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Supran and Oreskes ( Environ. Res. Lett . 12 084019) employ a textual content analysis and comparison of 187 climate change communications from ExxonMobil (and its predecessor companies) to determine whether a discrepancy exists between published opinion pieces (‘advertorials’) and internal technical documents. Based on their analysis, the authors conclude that the company (ExxonMobil) misled the public. That conclusion is premised on at least two methodological flaws. First, the authors largely compared data from two different companies who were direct competitors to determine whether there was a discrepancy between them. Ignoring that before 1999 Exxon Corporation and Mobil Oil Corporation were two separate companies, the authors compare the internal documents of one company to the public statements of another in an effort to find discrepancies in the messages conveyed. Second, the publication assessed only a small subset of available advertorials. The authors note that ‘the company [Mobil] took out an advertorial every Thursday between 1972 and 2001’ or approximately 1560 times. Yet they chose to review only the 36 advertorials (or less than 3%) that were selected by another entity, Greenpeace, which has a well-documented history of animosity toward ExxonMobil. The authors’ reliance on limited data sets and their comparison of two unlike data sets call into question the publication’s conclusions.
Supran and Oreskes ( Environ. Res. Lett . 12 084019) employ a textual content analysis and comparison of 187 climate change communications from ExxonMobil (and its predecessor companies) to determine whether a discrepancy exists between published opinion pieces (‘advertorials’) and internal technical documents. Based on their analysis, the authors conclude that the company (ExxonMobil) misled the public. That conclusion is premised on at least two methodological flaws. First, the authors largely compared data from two different companies who were direct competitors to determine whether there was a discrepancy between them. Ignoring that before 1999 Exxon Corporation and Mobil Oil Corporation were two separate companies, the authors compare the internal documents of one company to the public statements of another in an effort to find discrepancies in the messages conveyed. Second, the publication assessed only a small subset of available advertorials. The authors note that ‘the company [Mobil] took out an advertorial every Thursday between 1972 and 2001’ or approximately 1560 times. Yet they chose to review only the 36 advertorials (or less than 3%) that were selected by another entity, Greenpeace, which has a well-documented history of animosity toward ExxonMobil. The authors’ reliance on limited data sets and their comparison of two unlike data sets call into question the publication’s conclusions.
Comment on ‘Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications (1977–2014)’ Supran and Oreskes (2017 Environ. Res. Lett. 12 084019)
V Swarup (author)
2020
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
Unknown
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