HOUSTON, TEXAS—In a press conference Thursday afternoon, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods responded to concerns about the timeline of his company’s sustainable energy reforms, assuring reporters that ExxonMobil “is on track to fully reduce or balance [their] carbon emissions by the end of human civilization at the very latest.”
While climate scientists and policymakers generally agree that the global community should aim for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050, Woods argued that this prescription is “shortsighted,” claiming “we don’t really know how much longer we’ll be around anyway.”
“We’re already careening towards total extinction,” complained the executive. “We should use the time we have left doing what we love most: burning more fossil fuels. Hell, it might even be curtains before 2050. Some of the boys in the lab tell me there’s a real chance the oceans boil away in the next 10 years!”
While his statements were met with some panic, representatives of the company’s Low Carbon Solutions division promised this apocalyptic scenario was entirely reversible—eventually.
“The technology already exists to sequester vast quantities of atmospheric carbon,” calmly explained LCS leader Dan Ammann. “After the total destruction of our species in a cleansing hellfire of karmic punishment, forest regrowth and marine carbon cycling should start to wipe away the shameful blemishes of the Anthropocene era. Earth might even return to pre-industrial CO2 levels within 100,000 years—and, hopefully, it will never again be governed by a race of greedy, self-interested, small-thinking ape-men.”
Where do U.S. citizens land on the issue? A post-conference poll of Houston residents placed climate change at 33rd place on a ranked list of domestic concerns, just behind the Cracker Barrel logo change.
