Exxon misled public on climate
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Last week, Harvard released an academically peer-reviewed analysis of ExxonMobil’s 40-year history of climate change communications, which Harvard researchers concluded that the oil company misled the public about the dangers of climate change.
Among the findings, researchers who reviewed 187 public and internal Exxon documents found that 83 percent of the peer-reviewed research papers written by Exxon scientists and 80 percent of the company’s internal communications state climate change is a real threat caused by human activity.
Meanwhile, in its advertising only in 12 percent of the time the company acknowledges climate change while 81 percent express doubt.
“On the question of whether ExxonMobil misled non-scientific audiences about climate science, our analysis supports the conclusion that it did,” said the academic study published by Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
When ExxonMobil was first blamed for cherry picking information regarding climate change, the company made a series of documents available to the public for them to read them and make their own mind, which prompted the researchers to take up the challenge which led to the year-long study which results were released last week.
The findings of the study add pressure to ExxonMobil who is currently being investigated by the attorney generals of New York and Massachusetts and the Securities and Exchange Commission who are investigating the company for potentially misleading investors and the public regarding the risks of climate change, and also have a handful of lawsuits filed against it by employees and shareholders on similar grounds.
Battery storage potential
A new study conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy laboratory and Clean Energy Group found that as many as five million customers could benefit for behind the meter battery storage.
According to Electric Light and Power, the researchers looked at the number of commercial customers eligible for utility rate tariffs that included demand charges of $15 or more per kilowatt, an industry benchmark for identifying economic opportunities for behind-the-meter storage.
NREL analyzed over 10,000 utility tariffs in 48 states, finding that more than five million of the 18 million commercial customers across the country may be able to cost-effectively reduce their utility bills with battery storage technologies, a quarter of all commercial customers is a vast market for the technology.
National monuments
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke turned over his recommendations to President Donald Trump regarding the boundaries of national monuments across the U.S.
According to the Associated Press, Zinke didn’t make specifics of his plan public but acknowledged that no monuments would be eliminated but is recommending changes to a handful.
Earlier this year the Trump administration announced its plans to conduct a national review of monuments for possible cutbacks on their size in order to possibly allow activities such as grazing, mining or oil drilling to take place on public lands.
The Desert Sun reported that among the list of monuments that may be reduced include six in California: Mojave Trails, San Gabriel Mountains, Giant Sequoia, Carrizo Plain, Berryessa Snow Mountain and Cascade-Siskiyou.
No timetable has been given yet as to when Trump is expecting to make a formal announcement regarding the changes to national monuments.