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Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

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

#91

Post by tempestn »

modzu wrote: post #87
adrianN wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you literally don't believe the raw numbers coming from sensors all over the world there is no room for doubting that the climate is changing. There can, and has been, plenty of discussion as to the reasons, but for at least thirty years now the consensus has been that human activity is responsible for the vast majority of the effects we've seen.

um, "climate changing" is uncontroversial. the question that science is trying to answer, is "why". one hypothesis being fossil fuel emissions. you will note even the IPCC does't claim to have a definitive answer. yet a bunch of programmers and entrepreneurs on HN have no doubts.

Sorry, but that's just not true anymore. Fossil fuel emissions causing climate change has been proven pretty conclusively at this point. Anyone saying otherwise is either misinformed or is intending to misinform others. I do agree with you that the issue has been overly politicized though, which has taken something that would be simply taken as fact given the weight of evidence otherwise, and somehow made it controversial.

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

#92

Post by adrianN »

modzu wrote: post #89
adrianN wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's your gripe with "climate change" being in the name of the IPCC?

sorry it wasnt clear from my comment, but mainly that a governmental panel == politicized, and also that the IPCC reports to the UNFCCC, whose mission is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system". in other words, it assumes the hypothesis that the science should be testing

Yeah well the UNFCCC is from the nineties. By then the consensus was already there that anthropogenic GHG emissions are the culprit.

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

#93

Post by abootstrapper »

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…

In other words - “I have faith your children and grandchildren will adapt to the catastrophe we created. Not to mention the catastrophe is totally worth it. Trust me.” - Person who gains the most from said catastrophe

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

#94

Post by jokoon »

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 countries import carbon emitting products

2. The developed countries of today have emmited greenhouse gases for decades, which allowed them to become developed countries.

The geopolitics of climate change are extremely difficult. I don't think the UN is up for it.

Although a better scenario would be to enact tight regulations on a country basis, but it's a political minefield. Imagine riots because people want to keep using their cars and trade goods that have become illegal, or vendettas against people who emit co2.

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

#95

Post by scotty79 »

modzu wrote: post #85
logjammin wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example of investigators whose work has suffered for fear of being labeled a heretic?

Freeman Dyson

He's a physicists. Why would he have any idea about climate?

He's just a person with an opinion not a dissenting scientist.

And if his work suffered as a result of voicing such opinion then it was only to be expected.

If you voice stupid opinion regarding domain you know almost nothing about and prop it up with your work reputation it's only fair if that reputation takes a hit.

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

#96

Post by civility »

adrianN wrote: post #86
modzu wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there has been plenty of genuine scepticism from within the scientific community (as there should be). what has happened is that it has become politicized such that the science is suffering for fear of being labeled a heretic. much of the research is published via the intergovernmental panel on climate change; well it's right there in the title. none of this is to say that there aren't also entities pushing propagand…

Unless you literally don't believe the raw numbers coming from sensors all over the world there is no room for doubting that the climate is changing. There can, and has been, plenty of discussion as to the reasons, but for at least thirty years now the consensus has been that human activity is responsible for the vast majority of the effects we've seen.

Following the consensus is a fine choice if you're trying not to get lynched by the mob, but it really has very little to do with science. The scientific method does not say, "get everyone you think is smart to vote on it, if they all agree, it must be true". I really wish lay people would quit turning science into a religion and scientists into priests.

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

#97

Post by perfunctory »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #19

No surprises there. I don't understand why it took so long to uncover the truth. Even today, they are just playing the long game using the same tactics that the tobacco industry used and deny, deny and deny some more. Hopefully this company one day will be prosecuted.

It's not hard to imagine that in the future there will be some kind of Nuremberg trials against people involved in deliberate climate disinformation campaigns.

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

#98

Post by perfunctory »

gedy wrote: post #28

Maybe no help from Exxon, but US per capita CO2 has been decreasing since 1978. But China and India have increased per capita, which is scary given their huge populations.

US simply outsourced its emissions (together with jobs) to China. A lot of China emissions are due to the exports for western consumption.

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

#99

Post by Mirioron »

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 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.

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

#100

Post by eitland »

Fricken wrote: post #40
pier25 wrote: post #22

It's terrible to think that maybe if Exxon and others didn't invest in lobbying and disinformation campaigns against climate change maybe humanity would have started acting 30 years earlier. It's 2019 and humanity is barely starting to think about acting. Global CO2 emissions keep growing as if we were in "business as usual". Humanity needs to realize the magnitude of the problem. Climate change is, by far, the bigge…

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?

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