After seeing
An Inconvenient Truth I was amazed at the ferocity that Big Oil went after Al Gore over the course of his political career. The oil companies are out in full force again attacking the new film. But the truth strikes back. Al Gore, eco-friendly, and sane folks of all stripes take heart! These are
real ads from the 1961-1962 Humble Oil ad campaign. In a 1962 magazine advertisement they boast that they can
melt 7 million tons of glacier ice. It gets better (with lots of
photo evidence!) on the flip... (Please recommend as its
opening weekend for the Al Gore film and these oil ads are worth reviewing in light of the film...)
We WILL stop global warming!
When I first saw the Humble Oil ad boasting that it could melt 7 million tons of glacier ice, I thought it was a brilliant spoof-- something along Colbert's recent roast of the president ("It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.") or President Al Gore's recent appearance on Saturday Night Live ("...we have been able to stop global warming. No one could have predicted the negative results of this. Glaciers that once were melting are now on the attack.")
So I looked up and found more Humble Oil ads from the 1961-1962 ad season. These are real ads. I am not making these up.
Before boasting that they could melt 7 million tons of glacier, Humble Oil compared their product in 1961 with tornadoes-- ten tornadoes.
Tornado activity is on the rise due to catastrophic global warming. Fossil fuel emissions in the atmosphere create a CO2 blanket encircling the globe. Its getting hotter and hotter on this planet. We are seeing stronger storms. Humble Oil, Big Oil, and fossil fuel addiction have contributed to stronger and more catastrophic storms.
Humble Oil goes on further to compare their product to the power of 10,000 miles of ocean surf. (Humble Oil would later be renamed Exxon.) Catastrophic global warming affects ocean currents and ocean temperatures. CO2 emissions trapped in our atmosphere heats our globe, alters our ocean currents and heats the ocean.
Humble in 1962 also compares their product to the energy that can be found in all the nation's timber cut each year-- (ancient redwood in the picture...)
as well as point out that Humble's oil can light all America's Christmas trees.
Due to global warming here's what's been happening to our trees. An increase in drought and bark beetle activity due to the disruption of climate and seasons...
In contrast to Humble's boast that it can light all of America's Christmas trees, here's how our trees have actually been lighting up.
In support of Humble Oil's boast to melt 7 million tons of glacier, here's what's happened to the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica:
Greenland ice is now melting (raising sea levels) arctic permafrost is melting (releasing methane and other gases into the atmosphere, compounding the CO2 problem).
In support of Humble Oil's boast (now Exxon) to harness 10,000 miles of ocean surf and the power of 10 tornadoes witness:
One of 2005's super-storms before landfall.
after landfall...
... Trent Lott's house.
Katrina's ferocity was compounded by excess CO2 (due to fossil fuel emissions) which created warmer ocean temperatures and stronger storms in 2005. The science is in. There is no more debate on this point.
But look at these numbers!
When the oil companies see numbers like these... they say, "who need science?"
Big Oil is a huge part of the problem. So is coal burning. So it forest clearing and burning in the Amazon. But Big Oil has been ferocious in trying to spread doubt about the facts, and they are behaving in exactly the same fashion as another industry when they were faced with facts about the lethality of their product:
It took long years of denial and smokescreens from Big Tobacco before the industry could be brought to an assemblance of sanity. (We're still not there...) It took whistleblowers to speak out about spiked nicotine levels in the product. It took whistleblowers to reveal that the company was consistently denying the science that smoking and second-hand smoke creates cancer. It took lawsuits.
The effects of Big Oil are far more catastrophic than cigarettes. Global warming is the single most important issue we face at this time (as well as overpopulation and nuclear proliferation.)
Ending global warming takes awareness (see An Inconvenient Truth or read Lovelock's Revenge of Gaia), it takes serious legislation, (dump all politicians who are beholden to the oil lobby and who will not take emergency measures to arrest global warming), it takes willingness to change (moving away from our oil addiction as a society) and it takes lawsuits. The greenhouse effect may very well be solved by the courthouse effect.
I chose Humble Oil ads from 1961-1962 to illustrate this diary. Was there any science that hinted that global warming or CO2 might be a problem before 1961?
Back in 1956, a New York Times headline read: "Warmer Climate on Earth May Be Due to More Carbon Dioxide in the Air." Fifty years later, nearly every scientist in the world subscribes to the view that the Earth's climate is changing at an accelerated rate. The culprit? The build-up of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere resulting from increased burning of fossil fuels. It took half a century to convince the international community that this situation was serious--not exactly a testimony to human inquisitiveness--but suddenly cries of concern are arising everywhere.
We are now living in a perfect storm. Catastrophic global warming is a nonpartisan issue. We can rescue our situation now, and must.