Oh, that global warming

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Having evidently decided that recent events like the North Pole’s melting like a popsicle on a summer day may, in fact, offer money-making opportunities, a growing number of oil and auto companies appear to be significantly — if quietly — changing their attitude towards global warming, GRIST MAGAZINE reports.

Recent Must Reads

10/3 – Apartheid cops’ change of heart

9/30 – Clausen vs. the Green Meanies

9/29 – Watergate hero gets no respect

9/28 – The undiscovered dinos

Shell, BP, Mazda, Ford, and Daimler-Chrysler — companies not exactly known as eco-warriors — have invested well over a combined $1 billion in fuel-cell cars and renewable technologies. Concurrently, the Global Climate Coalition — the main industry group opposing action on global warming — has seen its membership dissipate since December, when a slew of major oil and auto companies started defecting from the group. (Exxon/Mobil is the lone remaining giant.)

A telling example of the large-scale attitude shift occurred at a recent economic forum, where CEOs of the world’s 1,000 largest corporations helped vote on the most threatening scenarios facing trade and globalization. The participants rejected all choices they were given and voted climate change as the most significant. To be sure, the companies are still as financially motivated as ever. BP estimates it will haul in $1 billion a year in solar commerce.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate