Out of Balance
Before you even see the documentary Out of Balance: ExxonMobil’s Impact on Climate Change, imagine what the film must do in order to prove its two points. In the first half, it claims that, despite confusion, global warming caused by burning fossil fuels is a fact. Over the last 400,000 years, the earth has undergone several significant fluctuations in temperature, so the film must prove that the current global warming is somehow different—faster, more extreme, or whatever. It does not do this. (Saying that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says so is support by “expert testimony,” but the support is weak because we never learn exactly what the IPCC said or how it knows the change is caused by humans. Saying that 19 of the 20 hottest days on record have been since 1980 may be true but does not prove that the heat is caused by people rather than by natural fluctuation.) Al Gore’s documentary was persuasive in its claim that the current heat increase is no natural blip, but Out of Balance is not.
The film’s main point is that ExxonMobil is a major cause of global warming both directly through being an oil company and indirectly through creating confusion about the issue. What must the film do to prove that Exxon is directly responsible for a huge part of global warming? The film would have to identify all the contributors to global warming and then show that Exxon is a major proportion. It does not do this. (Saying that Exxon is huge company does not prove it; saying that Exxon was founded more than a hundred years ago by a ruthless capitalist does not prove it; documenting that Exxon did a poor job of cleaning up the Exxon Valdez spill does not prove it; emphasizing that former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond got a $400 M retirement package does not prove that Exxon has a huge impact on global warming.) And how would you prove Exxon created confusion about global warming in order to hamper efforts to solve the problem? You’d look for an Exxon memo saying the company’s strategy was to sow confusion, you’d follow the money trail to a few disreputable scientists hired by Exxon to spread confusion, and you’d go inside the White House to see the lobbying at work. The film does this—albeit in a hurried, superficial fashion. We see an Exxon memo talking about “victory” as creating “uncertainties” in the public mind, turning global warming from a fact into a theory. The film says that Exxon has spent $15 M funding “sceptics.” But the film supports this by silent typing superimposed on the visuals: Exxon paid so much money to such-and-such a group. But I have no idea what the money was paid for, and I have no idea what the group does. The film rapidly shows government documents that an Exxon “lobbyist” named Phil Cooney edited to suit Exxon’s needs while he was on the President’s Council on Environmental Quality. But I could not follow exactly what the documents were . . . I had a myriad questions.
In its 65 minutes Out of Balance does a poor job of supporting its position. From a larger perspective, arguing that ExxonMobil is (significantly) responsible for global warming is unwise. All we have to do is do something about that nasty, big corporation and, whew, we’ve got the problem nearly licked. Don’t we all wish it were so easy!?