Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

thecompost.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 340 posts

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#101

Post by pimmen »

sosborn wrote: post #53
murat124 wrote: post #43

Former Exxon CEO and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson famously stated in 2013 during a meeting with Exxonmobil shareholders: "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers"[1]. He explained, "As a species that’s why we’re all still here: we have spent our entire existence adapting. So we will adapt to this. It’s an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions." The idea that the humans will s…

I don't think humans will have much trouble adapting. Cities will move to accommodate the rising sea, we will move on to other food sources as the need arises, and life for us will go on. It's the other species – the ones that had no hand in this – that I worry and feel regret about.

We can't substitute water for anything, though. Hundreds of millions of people will lose their water, won't adapt to that, and will move to the northern hemisphere which holds the vast majority of the world's surface level fresh water, or they'll die trying.

If people think the current refugee crisis is bad, boy are they in for a shocker.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#103

Post by Haga »

namarie wrote: post #71
sosborn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think humans will have much trouble adapting. Cities will move to accommodate the rising sea, we will move on to other food sources as the need arises, and life for us will go on. It's the other species – the ones that had no hand in this – that I worry and feel regret about.

And where are those food sources coming from? As good farmland becomes too hot and the colder regions that warm up don't usually have good soil... And sure, "cities will move" - so much political chaos happening on Europe just because of a million refugees - now imagine 50 times more coming to northern europe just from southern europe. Similar things happening all over the world. What fun!

"I have no reason for concerns as far as I'm concerned", makes for a nice final diary entry for a king.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#104

Post by frittig »

thunderrabbit wrote: post #69

This "entertains" me in a perverse way. I knew fossil fuels were harming the environment in 1978, and I was only a kid at the time. Exhaust stank, looked dirty. Doesn't take much to figure it out.

Vaccines hurt, vegetables taste bad and taking drugs feels good. Your ideology is flawed.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#105

Post by NeedMoreTea »

Mirioron wrote: post #99
jokoon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one way to look at it. My view is that climate change is a world problem. Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their consumption if it means reducing their comfort and their economic power. Steps should be taken in advance so that once green deals are put in place, countries can implement those effortlessly. We often hear that some countries don't make enough efforts, but 1. Other count…

I find it difficult to imagine how solutions to climate change, that don't rely on improvement in technology, won't result in authoritarianism. I don't think that all the world governments will accept limitations on their people freely.

The clean air acts, the banning of freon and other CFCs, and other public health measures like treated water and ending leaded fuel required regulation not authoritarianism. All placed limitations on their people.

Why would this be any different?

We don't need to replace political choice, or freedoms with repression to bring in carbon taxes and start banning plastic, coal or gas.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#106

Post by reitanqild »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #18
ajhaupt7 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I'm the author + developer -- hope there isn't a problem with posting your own content. I think there's value in it!

I (not a mod, just your a regular HN user) think it's perfectly fine to post your own content. As long as you don't spam it, and you don't post over-flattering headlines for it. And definitely way better than posting your content under a guise of an "unafilliated" friend. It will reach the front page and stay here only if it's good, so who cares if it came straight from the wolf's mouth. Also pretty creepy that peopl…

Not sure how to vote this:

Totally agree with the first part.

The second part describes a thing I regularily do as "pretty creepy". To clarify: before deciding to flag, downvote or vouch for someone I might have a look at their comment history to see if I am misunderstanding something.

Also if someone posts something nice I look through their history to find more good comments.

I don't think I'm the only one who does this and in fact I'd recommend it instead of blindly thinking "troll" and hit downvote and flag whenever one sees something one doesn't agree with.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#108

Post by paulannesley »

eitland wrote: post #100
Fricken wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've known about the greenhouse effect and it's threat potential for nearly 2 centuries. Exxon just helped add to a growing body of evidence that we ignore. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

> and it's threat potential for nearly 2 centuries. Did you mean decades?

> The existence of the greenhouse effect was argued for by Joseph Fourier in 1824

From the linked wikipedia article on Greenhouse effect

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#109

Post by crispinb »

jokoon wrote: post #94
crispinb wrote: post #5

Not news of course, but worth restating. Credulous 'scepticism' about the fundamentals of the climate collapse threat has been largely driven by corporate propaganda campaigns. Those campaigns were themselves constructed by people who weren't 'sceptics' -- they believed AGM was happening -- but considered their short-term profitability more important. Climate collapse 'sceptics' were nearly all gulls.

This is one way to look at it. My view is that climate change is a world problem. Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their consumption if it means reducing their comfort and their economic power. Steps should be taken in advance so that once green deals are put in place, countries can implement those effortlessly. We often hear that some countries don't make enough efforts, but 1. Other count…

I don't know about the solutions - my view is that the die is cast.

> My view is that climate change is a world problem

That's undoubtedly true, and the fossil fuel companies clearly acknowledge this - their 30 year anti-science propaganda campaigns have been waged across the world.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#110

Post by NeedMoreTea »

jokoon wrote: post #94
crispinb wrote: post #5

Not news of course, but worth restating. Credulous 'scepticism' about the fundamentals of the climate collapse threat has been largely driven by corporate propaganda campaigns. Those campaigns were themselves constructed by people who weren't 'sceptics' -- they believed AGM was happening -- but considered their short-term profitability more important. Climate collapse 'sceptics' were nearly all gulls.

This is one way to look at it. My view is that climate change is a world problem. Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their consumption if it means reducing their comfort and their economic power. Steps should be taken in advance so that once green deals are put in place, countries can implement those effortlessly. We often hear that some countries don't make enough efforts, but 1. Other count…

> better scenario would be to enact tight regulations on a country

Here, I am less convinced.

Globalisation came about in good part to move from the places with tighter regulation - on pollution, on employment, on finance - to those without.

It is the same way that offshore finance came about by trading each regulation against each other. The net result is there are fewer controls everywhere, despite a few headline money laundering regs. The history of this is fascinating.

Post reply on HN