Michael Mann: Exxon's Research History "Confirmed Things We Had Long Suspected"
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In 2003, as the U.S. Senate debated a bipartisan bill that would have forced the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases, a paper by economist Ross McKitrick and Stephen McIntyre, a self-described "semiretired minerals consultant," claimed to debunk the science behind the hockey stick chart. According to Mann's book, the website Tech Central Station publicized the paper three days before the Senate vote. (The bill failed by a 55-43 vote.)
Tech Central was one of many Exxon-funded groups that helped sow doubt about the scientific consensus on global warming. In 2006, Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) wrote a letter asking ExxonMobil to stop funding groups like Tech Central, "whose public advocacy has contributed to the small but unfortunately effective climate change denial myth."
Mann said he was angry but not surprised by the recent revelations that Exxon spent years conducting serious climate research before starting its campaign to fuel doubt about global warming. He said the investigation by InsideClimate News has "suddenly refocused attention" on something the scientific community long suspected: that Exxon scientists were too smart to be ignorant of the early, emerging science of global warming.
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InsideClimate News: What was your initial reaction to ICN's Exxon series? Do you feel at all vindicated by the news?
Michael Mann: Well, frankly it confirmed things that we had long suspected. …[We knew] that Exxon had really bright scientists, and there's no way those scientists couldn't have known what the rest of the scientific community knew, that [climate change] was a real problem. But nonetheless, it really proves that in some sense, the villainy that we long suspected was taking place within ExxonMobil really was. It wasn’t just a conspiracy theory. It was a legitimate conspiracy. As I've described in my book, fossil fuel interests, including ExxonMobil in particular, have been waging a bad faith assault on me (and on other climate scientists) for decades now. It makes me angry that they would knowingly risk the degradation of our planet for future generations in the name of their own short-term profits.
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http://insideclimatenews.org/news/12112015/michael-mann-climate-change-scientist-interview-exxon-mobil-investigation-global-warming
