#ExxonMobil

[wachinyeya]

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5123619/california-sues-exxonmobil-for-misleading-public-on-plastic-recycling

[follow-up-news]

California sued ExxonMobil Monday, alleging the oil giant deceived the public for half a century by promising that the plastics it produced would be recycled. Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said that less than 5% of plastic is recycled into another plastic product in the U.S. even though the items are labeled as “recyclable.” As a result, landfills and oceans are filled with plastic waste, creating a global pollution crisis, while consumers diligently place plastic water bottles and other containers into recycling bins, the lawsuit alleges. “‘Buy as much as you want, no problem, it’ll be recycled,’ they say. Lies, and they aim to make us feel less guilty about our waste if we recycle it,” said Bonta, a Democrat, at a virtual news conference, where he was joined by representatives of environmental groups that filed a separate but similar lawsuit Monday, also in San Francisco County Superior Court. “The end goal is to drive people to buy, buy, buy and to drive ExxonMobil’s profits up, up, up,” he said. ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest producers of plastics, blamed California for its flawed recycling system. “For decades, California officials have known their recycling system isn’t effective. They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills,” Lauren Kight, spokesperson for ExxonMobil, said in an email. Dozens of U.S. municipalities as well as eight states and Washington, D.C., have sued oil and gas companies in recent years over their role in climate change, according to the Center for Climate Integrity. Those are still making their way through courts, including a lawsuit filed by California a year ago against some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, claiming they deceived the public about the risks of fossil fuels.

[nando161mando]

Be sure to thank the Shareholders

[sakura2arashi]

It's surreal seeing ducklings still being used as a mascot for Dawn. Does anyone in P&G's ad division even remember why they were associated with the brand in the first place? It's because of an oil spill! In 1989 the Exxon Valdez ran aground and dumped 11 million gallons of oil off the Alaskan coastline. Wildlife rescuers found that Dawn cleaned oil off animals while remaining gentle.

Not really sure I'd want to commemorate such a horrific event with a decades-long ad campaign, even if my contribution was positive. It seems tacky, but that's peak capitalism. Either way, I feel very icky every time I see those ads because I remember seeing those ducks and other wildlife in an issue of National Geographic afterward. I failed to find a pic I could source from the spill and I don't feel like going through pages of suffering wildlife.

[ceevee5]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Daily Kos:

Conservative Texas District Judge Reed O’Connor took time out of his packed schedule of trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act to hand down a genuinely unhinged decision. According to O’Connor, American Airlines violated federal law by offering 401(k) plans that included funds managed by investment companies with environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) goals. It’s the newest—and dumbest—front in the war on “woke.”  The Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) requires people who manage retirement investments to act in the best interests of their participants. This is a good thing! It means that fund managers can’t put their own financial interests first and must diversify a fund’s investments to minimize the risk of significant losses.  This lawsuit arose when a former pilot sued American Airlines in 2023, saying it violated ERISA by mismanaging 401(k) funds. Was it because somehow the company lined its pockets with the hard-earned cash of retirees? Nope. Was it because the company’s 401(k) funds were performing terribly? Nope. It was because American Airlines hired BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager that oversees trillions of investment dollars, to manage its retirement funds. Several years ago, BlackRock started positioning itself as a leader in its focus on environmental sustainability in investing. In 2021, BlackRock, then the second-largest holder of Exxon stock, cast a proxy vote on behalf of activist investors who wanted climate-conscious directors on the corporation’s board.  Lest this make it sound like BlackRock was just one step away from partnering with Greta Thunberg or something, the company still has billions invested in fossil fuels and runs the world’s largest Bitcoin fund. It’s a fund manager, not Santa Claus. BlackRock also spent the last year retreating from its previous support for climate activism, which is unsurprising given that 11 red states recently sued over it.  The usual suspects, like Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, have also pulled state assets out of BlackRock, but the American Airlines lawsuit was the first successful attack on ESG investing in 401(k) plans. 

[...] Conservatives are treating the elimination of ESG and DEI efforts as if the boot of government is finally off their backs, allowing corporations to finally unleash their true potential. But these sorts of actions—committing to net zero emissions and ensuring diversity and equity in the workforce—weren’t the scary, woke socialist ideas of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or Nancy Pelosi. Rather, they’re actions that corporations took in an attempt to make themselves appear more attractive within a capitalist, free-market framework.  But conservatives are no longer interested in a free market—hence the screaming about “woke capitalism.” With Trump back in office, they’ll get to use the heavy hand of government to reward only the corporations that share Trump’s climate-denying, white supremacist, anti-trans views. 

The right’s war on ESG and DEI will have disastrous consequences.

[kimhoganjusticewarrior]

MY #SCOTUS #WRITOFCERTERORI LINK:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-xyr4ETbDY6E7fbyoUTXw5uOzO_jpmSRVrpdeOIE4cM/edit?usp=drivesdk

MY #WRITOFMANDAMUS LINK IN THE CORRUPT AS HELL #TEXAS369THDISTRICTCOURT:

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:9d788a3d-8bcd-4729-b2cb-a883f81d688f

🇺🇸⚖️💪🤬

DOB 2/12/1970 6:09am Los Angeles, CA.

[slumsaintt]

babytruck. ✍🏽🍎🦾

003.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

One of the world's largest oil companies is preparing to drill an exploratory deepwater oil well about 500 kilometres off the eastern coast of Newfoundland. ExxonMobil says the Stena Drillmax ship will drill a single well, which the company is calling Persephone, in about 3,000 metres of water. The well will be drilled in an area of the seabed called the Orphan Basin, which is north of the Flemish Pass Basin, where Equinor is considering developing the country's first deepwater oil production operation, called Bay du Nord.

Continue Reading.

[dowehavealobsterdoor]

“A yearslong U.S. Justice Department investigation of a global hacking campaign that targeted prominent American climate activists took a turn in a London court this week amid an allegation that the hacking was ordered by a lobbying firm working for ExxonMobil. Both the lobbying firm and ExxonMobil have denied any awareness of or involvement with alleged hacking.”

[nando161mando]

Kamala Embraces Fossil Fuels: After All, Hurricanes Don’t Fuel Themselves!

[ralfmaximus]

Ron Perlman's ExxonMobil ad. It's.. amazing.

[gwydionmisha]

...And the countersuit, because of course.

Exxon sues California AG, environmental groups over attacks on recycling efforts

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Politico:

California Attorney General Rob Bonta accused Exxon Mobil in a lawsuit filed [September 23, 2024] of misleading the public about the environmental consequences of plastic production for decades.

The first-of-its-kind civil suit targets the world’s largest producer of chemical compounds that go into making plastic. Bonta, a Democrat, is pursuing some of the profits that he alleges resulted from Exxon’s promotion of single-use plastics as well as a court order for the company to stop what he says are misleading claims about the recyclability of plastics.

Exxon pointed the finger back at California.

“For decades, California officials have known their recycling system isn’t effective,” spokesperson Lauren Kight said in a statement. “They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills.”

The suit in San Francisco County Superior Court, which comes a year after Bonta sued Exxon and four other oil majors seeking compensation for climate change damages, reflects California’s increasingly aggressive effort to hold the industry accountable for climate harms as the state transitions from fossil fuels to renewables.

The lawsuit accuses Exxon Mobil of violating state nuisance, natural resources, water pollution, false advertising and unfair competition laws. It seeks an injunction against “further pollution, impairment, and destruction, as well as to prevent Exxon Mobil from making any further false or misleading statements about plastics recycling and its plastics operations.”

[phonix]