It ’s a story reminiscent of the way Big Tobacco covered up the deadly effects of smoking . In the 1980s , Exxon spent millions of dollars on groundbreaking inquiry which irrefutably showed how their products would exchange the mood . And then they eat up it all .
Inside Climate Newsunearthed a series of studiescommissioned by Exxon that show just how much they knew about the trauma of burning fogy fuels almost 40 class ago , long before this type of research was being done .
In 1977 , climate scientist James F. Black made this statement to Exxon EXEC :
“ In the first place , there is worldwide scientific correspondence that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuel ”
A year later , Black and his team of Exxon scientists come back with more specific entropy : They calculate that reduplicate atmospheric CO2 would increase global temperatures by 2 to 3 degree Celsius ( 4 to 5 degree Fahrenheit ) . And they guess that Earth had about five to ten twelvemonth before irreversible change would begin to occur . Hmmm , sounds familiar !
Throughout the 1980s , Exxon fund the most comprehensive data gather and mood modelling on the major planet . No one else had the fiscal supporting to fund these type of sketch at the time .
But once Exxon realise how this selective information could damage their business , they get a campaign which cast doubt on their own research . Here ’s Exxon ’s CEO Lee Raymond during the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 :
“ Let ’s agree there ’s a mickle we really do n’t know about how mood will change in the 21st century and beyond . We need to understand the topic better , and fortuitously , we have time It is extremely unlikely that the temperature in the heart of the next 100 will be importantly touch on whether policies are enact now or 20 eld from now . ”
Exxon eventually helped to block the communications protocol .
The story is devastating in that Exxon is in all probability creditworthy for much of the anti - science mood denial rhetoric out there to this day . I just read the whole thing , and it ’s made me fabulously tempestuous . Part I is hereandPart II is here . Part III , which wait at Exxon ’s mood modeling work , will be out next week .
[ Inside Climate News ]
The Exxon Valdez spilled an estimated 10.8 million gallons of fossil oil into Prince William Sound , Alaska , in 1989 / AP Photo
mood changeclimate scienceExxonScience
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