Conversation

Amy Westervelt
@amywestervelt
Good time to take a little walk down memory lane and remember that Exxon, when it was Standard Oil of New Jersey, was the first to invest in universities specifically as a way to try to ensure a particular social, economic, and political context for the company to operate within.
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Coalition for a True School of Sustainability
@CoalitionTrue
The @stanforddoerr School of "Sustainability" has invited the CEO of ExxonMobil (and a VP of Total) to speak at their global energy forum. #Greenwashing
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Amy Westervelt
@amywestervelt
There were some tax code changes in the late 1940s and early 1950s that made university donations a sweet write-off for corporations, but it was Standard VP Frank Abrams who grasped the REAL value of investing in universities. Here he is laying it out in a 1953 speech:
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Amy Westervelt
@amywestervelt
Replying to
@amywestervelt
Then there's the example of how valuable it is to push an anti-regulatory approach. He doesn't call it that of course, instead merely pointing out that some people think the government should be more involved in things but you can "educate" this idea out of people.
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Amy Westervelt
@amywestervelt
When schools like
@Stanford
take money from fossil fuel companies for climate science, it's pretty gross. When they take it for public policy and economics programs? I would argue it's even more damaging.
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Amy Westervelt
@amywestervelt
They've been doing it for decades and the entire goal is to limit how we're allowed to talk about environmental problems or think about regulation, how we frame the environment and the economy, and what solutions to big problems like climate change we're allowed to even entertain
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