Climate Crimes: The Case of Exxon

• In Event: State and Corporate Environmental Crime Victimization

Abstract

Agnew’s (2011) integrated definition stipulates that a crime is a morally blameworthy harm that has been or should be condemned by the public and legally sanctioned by the state in some manner. Using this definition, this paper seeks to explore the phenomena of climate crimes: the morally blameworthy harms of global warming and related climate disruption caused by greenhouse gas emissions. To illustrate the concept of climate crimes we focus on the case of Exxon. As early as 1977, Exxon was aware that carbon dioxide from the use of fossil fuels would warm the planet and eventually endanger humanity. The company responded by creating a research program which included both empirical CO2 sampling and climate modeling. Yet in the 1980s Exxon curtailed its carbon dioxide research and instead worked towards climate denial by manufacturing doubt about the reality of global warming (Banerjee, Song and Hasemyer 2015). Over the course of thirty years, Exxon engaged in three forms of climate crimes by: 1) continued extraction and emissions, 2) funding denial efforts to discredit climate science, lobbying Congress and using PR to block policy responses, and 3) committing fraud by lying to investors and the public about the impact of climate change on the future of their business. Currently there are two investigations into the criminal activity of Exxon by State Attorney Generals (New York and California), and a US Justice Department request for a federal probe by the FBI’s criminal division.

Authors

• Ronald Kramer, Western Michigan University

• Elizabeth Bradshaw, Central Michigan University