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Geoffrey Supran Profile picture
Geoffrey Supran
@GeoffreySupran
Professor of Environmental Science & Policy and Director of Climate Accountability Lab at University of Miami investigating Big Oil's climate propaganda.
6 subscribers
Oct 12, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Big Oil's new "potentially game-ending" strategy to kill climate lawsuits is to argue it had "no duty to warn" because climate science was "'open and obvious' for decades.”

Sadly, I & @NaomiOreskes predicted this defence in our 2021 analysis of ExxonMobil's climate rhetoric. 1/n
Image 2/n: We saw this coming based on computational detection of Exxon's systemic climate "risk" rhetoric & its historical alignment w/ a cornerstone of Big Tobacco's legal position on the "risks" of smoking, which is that "Everyone knew but no one had proof." tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/15/sup…
May 1, 2023 • 8 tweets • 9 min read
🚨Climate Accountability Lab at University of Miami is hiring!🚨 Pls share widely!📢

Researchers at all levels (undergrad, grad, postdoc, senior scientist, consultant) interested in investigating climate disinformation & propaganda, pls reach out! Postdoc job listings below. 1/n Image 2/n: Postdoc #1: Climate Change Disinformation and Propaganda. Quantitative and qualitative applied social science methods welcomed.

More info and application form here: umiami.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UMCareer…
Jan 12, 2023 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
NEW: In @ScienceMagazine today, our latest peer-reviewed research shows Exxon scientists predicted global warming with shocking skill & accuracy between 1977 & 2003, contradicting the company's decades of climate denial. THREAD.

📰No pay wall for 2 weeks: bit.ly/ExxonKnew2poin… Image 2/n: This is the first ever systematic assessment of an oil and gas company's climate projections. It's published by me, climate scientist @rahmstorf (@PIK_Climate), and historian of science @NaomiOreskes.
Jan 12, 2023 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
🥳Some news!🥳 I am thrilled share that I have just joined the University of Miami as a tenured Associate Professor of Environmental Science & Policy!

My new group, the Climate Accountability Lab, will investigate climate disinformation & propaganda by fossil fuel interests. 1/n 2/n: Housed at @univmiami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, & Earth Science @MiamiRosenstiel, my group will conduct cutting-edge data science, communication science, and history of science research that holds bad actors accountable for obstructing climate action.
Dec 9, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
DAMN. Smoking gun documents uncovered by US Congressional investigation expose the oil and gas industry’s secret strategy to weaponize their climate pledges to “further secure the industry’s license to operate." 1/n cnn.com/2022/12/09/pol… 2/n: This should fundamentally shift how the public, press, & policymakers perceive Big Oil’s climate commitments: as propaganda defending business-as-usual by, as BP privately put it, “protect[ing the] role of gas as a bridge [fuel], & position[ing] gas as a destination fuel.”
Sep 21, 2022 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
NEW report today by me & ati.io @NCoC reveals European oil, car, & airline companies' systematic use of language & imagery (of nature & demographics) on social media to brand themselves as green, innovative, & charitable. THREAD. ati.io/three-shades-o… 2/n: We conducted visual and textual content analysis of 2,325 organic social media posts this summer from 22 of the largest fossil fuel producers, car manufacturers, & airlines in the EU. We looked at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Oct 13, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
This is (apparently) really happening folks. For the first time in history, CEOs of Big Oil will testify to US Congress about their multi-decade disinformation campaign to mislead the public about the climate crisis. H/t @maxinejoselow for the scoop. 1/n
washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/… 2/n: For quick context, I & @NaomiOreskes wrote last year about why "it is our opinion that holding the fossil fuel industry accountable would be one of the most impactful ways for Congress – & governments around the world – to combat the climate crisis." theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Aug 26, 2021 • 4 tweets • 5 min read
For my entire lifetime, oil & gas companies have engaged in PR campaigns to "manufacture doubt & downplay the threats of climate change." For twice that long, they've known their fossil fuel products were producing CO2 with potentially "catastrophic" climate consequences. 1/n 2/n: That is the crux of an amicus brief that I and other experts today filed to the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Minnesota Attorney General @AGEllison's lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute.
Jun 23, 2021 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Contrary to Big Oil's climate change propaganda of individualized responsibility, the International Energy Agency's blockbuster 'Net Zero by 2050' report envisions less than 5% of emissions reductions coming from "behaviour changes". 1/n Image 2/n: We should each do all we can, of course. Climate action should be BOTH/AND not EITHER/OR.

That means driving less, flying less, eating less meat.

BUT, it also means working collectively to confront the fossil fuel forces undermining systemic change. Image
Jun 21, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Big Oil has known its products could cause climate collapse since at least 1959, when physicist Edward Teller warned the American Petroleum Institute of global warming due to fossil fuel burning "sufficient to melt the icecap & submerge New York". Happy #ShowYourStripes Day! 1/n 2/n: For more on Teller's warning to API, see @BenFranta: theguardian.com/environment/cl…
Jun 2, 2021 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
When we learned in 2019 that @MIT might rename its climate science lecture hall the *Shell* Auditorium in exchange for $3m, we raised the alarm. It made the front page of the @BostonGlobe. Today, in a win of sorts, MIT announced a "course-correct". 1/n 2/n: The auditorium will instead be named the "Dixie Lee Bryant(1891) Lecture Hall", after the first woman to receive a BSc in Geology at MIT. This, as MIT rightly acknowledges, is a wonderful & "overdue recognition of women in science at MIT". eapsweb.mit.edu/sites/default/…
May 28, 2021 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
Of Wednesday's 3 big blows to Big Oil, Shell losing in court strikes me as most immediately impactful because it ORDERS a fossil fuel firm to align with Paris Agreement, effective at once, & establishes legal precedents up the wazoo. Do others agree? 1/n 2/n: The Exxon and Chevron shareholder wins are, of course, also seismic in terms of political momentum-building towards further (shareholder) activism, but that's partly because shareholder engagement has literally yielded nothing for the past 25 years.
May 27, 2021 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
For those claiming yesterday's (genuinely brilliant) Exxon/Chevron shareholder climate victories are an argument against fossil fuel divestment, remember that shareholder engagement with Big Oil achieved precisely nothing for 25 years. 1/n
insideclimatenews.org/news/16112015/… 2/n: Then divestment came along. As did #KeepItInTheGround & #Blockadia. As did grassroots organizing @350, @sunrisemvmt, @ExtinctionR, @GretaThunberg @Fridays4future et al. As did a collapsing climate & shifting energy econ. As did #ExxonKnew journalism.blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/t…
May 13, 2021 • 28 tweets • 8 min read
NEW: Our latest peer-reviewed research, out today, shows that ExxonMobil uses Big Tobacco's propaganda tactics to blame individuals for the climate change it has caused. THREAD.

📰 No pay wall: bit.ly/ExxonPropaganda Image 2/n: This is the first quantitative, academic analysis of how ExxonMobil has used language to subtly yet systematically shape public discourse about climate change in misleading ways. It's published by me and @NaomiOreskes in the journal @OneEarth_CP.
Feb 22, 2021 • 18 tweets • 8 min read
In 1966, Shell asked scientist James Lovelock "to consider the possible global consequences of air pollution from...the ever-increasing rate of combustion of fossil fuels."

It's an early example of how Big Oil studied climate, colonised academia, & invented climate denial 1/n 2/n: This "prehistory of climate change denialism" is captured by @leaharonowsky's terrific essay last year, which you can read open-access here: journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/71…
Oct 30, 2020 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
TODAY, in our peer-reviewed follow-up analysis putting to bed ExxonMobil's attacks on our work, I & @NaomiOreskes delineate "three distinct ways in which the data demonstrate [they] misled the public" about climate change: bit.ly/ExxonAddendum

Let me count the ways...THREAD 2/n: TLDR:

Both Exxon & Mobil variously engaged in both climate science & in climate denial, & continued to do so after they merged to become ExxonMobil.

"We now conclude with even greater confidence that Exxon, Mobil, & ExxonMobil Corp misled the public about climate change."
Oct 16, 2020 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
ExxonMobil just attacked our 2017 research study, in which I and @NaomiOreskes showed they misled the public about climate change.

Here's our peer-reviewed response: bit.ly/ExxonReply.

THREAD. 2/n: We find that ExxonMobil's critiques, penned by company VP Vijay Swarup, "are misleading & incorrect."

Ironically, "thanks in part to his feedback, we can now conclude with even greater confidence that Exxon, Mobil, & ExxonMobil Corp have all misled the public."
Feb 5, 2020 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
NEW: In @nature today, my colleagues and I make the case that ending fossil fuel subsidies matters greatly, “in ways both material and political.” THREAD.

📰No pay wall: rdcu.be/b1fCr 2/n: My co-authors @SEI_Erickson, @harrovanasselt, Doug Koplow, @mlaz_sei, Peter Newell, @NaomiOreskes, & I publish this paper in response to this 2018 article by Jewell et al. that claimed emissions reductions due to cutting subsidies would be "small" ⬇️ nature.com/articles/natur…
Dec 1, 2019 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
In 1977, Exxon scientist James Black warned executives of the "effect of CO2 on an interglacial scale." His knowledge of historical global temps & prediction of a "carbon dioxide induced 'super-interglacial'" (in black) was remarkably consistent w/ today's best models (red). 1/n 2/n: In @SPIEGELONLINE today, @rahmstorf discusses Exxon's early understanding of paleoclimate and its significance to ongoing climate litigation: spiegel.de/wissenschaft/n…

#ExxonKnew
Nov 20, 2019 • 8 tweets • 9 min read
NEW landmark @UNEP et al. report shows almost all countries' climate commitments ring hollow. While governments pledge to cut greenhouse gas *emissions*, they are simultaneously investing in fossil fuel *production* at double(!) the safe limit. THREAD.

productiongap.org 2/n: This is cognitive dissonance on a global scale. It's like promising to go on a diet while simultaneously baking a cake.
reuters.com/article/us-cli…
Nov 5, 2019 • 13 tweets • 7 min read
"Asked to explain why Exxon’s climate-related ads are not political, @Twitter declined to comment. A Harvard researcher who studies Exxon for a living, however, did not hold back."

⬆️I chat today w/ HEATED/@emorwee.

⬇️A few follow-up thoughts... THREAD.heated.world/p/exxon-climat… 2/n: First, and most crucially, I declare my personal slogan henceforth to be: Not holding back since 2019™.