Fossil fuel industry faces an overdue reckoning Oil giant ExxonMobil’s leaders have a long history of doing everything to keep the world from addressing climate change. They’ve buried company research showing the link between burning fossil fuels and a dangerously heating planet. They’ve sowed distrust and spread misinformation. They’ve lobbied politicians, set up and joined fake grassroots organizations, funded deniers and commissioned dubious reports, all to downplay or deny the risks to the climate and humanity of using their company’s products. Exxon’s not the only company to have behaved in such an incomprehensibly destructive manner, putting short-term profits over the long-term health of natural systems that make human and other life possible. But it’s one of the largest.
The time capsule was constructed from spare copper plates. Image: Australian Academy of Science.
A time capsule containing Fellows’ messages to the future has been placed under the copper roof of the Shine Dome
The capsule contains a letter from the President of the Academy, Professor John Shine, reflections of Fellows and staff of the Academy, newspaper front pages documenting the tumultuous events of 2020 and other historical documents, including the complete genome of SARS-CoV-2.
The Shine Dome was heavily damaged in January 2020 in a massive hailstorm. Restoration began in November 2020, with a new copper layer being laid over a timber frame, with waterproofing materials between. The original copper remains beneath these layers.