Every day there is more evidence pointing to the fact that oil and gas industry giants not only knew about the issues of climate change over the past many decades, but that they knew considerably more about the link between carbon production and rising temperatures. NBC Bay Area is reporting on a new study that was released on September 7, that points a much more damning finger at oil giants like BP and Exxon Mobil and Chevron.
The Union of Concerned Scientists says its research, published Sept. 7 in the journal Climate Change, shows the largest carbon producers are responsible for 50 percent of the rise in global warming and a third of the rise in sea level.
Peter Frumhoff is the author of the study and also the chief climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"The largest being Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and others; nearly a third of the rise in global sea level can be attributed to the emissions from these same companies," Frumhoff said.
Fromhoff and colleague Myles Allen published an opinion piece in the Guardian to coincide with the release of this new study. It explains that these big oil and gas and coal companies have known for some time the devastation their bottom lines have caused and they should be accountable, financially.
Using a simple, well-established climate model, our study for the first time quantifies the amount of sea level rise and increase in global surface temperatures that can be traced to the emissions from specific fossil fuel companies.
Strikingly, nearly 30% of the rise in global sea level between 1880 and 2010 resulted from emissions traced to the 90 largest carbon producers. Emissions traced to the 20 companies named in California communities’ lawsuits contributed 10% of global sea level rise over the same period. More than 6% of the rise in global sea level resulted from emissions traced to ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP, the three largest contributors.
I’m not a scientist myself but I believe in scientists more than I believe people who make egregious amounts of money telling me nobody did anything and there is nothing we can do about things that nobody did.