass policies based on renewable energy. For more on IEA, see http://www.iea.org/w/bookshop/add.aspx?id=279.

In case you're not convinced, keep in mind that currently there are widely supported bills in both the House and Senate that would reduce U.S. emissions of global warming pollution to 1990 levels by 2020 (a 15% reduction from today's levels) and to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Such bills will pass, if not now then post-2008. This is what is needed to curb the worst effects of global warming.

To pass such measures, politicians and corporations alike (see www.us-cap.org) are supporting mandatory reductions of CO2 pollution. ExxonMobil continues to fight such solutions.

CEO Rex Tillerson recently told a business audience in Davos that, "Even if renewable energy production grows at double digit rates, it will remain less than 2%of world energy supplies."

Mr. Tillerson says this despite the current calculations by the Renewable Energy Policy Network, which show that renewable energy already supplies roughly 4 percent of world power. ExxonMobil predicts that wind and solar will grow about 11 percent a year, despite the fact that grid-connected solar power grew by 60 percent per year from 2000 to 2004.

That ExxonMobil's predictions on renewable energy are notoriously off-base is not surprising given that up until just recently ExxonMobil has denied that global warming is even a serious problem. As recently as June 2005, the CEO said that there was still no link between fossil fuels and global warming.

Now, after being battered for a year and a half by hundreds of thousands of activists with Exxpose Exxon (www.ExxposeExxon.com), ExxonMobil is spending millions to try to fix what it has admitted is a PR problem. Part of that fix is to "soften" its stance on global warming and oil dependence.

ExxonMobil is going to be hard-pressed to convince America that it is concerned about global warming when it is fighting the main solutions to curb global warming and still funding scores of front groups and think tanks that put out disinformation on global warming science and policy.

It is important for students to understand the backward looking company that is ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil pays the same as other oil and gas giants, but does not offer the kind of vision and development of technical skills that are in hot demand. Plus, who would be proud of working for a company that stands alone in saying oil and gas is the only energy of the future. Forget that!

For more, see www.ExxposeExxon.com

Alternative energy is an umbrella term that refers to any source of usable energy intended to replace fuel sources without the undesired consequences of the replaced fuels. Typically, official uses of the term, such as qualification for governmental incentives, exclude fossil fuels and nuclear energy whose undesired consequences are climate change and difficulties of radioactive waste disposal. Over the years, the nature of what was regarded alternative energy sources has changed considerably, and today because of the variety of energy choices and differing goals of their advocates, defining some energy types as "alternative" is highly controversial.