“I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade
for the public good.” (Adam Smith, 1776)

“‘I out-lawyered ExxonMobil’s high-priced, white-shoe law firm …’ said [Steve] Milloy. ‘My anti-greenwashing proposal asks the climate bedwetting, pro-CO2 tax oil giant to report to shareholders on the actual costs and benefits of its climate-related activities.’” (Steven Milloy, 2020)

In a March 31, 2020, press release, “Milloy Wins Right to Present Anti-Greenwashing Proposal at Exxon-Mobil Annual Meeting,” the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute (E&E Legal) announced the good news: ExxonMobil will need to explain its politically correct, economically incorrect position bashing its own core business. Yes, petro sales in the EU might need a little corporate greenwash, but really, who in the Left or the Right is being fooled?…

“[Climate] is not only a crisis—it is the most thorough and complete crisis our species and our civilizations have ever faced, one there is no guarantee that we will survive intact.” – Bill McKibben (2020)

“[The fossil fuel industry] is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization.” – Bill McKibben (2012)

“Welcome to the Climate Crisis Newsletter,” featuring Bill McKibben, states the New Yorker. The new feature from the glassy-eyed, fringe fossil-fuel critic is the latest example of foregone scholarship and, in an election year, Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The ultimate crisis? The end of civilization as we know it? Isn’t this what is under debate, with climate optimism a viable position given the protective role of wealth and abundant fossil fuels?

To McKibben and his mainstream media prop, it is all assumption, and false ones at that.…

“Sen. Sanders calls us criminal and Vice President Biden says he would put us in jail, but it would be criminal not to produce the life-sustaining energy that enables a healthy, safe and modern lifestyle.”

– Kathleen Sgamma, Western Energy Alliance, February 24, 2020

The Western Energy Alliance just placed a full-page advertisement in the New York Times with Super Tuesday in mind in which 54 oil and gas executives challenged those calling their livelihood and industry criminal.

It is high time that the major integrated oil and gas companies, not just the independents, play offense rather than defense. Seize the moral high ground and do not appease the disgruntled, obstructionist critics (those with “termite aspirations”).

A half-century ago, Ayn Rand warned business leaders to lead, not capitulate. Remember Exxon’s great value-creator (1993–2005) Lee Raymond?…

“It’s never been remotely plausible that [Exxon] did not understand the science.” – Naomi Oreskes (Harvard University), Scientific American, 2015.

“We didn’t reach those conclusions, nor did we try to bury it like they suggest…. [Critics] pull some documents that we made available publicly in the archives and portray them as some kind of bombshell whistle-blower exposé because of the loaded language and the selective use of materials.” – Allan Jeffers (ExxonMobil) Scientific American, 2015.

The conclusion that the physical science of climate change was “settled” or “proven” in favor of crisis is a major history-of-thought fallacy. Naomi Oreskes, Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University (quoted above), must make peace with the quotations below from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as many others, to show that ‘settled science’ on the human influence on climate unambiguously pointed toward alarm.…