What Exxon Knew, but Concealed, About Climate Change

To the Editor:

Re “Exxon Scientists Saw Global Warming, as Oil Giant Cast Doubt, Study Says” (Business, Jan. 13):

Exxon knew that its fuels would contribute to overheating the planet, yet it chose to deceive the public. It’s the very definition of fraud. Fossil fuel interests and their political allies are carrying out a fraud on humanity. They enjoy massive profits while their products are causing disease, death and disruption around the world.

More than eight million people die annually from fossil fuel pollution. Societies are burdened by billions of dollars in damages from climate-fueled heat waves, wildfires, droughts, floods and sea rise.

How can we hold them accountable? Many cities and states have filed lawsuits against fossil fuel companies seeking damages.

We citizens can demand congressional action to end fossil fuel subsidies, enact carbon pricing to make the polluters pay, subsidize clean energy, speed electrification, reform the permitting process for renewable energy, and sequester carbon through healthier forests and better agricultural practices.

Robert Taylor
Santa Barbara, Calif.

To the Editor:

The revelation that Exxon scientists in the 1970s correctly projected the long-term climate impacts of burning fossil fuels, while publicly claiming ignorance, is both unsurprising and infuriating. Rising profits beat rising sea levels every time.

Communities on the front lines of the climate crisis have long felt the environmental, economic and health consequences of burning oil, gas and coal. It stands to reason that scientists employed by big polluters would reach the same conclusions.

When lead paint and tobacco companies were found to have known the negative health effects of their products, but spent decades concealing them, a public reckoning — with significant monetary damages — followed. It is long past time for the fossil fuel industry to face the same kind of accountability.

Zellnor Y. Myrie
Brooklyn
The writer is a New York State senator for the 20th District.

To the Editor:

It is indeed unfortunate that Exxon was not forthcoming about its studies and its scientifically accurate projections of global warming. We can use this information to vilify Exxon Mobil, and certainly it deserves criticism, or we can use the information to acknowledge that a great deal of untapped expertise resides in the private energy industry that can be harnessed to address climate change.

It would be highly productive if the federal government worked with energy corporations, where so much energy expertise resides, helping them make the socially beneficial decisions that are required to move toward nonpolluting and climate-friendly sources of energy.

The government could help fund research and provide economic assistance to construct new infrastructure, which would ease the monetary challenges in transitions.

Make the oil and energy industry part of the solution, as opposed to the problem.

Ken Lefkowitz
Medford, N.J.
The writer is a former employee of PECO Energy, an electric and gas utility.

To the Editor:

Thank you for this article, but this is not news. We have known for some time that the oil companies have been deliberately misrepresenting the facts regarding global warming, when they knew better.

The Union of Concerned Scientists published “The Climate Deception Dossiers” in 2015. This document is a compilation of evidence that the oil companies knew what greenhouse gases would do to the Earth.

In addition, the magazine Scientific American published an article in 2015 that stated that Exxon knew about global warming in 1977.

Joseph Milstein
Brookline, Mass.

The U.S. Embassy in Israel

To the Editor:

Re “Don’t Build the Jerusalem Embassy Here,” by Rashid Khalidi (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 17):

Dr. Khalidi’s view of international law, history and politics demands a response.

When the British withdrew from Palestine in 1948, the Jewish organizations had embraced the 1947 U.N. General Assembly resolution recommending partition into predominantly Jewish and Arab states. Arabs rejected the recommendation and attacked. If there was a “nakba” (catastrophe), it was of their making.

Second, Israel did not wake up one day and decide to march into East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Egypt, Syria and Jordan engaged in armed aggression in 1967 with the stated objective of pushing the Jews into the sea. Israel exercised its inherent right of self-defense under the U.N. Charter.

There is not an international right of return law. That argument is an excuse for destroying Israel as a Jewish state.

Moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem recognized the location of Israel’s capital and sent an important signal to those who advocate the destruction of Israel. Real peace between Israel and the Palestinians will happen when both sides recognize a need to compromise.

Nicholas Rostow
New York
The writer is a former legal adviser to the National Security Council and general counsel and senior policy adviser to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Paying Off Our Debts

To the Editor:

Re “U.S. Hits Debt Cap, Heightening Risk of Economic Pain” (front page, Jan. 20):

If the debt limit is not raised, then the U.S. will be unable to make payments to some of its creditors, employees and entitlement programs that it is legally obligated to make.

How nifty! My wife and I have a mortgage and a car loan. We have decided that our personal debt level is too high. So, we plan to send our bank a letter today saying that we will no longer make our mortgage or car payments.

On second thought, scratch that. I know what our bank would say. And it would be right.

If we need to reduce our debt as a nation, then — like my wife and me — let’s do it by reducing future spending commitments, not by failing to make current payments that we have already legally committed ourselves to make.

Craig Duncan
Ithaca, N.Y.

Why Use Real Guns on Movie Sets?

To the Editor:

Re “Baldwin to Face Pair of Charges in Movie Death” (front page, Jan. 20):

Why do actors need to use real guns? They use fake props for everything else!

If we can send people to the moon and create self-driving cars, you would think that we could create realistic-looking guns, instead of real ones, that actors could use in movies and theaters.

If they had done that on the set of “Rust,” the western that Alec Baldwin was filming, no one would have died. It’s a simple solution to prevent anything like this from happening again.

Ellen Ettinger
New York

Election Deniers Wasting Taxpayer Funds

To the Editor:

Re “Despite Recount of 2020 Ballots, County’s Deniers Cling to Doubts” (front page, Jan. 16):

Sensible taxpayers have the right to ask why their tax funds and the time of civil servants are spent on a request for an additional recount or audit of a verified and certified vote absent any evidence of fraud or irregularity.

Where no reasonable probable cause exists for any such recount or audit, then any re-examination should be completely at the expense and time of the party that initiated it, especially when these beliefs are conjured up by conspiratorial fantasies or motivated by bad faith.

Government officials and civil servants need to be free to focus on the needs of all, and not just the aims of a divisive and selfish minority.

Jim Cochran
Dallas