There are not two equal and logical sides to every argument. For this reason, the political narrative of climate change, particular that which is held through news media, should no longer allow Big Oil a place in the conversation.

It is time that the news and those who espouse it to disregard the dangerous and obvious lies that are propagated by those corporations who stand to suffer from the truth.

It was to this effect that Big Oil felt the Bern on Oct. 20, when Democratic presidential nominee Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to the Department of Justice (DoJ) requesting an investigation into potential corporate fraud committed by the oil giant ExxonMobil.

In the letter, Sanders references an investigation by the organization Inside Climate News, which found emails indicating Exxon — now ExxonMobil — had sponsored studies that confirmed the existence of climate change and the effects that mankind has on it as early as 1977, more than a decade before the issue was brought before Congress.

Despite this information, Exxon spent over $30 million in a campaign of deceit in order to promote climate change denial and slow progress on the issue, according to Greenpeace.

If the allegations against Exxon are found to be true, Sanders wrote in his letter to the DoJ, the oil giant must be sued for racketeering.

He drew a parallel between the narrative of dangerous denial from Big Oil and that of Big Tobacco in an interview with MSNBC.

While Sanders takes the time to decry the effects on voters of a dialogue with blatantly biased parties such as Exxon, he does not go far enough.

Organizations that publish non-partisan news should no longer have to suffer the effects of having to represent both sides of an argument as though both are equal and logical.

The nature of this demand of objectivity on the media is well intentioned and meant to discourage the proliferation of partisanship and propaganda. However, the effect in a highly postured political environment is that anyone can claim to have a side to an argument and demand equal airtime.

The hideous reality of postured objectivity is that one cannot speak of evolution without representing the creationists.

One cannot speak of the danger of tobacco without showcasing a doctor who claims they smoke without side effects.

One cannot have a conversation about the effects of human infrastructure on the environment without giving equal time to the opposition.

Postured objectivity is not true objectivity, because objectivity naturally requires an adherence to science, a system of knowledge that is reproducible by anyone, despite faith or precepts.

Science told the leaders of Exxon that climate change was real and that the company’s operations effected the pace and severity of it.

An email from Exxon’s former in-house climate specialist Lenny Bernstein indicated that Exxon acted on this information, choosing not to tap into one of the largest fields of natural gas known at the time.

“Exxon first got interested in climate change in 1981 because it was seeking to develop the Natuna gas field off Indonesia,” Bernstein wrote in the email.

Bernstein wrote this email in response to an inquiry on business ethics from Ohio University’s Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics.

“What (the email) shows is that Exxon knew years earlier than James Hansen’s testimony to Congress that climate change was a reality; that it accepted the reality, instead of denying the reality as they have done publicly; and to such an extent that it took it into account in their decision making, in making their economic calculation,” Alyssa Bernstein, the director of the institute, told the Guardian.

With this information in hand, Exxon began a campaign of “uncertainty,” according to the letter from Senator Sanders, in the hope that confused public discourse would slow down the potential for financially disastrous regulations.

News media should not be the arbitrators of what is and is not fact, and thus should still strive to uphold objectivity and unbiased representation of both sides of an argument.

However, this kind of equal representation should not question the validity of the findings of the scientific community. Only the scientific community can do that.

Just as Big Tobacco stained its credibility so drastically that it no longer has a place in the public discourse, so too should the results of Sander’s proposed investigation have monumental effect on the social license of Big Oil.

Emry Dinman is a junior communication major from Seattle. He can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of the Office of Student Media.