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Subject:Change course for the unborn generations
Date:June 12, 2017 at 4:18 PM
To:Darren W. Woods Darren.W.Woods@ExxonMobil.com, William (Bill) M. Colton William.M.Colton@ExxonMobil.com,
Suzanne M. McCarron Suzanne.M.McCarron@ExxonMobil.com, Jeffrey J. Woodbury jeff.j.woodburv@exxonmobil.com
Cc: Susan K. Avery, PhD savery@whoi.edu, Max Schulz max.schulz@exxonmobil.com
In his May 30, 2017, Perspectives blog Rites of Engagement (Bit.ly/ExxMob30May17), Jeff Woodbury wrote the following:
Investor engagement covers a range of issues. In recent years, the topic of managing the potential risks of
climate change has been present in many of these discussions discussions that inform our deliberations and
have helped ExxonMobil clarify and articulate our positions.
We embrace the opportunity in these discussions, as well as at the annual meeting, to highlight our work in the
search for solutions particularly the development of technologies to increase efficiency and to supply lower-
emissions energy both economically and sustainably.
Over the course of a year, shareholders will put forth any number of proposals from a number of perspectives
covering a host of topics.
In many of these instances, when we meet we are able to forge consensus, benefiting both parties. When we are
unable to come to an agreement, those proposals are then put to a vote at the annual meeting.
Obviously, this is the business-as-usual paradigm, but you must understand we have entered an epoch that is no long
business-as-usual. ExxonMobil and its Management answer to more than shareholdersgiven the urgency of addressing
the climate and ocean crises, you answer to the people of the worldyou answer to all of humanity, including the unborn
generations.
Who spoke for the unborn generations at ExxonMobils 135th annual shareholder meetings?
Coincidentally, the day after your May 31 meeting, the attached report was published in Newsweek about what may be
the most alarming climate news yetthe release of sequestered methane in the melting arctic.
Continued unfettered burning of hydrocarbons does nothing to stop the deterioration of the polar ice, which has heretofore
suppressed the release of methane sequestered in the permafrost and under the ice cap. Your products are directly
responsible for the accelerating manifestations of global warming.
You must see the light. You must assess your personal legacies and responsibility to make immediate course corrections.
You must take leadership within the global petroleum extraction and refining industry to cease and desist.
I implore you to begin planning for the endgame which will ween humanity off our reliance on burning hydrocarbons.
Respect the aspirations of COPs 195 nations to keep the global average temperature below 1.5C above pre-industrail.
In fact, acknowledge that Dr. James E. Hansen et al have established 1C (350ppm CO2) as the truly sustainable level
that we must strive for with immediate reduction of CO2 emissions and using forest and agricultural soil management to
sequester atmospheric CO2 in order to being the current level from over 400ppm to the safe 350ppm level.
Sincerely yours,
Doug Grandt
Scientists have discovered hundreds of huge craterssome over 3,000 feet wideon the
seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. The craters in the Barents Sea, north of Norway and Russia,
formed through huge mounds full of methane exploding suddenly and catastrophically,
thousands of years ago.
Scientists say the discovery could help explain why so many craters have appeared in Siberia
over recent decades, with the same processes causing these explosive events.
Researchers led by Karin Andreassen, from the University of Troms, the Arctic University of
Norway, were investigating a handful of craters that were first discovered in the 1990s. Using
state-of-the-art technology, the team has now been able to map the seafloor more accurately
and their findings showed a vast number of craters covering a huge area.
A crater in the Yamal Peninsula, northern Siberia. At present, scientists believe it formed as a result of the
thawing permafrost releasing methane. VLADIMIR PUSHKAREV/REUTERS
The craters are connected to deeper gas chimneys, showing gas flow from deeper hydrocarbon
reservoirs. Hundreds of gas flares are seen in the water above. M. WINSBORROW/CAGE
.
.
She tells Newsweek: We realized that there were hundreds of them. And we could also get
detailed images of them. We got seismic data showing the structure underneath, and the links
with deeper hydrocarbon sources.
The team also got information on levels of methane gas in the water. This allowed them to map
out exactly where in the water the gas was located and how it was related to the location of the
craters. As a result, they were able to show how the plumbing structure of gas beneath the
seafloor caused these craters to form.
In their study, published in Science, the researchers used a model of ice sheet evolution from the
end of the last Ice Age, from around 17,000 years ago. At this time, the Barents Sea was covered
in an ice sheet, weighing down on the seafloor.
As the ice sheet started to retreat, the methane reservoirs deep below started to become
unstable; they began to decompose and migrate upwards and settle at shallower depths
resulting in huge mounds of concentrated methane. Gas was flowing from below into the upper
bedrock just below the ice where the gas was stable, Andreassen says.
When the load was taken awayas the ice became thinnerthere was more and more of the
gas hydrate [at shallower depths]. At the end, as the ice sheet finally retreated, the gas would
have concentrated into mounds on the seafloor. These were very, very vulnerable to changes in
temperature and pressure, so eventually they would collapse, adds Andreassen.
There are several hundred craters in the area the study looked at. Over one hundred of them are
up to 1,000 meters wide. K. ANDREASSEN/CAGE
.
She says that if you watch this happening, you would see a huge mound suddenly release an
enormous amount of gas, then collapse. The resulting craters we see today are between 1,000
and 3,200 feet in diameter.
The process, Andreassen says, is thought to be similar to what scientists are recording on
Siberias Yamal Peninsula today. Over the last few decades, huge craters have been appearing.
Researchers believe they are formed by thawing permafrost causing the buildup of methane
below ground, eventually resulting in an explosive collapse.
There are many mounds and cratersthousands I would guessthat are the same size in
Yamal. The process of first forming into mounds, then releasing gas and collapsingthats what
scientists think is happening in Yamal also. We know from satellite images that areas [where]
craters have formed[were] documented to have been mounds before.
While the researchers do not think there is much risk of mounds forming, then exploding, in the
area they studied, similar buildups could be taking place in regions covered in ice where
hydrocarbons are present, such as Greenland.
It is a process we must take into account when we discuss future methane releases,
Andreassen says. The point is methane is being released very slowly, but it can be released very
fast and abruptly.
The Barents Sea, where the team found and studied the craters. K. ANDREASSEN/CAGE
The team has a probe sitting inside one of the craters, where it is collecting geophysical,
geochemical and gas data. They plan to collect this after a year, allowing them to better
understand the composition of these craters. They hope to look at ice sheet models, as well as
changes in permafrost and gas hydrates over the last 11,000 years to understand what is
happening on Earth now.
"Our study provides the scientific community with a good past analogue for what may happen to
future methane releases in front of contemporary, retreating ice sheets," concluded the
statement released with the study.
http://www.newsweek.com/hundreds-craters-methane-explosions-seafloor-arctic-norway-russia-619068
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