David Koenig's Wednesday coverage at the Associated Press of Exxon Mobil's annual meeting contained a predictable headline and related content telling us that the company wouldn't "explicitly ban discrimination against gays because the company already banned discrimination of any type and didn't need to add language regarding gays." Koenig's report apparently couldn't be considered complete without a contribution of misleading climate statistics and statements from the wire service's Seth Borenstein.
Borenstein's apparent input consisted of the following four paragraphs (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
... Since Tillerson replaced Lee Raymond as CEO in 2006, Exxon has softened the tone of its public comments but not its skepticism about climate change. Tillerson said that in the past decade the average temperature "hasn't really changed," and he repeated his optimism that technology will solve the problem.
The average global temperature rose one quarter of a degree Fahrenheit from the 10 years that ended in 2002 to the decade that ended in 2012, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. However, the decade of 2000-2009 was the hottest on record, and nine of the 10 hottest years have occurred since 2001. [1]
Activists argued that climate change will result in more severe weather. Patricia Daley, a member of the New Jersey-based group of Dominican nuns that proposed the climate-change resolution, cited last year's East Coast hurricane.
"I had to evacuate a lot of old nuns because of Superstorm Sandy," Daley said. She said that with rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, "we're in desperate territory right now." [2]
Notes:
[1] -- Nice cherrypicking, Seth. Here are some more pertinent facts:
- "Global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008"
- A year ago, prominent warmist "Phil Jones admitted in a BBC interview when he said that there had been no "statistically significant" warming since 1995."
- The first batch of Climategate emails included an exasperated statement from leading globalarmist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The ... data ... shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong." No Kevin, your computer models stink.
- And finally, there's this from the UK, relayed by the climate skeptic blog Watt's Up With That today: "Humans may not be responsible for global warming, the MP who oversees government policy on climate change has said."
[2] -- This is classic cowardly AP misdirection. When you want to make a statement that you know isn't true, in this case a claim that supposedly more frequent storms (they aren't) are caused by "climate change" (they aren't), you find someone else to make the statement so you don't get tagged with it. Borenstein knows that Sister Patricia is wrong, but let her serve as his effective spokesman anyway.
Giving primary author Koenig some credit, he led by quoting a powerful and true argument made by Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson:
The CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp. says there's no quick replacement for oil, and sharply cutting oil's use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would make it harder to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.
"What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?"
Increasing oil's use has arguably raised hundreds of millions, if not billions of people out of poverty already. Continuing to do that, if given a fair market-driven chance, can finish the job.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
