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Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

theguardian.com

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Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#101

Post by sokoloff »

lasfter wrote: post #68
sokoloff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying when we point a finger at the oil companies who sell us the oil that we demand and consume, we should recognize that there are three fingers pointing back at us. Are they blameless? Nope. Are they solely (or even primarily) to blame? Also nope.

I don't know what argument you are trying to respond to. I'm saying it is an evil act to supply a product while withholding the knowledge that it will cause massive long-term harm to the entire world. How are consumers complicit? By wanting nice things?

Yes: consumers are complicit by demanding the oil. Don't want Exxon, Shell, BP, et al to dig up the oil? Don't do things that consume oil and they'll stop doing it for you.

But that's inconvenient, so consumers keep demanding oil and then act shocked and tut-tut when oil companies provide it.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#102

Post by MandieD »

mardifoufs wrote: post #62
suprjami wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burn down your house. Yeah, your house is gone, but look how warm you are today! Fossil fuels are not the only form of energy. We could have put decades of technological effort into wind and solar and battery and waves and all the other options. We'd be so much further forward than we are today. Instead the industry just lobbied and lied.

At the time when this research happened, so in the 1970 - 80s? Yes, they were the only viable form of energy for almost everything. Suggesting that we should've ditched fossil fuels in the 70s and 80s is a bit asinine and would've resulted in immense loss of lives, especially in less developed areas of the world. There weren't really any other alternatives. Electrification is only possible due to recent advancement i…

Fun little anecdote:

Jimmy Carter had solar panels put on the roof of the White House. Ronald Reagan had them removed.

Hypothetical that makes me want to cry for all the wasted time and cumulative life years:

What if Reagan had kept them instead, even promoting a nascent American PV industry in the 80s?

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#103

Post by mdp2021 »

acdha wrote: post #54
kingstoned wrote: post #13

It reminds me of tobacco industry. Check out this article: https://pandodaily.com/2015/06/30/tobacco-industry-will-kill...

It's an apt comparison because many of the science deniers started their careers with the tobacco industry. For example, this guy is on Fox News a lot — he started with tobacco but moved on to things like claiming banning DDT killed people (funded as part of the tobacco industry's opposition to public health agencies in Africa whose anti-smoking campaigns were cutting into sales), climate change denial, and COVID-19…

> skepticism

This whole picture some will read as an invitation to skepticism. «Science» does not exist in a vacuum - as this very submission re-shows.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#104

Post by pschuegr »

agentultra wrote: post #41

The address Carl Sagan made in 1985 is well worth watching for those who remember those times and especially for those who weren't alive back then [0] People knew about this before you were born and decided their best interests were more important and they acted in wilful disregard for your life and the lives of everyone on this planet. They weren't ignorant. No facts were hidden from them that they could be forgiven…

First part is mostly explanation of greenhouse effect: predictions are here: https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI?t=698

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#105

Post by lasfter »

sokoloff wrote: post #101
lasfter wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what argument you are trying to respond to. I'm saying it is an evil act to supply a product while withholding the knowledge that it will cause massive long-term harm to the entire world. How are consumers complicit? By wanting nice things?

Yes: consumers are complicit by demanding the oil. Don't want Exxon, Shell, BP, et al to dig up the oil? Don't do things that consume oil and they'll stop doing it for you. But that's inconvenient, so consumers keep demanding oil and then act shocked and tut-tut when oil companies provide it.

What choice is there for consumers but to demand oil? If cities create suburban sprawl and inadequate public transportation, it's the consumer's fault for using a car? If every industry whose products I require to participate in society uses oil, how can I choose otherwise?

I really don't understand your point and your smug judgements on consumers. Do you consume no oil products? Or are you just saying that you knew all along oil is bad so you're better than the 'naive masses'?

I'm not shocked that oil companies provide oil, I'm shocked that many people don't want to take any action even when it comes out that the oil companies baldly lied about their role in climate change.

I'm also baffled that some people want to shift the blame away from the oil companies.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#106

Post by sokoloff »

lasfter wrote: post #105
sokoloff wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: consumers are complicit by demanding the oil. Don't want Exxon, Shell, BP, et al to dig up the oil? Don't do things that consume oil and they'll stop doing it for you. But that's inconvenient, so consumers keep demanding oil and then act shocked and tut-tut when oil companies provide it.

What choice is there for consumers but to demand oil? If cities create suburban sprawl and inadequate public transportation, it's the consumer's fault for using a car? If every industry whose products I require to participate in society uses oil, how can I choose otherwise? I really don't understand your point and your smug judgements on consumers. Do you consume no oil products? Or are you just saying that you knew…

I think the reductionist blame-shifting of "consumers get a pass because not buying oil is inconvenient because " is unhelpful.

I don't get confused or pretend that oil companies go to great lengths to provide oil to the world because they're evil. They do it because people (you and me and billions of others) demand it and benefit from it.

We can't reap the benefits and avoid the blame for our choices. (I mean, we obviously can, but that doesn't actually result in any change, so if you want to feel better but not actually change anything, have at it...)

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#107

Post by acdha »

nickersonm wrote: post #81
acdha wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tangentially, while some vehicles presumably have worse mileage than a comparably-sized vehicle from the 1980s, There's a challenge here: people have been encouraged to buy larger vehicles. A small car will have better mileage now but the kind of vehicle the average person is commuting to work in now is much larger than it was three decades ago. I would argue that this is in part due to the successful campaign whic…

Thanks for your civil engagement on what is often a contentious topic. While not a perfect representation of purchases, I believe the EPA chart (Fig. ES-3) I referred to shows the average of all for-sale models for a given year, so this should capture the increasing preference for larger vehicles. Indeed, the horsepower and curb weight are shown as significant increases, even while fuel efficiency is improving (≥2005…

> I cannot recall seeing any automotive advertising that wasn't clearly produced by a specific vehicle manufacturer.

You're right — what I was thinking about wasn't that the Exxon was running ads saying you should buy an F-350 for your grocery shopping but the more subtle long-term stuff: pouring millions of dollars into funding the people who say climate change is a hoax (meaning fewer people feel guilty about 10mpg), turning that into a litmus test for politicians so the same people in office are also receptive to continuing exemptions from pollution laws, etc. The blame is wider than them I think it's important to separate out unknowing mistakes from deliberate attempts to delay action after you know there's a problem.

There's also an interesting split here: until about a decade ago, the interests of the oil and car companies were perfectly aligned. Now that EVs are popular, however, that's diverging and I'm curious what the political realignment will look like — Ford won't be backing transit or high-density housing but they'd be totally cool running ads about how their latest Mustang can be powered by American wind farms.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#108

Post by mistrial9 »

klyrs wrote: post #65
melling wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Sagan knew coal usage would be a big problem, and yet it’s still a huge problem almost 40 years later. People wouldn’t know if coal power plants disappeared tomorrow, replaced by any other form of electricity

Except for the ~40k employees of the coal industry[1], who are used as a scapegoat by the politicians (ahem, Manchin) who take the most ardent stands against modernization of our electrical infrastructure. And I'd bet that most of those employees' skills would transfer pretty directly to any other sort of mining. But it's just not that many people. We could cut them each a $1M check for the trouble, which is about 10…

the last thing that the COAL industry is concerned with is the workers, why mention it? It diverts the topic by exploiting the natural concern of most people for other people, instead of addressing the economics and authority in jeopardy with change. If there are "billionaires" based on IP valuation, why isnt a slice of that money applied ? because Coal Barons, their investors and clique, and that simple question of who runs the show. Coal is a blight on the face of the modern world and there are few excuses at this point.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#109

Post by dsfyu404ed »

layer8 wrote: post #82
mschuster91 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You"? I was born in 1991, my generation certainly didn't invent that crap, that was all during the reign of the Boomers - who, to add insult to injury, keep occupying positions of power instead of resigning and retiring to let those rise who will actually have to live on this wreck of a planet the next fifty to seventy years (assuming no major war gets us all killed).

I’m pretty sure a similar subset within the younger generations will end up doing the same.

"The people of the past were stupid, this time we have modern knowledge, modern ideology, modern science, there is no way we will make the same mistakes as prior generations."

-what people about to repeat history say

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#110

Post by lonelyasacloud »

erulabs wrote: post #85

I've chatted with a few folks who have spent their entire lives working in climate science while being employed by the oil industry. They're some of the most moderate, intelligent, considered people I've ever talked to. And most people hear "a climate scientist who works for an oil company" and assumes they're the worst sort - a profiteer or a liar or a complicit drone. They're not leadership - they don't get to deci…

As is normally attributed to Burke, "All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".
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