Fixing Exxon’s 40-year climate change scandal would be a great reason to have a time machine
Texas-based ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, is the present day result of the long and winding history of the oil industry. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, which, after being ruled an illegal monopoly way back in 1911, was broken up into Exxon, Mobil, Chevron and a couple other offshoots. Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999 to form ExxonMobil. As an oil company, Exxon naturally has another long and convoluted history, one that hinges on its relationship with climate change; a phenomenon primarily driven by the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the burning of the very fossil fuels that make Exxon go “cha-ching.” In recent weeks, a new investigation from InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times has shed unwanted light on just how much Exxon knew about climate change, for how long, and what the company did, didn’t do, and tried to stop from happening. This newfound attention has led to an outcr