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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

#151

Post by chmod775 »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #149
qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #134

If the species was a human, it would by now be institutionalized for self-harm while delusional, but well, there is no warden to put us into a zoo and govern affairs, so there is that. Instead we basically have a species, that is the equivalent of a homeless drug addict on the tenderloin, soiling its own future. A good start would be to honestly communicate this as the starting point of every debate. Then evaluate wh…

Are you advocating blowing up a pipeline? Won’t even get into the morality of that, but that’s a nice way to get yourself killed or spend decades in prison for terrorism.

Would they be a hero or a villain?

If the action would make them a hero, are there reasons they shouldn't do it anyway?

Common reply to the latter is that people may be misguided in what constitutes a heroic selfless action and shouldn't take matters into their own hands. This philosophical debate is as old as time itself.

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

#152

Post by Beltalowda »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #147
Beltalowda wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've seen the same thing with tobacco, asbestos, lead, etc.

Yes, I know. You would believe that at some point in the past decades, with the multiple crisis caused by failure of leadership in the financial sector and with the numerous scandals in both auditing, energy production, manufacturing and shipping, people might have started to question if there might not be something fundamentally wrong with the way we do corporate governance and more generally how we have organised o…

Indeed, that was my point: it's not an isolated incident, but a pattern.

The people in charge (in politics or business) are in charge due to the current system, so they have very little incentive to change it and have a lot of incentive to keep it as it is. Why doesn't Labour push for a fairer electoral system even though the current system is generally biased towards the Tories (and has for many decades)? Because when they are in power they are in power due to the current system.

This also works through to the middle class: if you're having a good life then you're having that due to the current system. Why change it? It's not a coincidence that people who are least established (the underclass, students, oppressed groups) tend to be the ones advocating for change, but they're also the worst positioned to actually enact such change.

So change happens through drastic events such revolutions, which brings their own risks and often don't change things for the better. You'd expect that people are familiar enough with history to pre-empt this, but it seems not. "Ah, I'm sure it'll work out in the end" seems to be the prevailing attitude. Maybe, or ... maybe not?

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

#153

Post by selfhoster11 »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #149
qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #134

If the species was a human, it would by now be institutionalized for self-harm while delusional, but well, there is no warden to put us into a zoo and govern affairs, so there is that. Instead we basically have a species, that is the equivalent of a homeless drug addict on the tenderloin, soiling its own future. A good start would be to honestly communicate this as the starting point of every debate. Then evaluate wh…

Are you advocating blowing up a pipeline? Won’t even get into the morality of that, but that’s a nice way to get yourself killed or spend decades in prison for terrorism.

I don't advocate violence, but realistically a peaceful resolution will take time. We don't have time.

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

#154

Post by smackeyacky »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #145
smackeyacky wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not advocating throwing my hands in the air, but the deliberate delay has narrowed our choices at a rate faster than technology has come to the rescue. There is going to be a lot of complaints as choices keep getting removed and decisions forced upon us by the escalating crisis. If you are a freedom loving libertarian, you are not going to enjoy the next few decades. Which would be deliciously ironic if it wasn't suc…

I’m not sure I agree with this take. What we are starting to meaningfully see, at least in Europe, is regulations which actually have teeth regarding where investments go and what companies can do regarding emissions and sustainability. It means some things are going to either get more expensive or downright disappear but I wouldn’t call that a significant curb on freedom. It’s more akin to not being able to use lead…

Hard disagree. We are well beyond the point where farting around on the edges of consumer behaviour can ever make a dent in reversing climate change.

Blaming consumers buys into the big emitters disinformation campaigns. Its not our fault.

The big emitters need to be curbed hard and fast. Our governments so far have been unwilling, complicit or unable to do so.

Its going to require a mass, popular movement to shut down coal mining worldwide, to restrict air travel, to localise food production and reinvigorate ground based mass transit. Nobody can make that happen as individuals at the checkout.

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

#155

Post by machina_ex_deus »

Beltalowda wrote: post #152
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I know. You would believe that at some point in the past decades, with the multiple crisis caused by failure of leadership in the financial sector and with the numerous scandals in both auditing, energy production, manufacturing and shipping, people might have started to question if there might not be something fundamentally wrong with the way we do corporate governance and more generally how we have organised o…

Indeed, that was my point: it's not an isolated incident, but a pattern. The people in charge (in politics or business) are in charge due to the current system, so they have very little incentive to change it and have a lot of incentive to keep it as it is. Why doesn't Labour push for a fairer electoral system even though the current system is generally biased towards the Tories (and has for many decades)? Because wh…

At least in my country, the poor usually vote for conservative policy, and it's usually rich leftists trying to push communism and welfare while those receiving said welfare vote against them.

The poor know best there are no free meals. It's the rich elitist that can afford to virtue signal with ideas of dumb policies, because they aren't close to the edge of economical ruin if those policies go sideways. And they mostly go sideways.

When policies take money from the poor to give to the poorer, it just reduces social mobility further and creates dependence on the government.

By the way, all this climate religion hurts the weakest in society the most. They can't buy a Tesla or afford heating when "carbon taxed" or when renewable energies who rely on the weather (which we all knew is going to be unreliable) freeze and result in them freezing to death in winter.

Oh and by the way, it's also a scientific consensus that global warming is going to result in net lives saved because people die from cold much more than from warming. It's just a narrative you'll never hear. And because those dying from cold are usually the weaker parts of society. And those owning real estate close to the coast usually have much more money.

And there has never been a scientific consensus. Freeman Dyson, for example, which died in 2021, was the last remaining physicist from developing QED, a physicist I respect much more than the pop science scientists, thought the climate change religion is misguided and even called them religion.

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

#156

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

smackeyacky wrote: post #154
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I agree with this take. What we are starting to meaningfully see, at least in Europe, is regulations which actually have teeth regarding where investments go and what companies can do regarding emissions and sustainability. It means some things are going to either get more expensive or downright disappear but I wouldn’t call that a significant curb on freedom. It’s more akin to not being able to use lead…

Hard disagree. We are well beyond the point where farting around on the edges of consumer behaviour can ever make a dent in reversing climate change. Blaming consumers buys into the big emitters disinformation campaigns. Its not our fault. The big emitters need to be curbed hard and fast. Our governments so far have been unwilling, complicit or unable to do so. Its going to require a mass, popular movement to shut do…

I don’t really see how that’s a hard disagree.

European regulations are not oriented towards consumers nor are they “farting around”.

These are far reaching regulations on investments. They impact literally everything. It’s going to be hard to do something if you can’t get money to do it.

But these are not hard choices or libertarian hell. That’s just a bit more regulations.

Sure, mining coal won’t be profitable anymore, people won’t be able to buy diesel cars and both flying and meat will become more expensive. It’s definitely a shift in how people live and probably a downgrade in some aspect regarding quality of life. But it’s a relatively painless one.

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

#157

Post by safety1st »

credit_guy wrote: post #116
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…

> Now... the leadership folks who commissioned these predictions and then ignored them... That's another matter! Ok, you made me curious. What were they supposed to do? Stop drilling and selling oil? Ask the government for increased taxes to take care of externalities? Dismantle the corporation? Just resign and go find a job in a different industry?

I mean the answer here is actually pretty simple and it doesn't require leadership to be ethical, just to take a long-term view.

If you find out your product is bad for the environment, for people's health, etc. then you go and quietly do R&D on the solution. You know shit is going to hit the fan sooner or later so you get ahead of it. Then when it starts to become a PR problem you double down on the alternative you came up with and you start publicizing it. With any luck you'll be ahead of your competitors and able to transition to the new thing better and faster than they do. You don't really have to be a moral paragon to think this way, you certainly don't need to die on any hills, you just have to be smart enough to hedge your bets and think about where your profits may come from in 25 years, instead of just in the next 5. These are not resource strapped companies, they are companies that can afford to do generational R&D and whose executives lacked vision.

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

#158

Post by sokoloff »

lasfter wrote: post #111
sokoloff wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ob…

I don't say oil is convenient, I say oil is necessary. Is farming your own food without any fossil fuels possible for you? For me, it is impossible. Not inconvenient, not infeasible, but impossible . I can't afford land to farm on, I can't buy or catch or tend to farm animals to replace tractors, I can't buy or make farm tools that do not come from fossil fuels. Alas, I have to buy food shipped to me using fossil fue…

OK, I accept your argument that oil is necessary. What is the appropriate punishment for the companies who are reliably supplying this critical-to-society natural resource?

Must the oil companies both continue to reliably supply oil and ensure that society obsoletes them? There are order of magnitude 20 million people working in oil, gas, and coal. Perhaps they could continue to focus on supplying society with these necessary resources and the other 7.85 billion people on the planet could take up the responsibility to migrate society off of those fuels rather than making those same 20 million people have to do both jobs?

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

#159

Post by morsch »

ars wrote: post #84
V__ wrote: post #60

I don't want to wish someone the worst. But I wouldn't loose one second of sleep if all those people involved in delaying climate action got some karmic justice.

The only kind of climate action possible in those days was nuclear power. If you go check who actually delayed nuclear deployment you will discover it was environmentalists.

That's incorrect, there were plenty of suggestions even forty years ago, many of them involving using less energy. Better construction, reduction of mobility for people and cargo, less wasteful mobility, resource recycling, many of the things that we still talk about.

Of course many of them imply a change in behavior and some of them imply a decrease in what's traditionally referred to as living standards.

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

#160

Post by matthewdgreen »

ars wrote: post #100
anakaine wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So because alternative technology didn't exist there was no case to have the discussion and invest more heavily in alternative green tech research, shortening the time frame to action and reducing dependence on fossil fuels earlier? This isn't about what occurred then, it's about the time and opportunity cost of inaction that was fostered by rubbishing climate science and hiding the research.

You can certainly have the discussion, but it would not have helped. We are still having discussion TODAY and it's doing nothing of any consequence. The only thing that matters for actual deployment is how much the energy source costs. Nuclear power costs were dramatically increased due to unnecessary fear. For example solar power needs inverters - but those didn't work well back then. It just so happens to right now…

The massive drop in renewable prices was triggered by government manufacturing support and subsidies. Huge amounts of it here in the US, in Europe and in China.

Similarly, the few countries who have massively built out nuclear power (ie, France) did so because of deliberate government policy, not because their free-market economies were chasing the cheapest source of kilowatts.

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