Investigating Connections Between Industry Affiliation and Climate Change Attitudes

摘要

"What do you do?" Among adults meeting for the first time this question commonly surfaces in conversations, including during discussions about climate change. But when the topic is climate change, voices coming from the oil and gas industry send mixed messages. In 1997, Heinz Rothermund, managing director at Shell, UK, stated: How far it is sensible to explore for and develop new hydrocarbon reserves, given that the atmosphere may not be able to cope with the greenhouse gases that will emanate from the utilization of the hydrocarbon reserves discovered already? Undoubtedly there is a dilemma. (As cited in Greenpeace 1998, p. 7) In the same year Offshore Journal reported: "1998 will see record spending by oil companies and continued expansion of the oil industry into new frontiers" (as cited in Greenpeace 1998, p. 17). In 2009, The Guardian reported that Exxon Mobil was continuing to fund climate skeptic groups despite making a pledge to cut such support (Adam 2009), and a second Guardian article cited papers that a well-known climate change skeptic, Willie Soon, received significant funding from major U.S. oil companies (Vidal 2011). Soon promotes the view that global warming is caused by solar variation, a notion disputed by a number of independent researchers. As noted by Lockwood (2008), over the last 35 years the sun and climate have been moving in opposite directions, and analysis shows the sun has had a slight cooling effect in recent years.