Assessing ExxonMobil's climate change communications (1977-2014)
Assessing ExxonMobil's climate change communications (1977-2014)
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DOI：
10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f
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发表时间：
2017-08-01
影响因子：
6.7
通讯作者：
Oreskes, Naomi
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Supran, Geoffrey;Oreskes, Naomi
本文评估了埃克森美孚公司过去是否在气候变化问题上误导了公众。我们提出了一个实证文件的文本内容分析和比较埃克森美孚公司的187个气候变化通信，包括同行评审和非同行评审的出版物，内部公司文件，并支付，编辑风格的广告（“广告”）在纽约时报。我们研究这些通信是否发出一致的信息，气候科学的状态及其影响，具体来说，我们比较他们的立场，气候变化是真实的，人为造成的，严重的，和可解决的。在所有四种情况下，我们发现，随着文件变得越来越公开，它们越来越多地传达怀疑。这种差异在状语和所有其他文件之间最为明显。例如，考虑到合理怀疑的表达，83%的同行评审论文和80%的内部文件承认气候变化是真实的和人为造成的，但只有12%的广告这样做，81%的广告表示怀疑。我们的结论是，埃克森美孚通过其科学家的学术出版物为推进气候科学做出了贡献，但却在广告中促进了对气候科学的怀疑。鉴于这种差异，我们得出结论，埃克森美孚误导了公众。我们的内容分析还研究了埃克森美孚对搁浅化石燃料资产风险的讨论。我们发现这个主题在24篇不同类型的文献中讨论过，有时也被量化，但没有状语。最后，根据现有的文件，我们概述了埃克森美孚的战略方针，气候变化的研究和沟通，这有助于我们的调查结果的背景。
This paper assesses whether ExxonMobil Corporation has in the past misled the general public about climate change. We present an empirical document-by-document textual content analysis and comparison of 187 climate change communications from ExxonMobil, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed publications, internal company documents, and paid, editorial-style advertisements ('advertorials') in The New York Times. We examine whether these communications sent consistent messages about the state of climate science and its implications-specifically, we compare their positions on climate change as real, human-caused, serious, and solvable. In all four cases, we find that as documents become more publicly accessible, they increasingly communicate doubt. This discrepancy is most pronounced between advertorials and all other documents. For example, accounting for expressions of reasonable doubt, 83% of peer-reviewed papers and 80% of internal documents acknowledge that climate change is real and human-caused, yet only 12% of advertorials do so, with 81% instead expressing doubt. We conclude that ExxonMobil contributed to advancing climate science-by way of its scientists' academic publications-but promoted doubt about it in advertorials. Given this discrepancy, we conclude that ExxonMobil misled the public. Our content analysis also examines ExxonMobil's discussion of the risks of stranded fossil fuel assets. We find the topic discussed and sometimes quantified in 24 documents of various types, but absent from advertorials. Finally, based on the available documents, we outline ExxonMobil's strategic approach to climate change research and communication, which helps to contextualize our findings.