Year 3, Month 7, Day 10: Would I Lie To You?

Rex Tillerson is very sad. Nobody believes his reassurances. Poor baby.

NEW YORK (AP) — ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson says fears about climate change, drilling, and energy dependence are overblown.

In a speech Wednesday, Tillerson acknowledged that burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but said society will be able to adapt. The risks of oil and gas drilling are well understood and can be mitigated, he said. And dependence on other nations for oil is not a concern as long as access to supply is certain, he said.

Tillerson blamed a public that is ‘‘illiterate’’ in science and math, a ‘‘lazy’’ press, and advocacy groups that ‘‘manufacture fear’’ for energy misconceptions in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He highlighted that huge discoveries of oil and gas in North America have reversed a 20-year decline in U.S. oil production in recent years. He also trumpeted the global oil industry’s ability to deliver fuels during a two-year period of dramatic uncertainty in the Middle East, the world’s most important oil and gas-producing region.

It’s tough being one of the most powerful people on the planet. Sent June 29:

Poor Rex Tillerson. He’s the CEO of a fossil-fuel corporation that has reaped unimaginable profits from the exploitation of planetary resources over the past half-century, one of the most powerful economic agents in the world — and yet he just can’t seem to persuade his customers that he’s really got their best interests at heart. Given that Exxon has done its utmost to confuse the national discussion of energy and environmental policy by providing lavish funding to climate-change denialist organizations, Mr. Tillerson’s criticism of a science-ignorant public is disingenuous, to put it very mildly.

But why shouldn’t the American people trust Exxon’s word? Let us count the ways. This corporate leviathan has a long rap sheet ranging from disastrous spills and long-delayed compensation, to illegal extraction of oil from state and federal lands, to human-rights abuses in Indonesia and Columbia. In this context, Mr. Tillerson’s attempt to persuade us that climate change isn’t something to be worried about sounds anything but reassuring.

Warren Senders