ZOMG: ExxonMobil and Sierra Club Agreed on Climate Policy—and Kept It Secret

o I've decided to try the "ZOMG" prefix for these things, instead of postfixing a mark of interrogation. Perhaps it makes things clearer. Anyway, the latest breathless nonsense is ExxonMobil and Sierra Club Agreed on Climate Policy—and Kept It Secret from Bloomberg (h/t JS). Why is it nonsense? Firstly, they're pretending this is news. It isn't news: this is essentially a re-tread of How two ExxonMobil and Sierra Club lawyers agreed on a carbon tax which is a much better article and more than a year old. Notice that it doesn't make any foolish claims about secrets. Secondly, Exxon's support for a carbon tax in 2009 was public; see the Calgary Herald: Exxonmobil corp., the world's largest crude oil refiner, supports taxing carbon dioxide as the most efficient way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions, its chief executive said, via the highly-sekrit [[carbon tax]]. Note that precedes the document Bloomberg swoons over by months.

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I guess it's punchier than "Claim:"...

[Oooouch: cutting -W]

By Dan Riley (not verified) on 04 Jan 2016 #permalink

Who knows? maybe Exxon wants to get into the renewables market at some point. And a carbon tax makes it easier to keep renewable prices higher.

Now, if they come out in favor of subsidies for renewables, I will eat my hat.

By Gingerbaker (not verified) on 05 Jan 2016 #permalink

Meh. Headlines are written by subeds, not journalists - and the article itself says nowt about secrets. (Yes, there's 'Secretly, however, they found that a common problem ... can for a time scramble the very idea of friends and enemies.' But as far as I can make out, that should really be 'in private' or something.) The article itself mentions 'in obscurity' and the like, but not secrecy. It also doesn't seem that breathless, really.

Wake me up when there's proof the Kochs and Big Coal funded the anti-nuke people.

By Russell the Stout (not verified) on 13 Jan 2016 #permalink