More Exxon Double-Dealing

With a decades long head start in awareness of the reality of global warming and climate change Exxon has done little to protect some of its facilities and the communities they reside in from the impact.  While it insures its oil rigs are protected, it leaves the communities around its MysticRiver terminal unprotected.

“This is a stunning example of how ExxonMobil’s climate deceit hits home, where their repeated sworn, but false, statements to regulators that this facility was prepared for climate conditions put the surrounding communities that have hosted the facility for years in danger,” Brad Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, told ThinkProgress.

According to investigative reports published last year by both InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times, ExxonMobil’s internal scientists knew about the role of fossil fuels in driving global warming as early as 1977, and yet publicly continued to fuel doubt about climate science.

Exxon also built oil rigs in the North Sea to withstand projected climate impacts like sea level rise and rising temperatures.

Yet the company failed to make the same structural improvements to its terminal in Massachusetts, the lawsuit claims, leaving surrounding communities at risk of toxic pollution during severe storm events or floods. According to the complaint, the Everett Terminal is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change predicted to hit New England in the coming years: sea level rise, increased precipitation, increased magnitude and frequency of storm events, and increased magnitude and frequency of storm surges.