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Learning English - Words in the News 18 June, 2004 - Published 13:27 GMT Shell oil fears | ||||||||||||
The new Chairman of the Shell oil company, Lord Oxburgh, has said he is worried for the future of the world if mankind continues to produce the present amount of carbon dioxide. This report from Elizabeth Blunt: Lord Oxburgh is a geologist;
at the end of a long and distinguished
career in science, he has now found himself in the Shell chairman's seat.
In an interview in the British Guardian newspaper he spoke of his worries
about climate change. "No one could be comfortable", he said, "at the
prospect of continuing to pump
out the large amounts of carbon dioxide that we are at present
... with consequences that we can't really predict, but are probably not
good." At
first sight this looks as if Shell is trying to talk
itself out of business, but Shell is already a regular participant
in international discussions on climate change, and it’s diversifying
into wind and solar power. These days it
presents itself as an Energy company rather than just an Oil
company. This is in contrast to its American rival,
Exxon/Mobil, which maintains that scientific evidence on climate change
remains inconclusive,
and which continues to concentrate on oil and gas production.
Shell is also involved in research into ways of getting rid of excess carbon dioxide, without releasing it into the atmosphere -- a process known as sequestration. It could be pumped into suitable rock formations or trapped in the deep layers of the ocean. As a geologist, Lord Oxburgh is understandably enthusiastic about its potential. He told the Guardian, "Sequestration is difficult, but if we don't have sequestration, I see very little hope for the world." Elizabeth Blunt, BBC News geologist distinguished pump out At first sight talk itself out of business diversifying it presents itself as rival inconclusive its potential |
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