That’s right. Exxon knew – in NINETEEN FIFTY-NINE – that we were headed for a climate disaster.
In 1959 at a conference called the “Energy and Man Symposium” Edward Teller – not the magician, the fellow who helped invent the hydrogen bomb – said
Whenever you burn conventional fuel you create carbon dioxide. … Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect.
He warned that if “Man” in the phrase “Energy and Man” continued to burn fossil fuels, sea levels would rise, until all of the coastal cities on Earth would be inundated.
That’s right. That was in nineteen fifty-nine.
Six years later, in 1965, the American Petroleum Institute held their annual conference in Laramie, Wyoming. Intrepid researcher Benjamin Franta, a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Stanford University, dug through the university archives and discovered a reference to a report commissioned by President Lyndon B. Johnson – LBJ!!! It was that long ago! – titled Restoring the Quality of Our Environment. Frank Ikard, the API’s then-president, told the conferees that the substance of the report was as follows:
…there is still time to save the world’s peoples from the catastrophic consequences of pollution, but time is running out. One of the most important predictions of the report is that carbon dioxide is being added to the earth’s atmosphere by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas at such a rate that by the year 2000 the heat balance will be so modified as possibly to cause marked changes in climate.
Ikard went on to say that:
A nonpolluting means of powering automobiles, buses, and trucks is likely to become a national necessity
I’d like to say that it’s impossible to understand why the fossil fuel industry did not begin – in the 1960s – to begin work on non-polluting sources of energy. But of course, we all know that the “profits over people” mindset obtained in the 1960s just as it does today.
The idea that industry leaders didn’t hop on board the R&D necessary to create – and then PROFIT MASSIVELY – from a nonpolluting method of powering cars and buses and trucks is a little surprising, until one factors in the unfortunate human tendency to follow the easiest path to the quickest, cheapest gain.
In fact, what actually happened is even worse than just following the dollars and ignoring the need to do some hard work to develop alternative fuel sources.
By the end of the 1970s, the API had formed a secret group called the CO2 and Climate Task Force, including representatives from many of the major extraction companies, to monitor climate change and discuss strategy.
In 1980, a scientist made a report to the task force. He predicated that climate change would be barely noticeable by 2005, but “globally catastrophic” by the 2060s.
That same year, the API called on governments to TRIPLE coal production worldwide.
And so here we are now, cheering on the indefatigable Rep. Katie Porter (D – Superstar) as she excoriates the fossil fuel company CEOs who are deigning to appear before Congress to barely answer any questions.
Here we are in 2021 awaiting a global summit on climate change at which it is breathlessly anticipated that nothing much will happen – SIXTY years after Edward Teller warned of global catastrophe – and 50-odd years after the American Petroleum Institute decided to set up a secret task force to monitor the progress of the planetary disaster that their feckless behavior was creating.
Does it occur to anyone else that there must be consequences for this?
There is blood on the hands of every oil company executive. What’s coming next is likely to be literally unimaginable. That is – we can try to get our heads around it now, but we will not be able to predict the horror of what is barreling toward humanity if we do not act NOW, in this exact moment, to halt emissions.
Job One for Humanity has a list of “the 7 most dangerous things most people do not understand about climate change and the global warming emergency” – recently quoted by our own Pakalolo in his piece of the same name posted October 17.
Economic collapse (something that you’d think even Republicans would understand) is already bearing down on us. Pakalolo again covered this more eloquently than I ever could.
And, of course, we’re not even close to slashing emissions enough to make a difference. Read April Siese’s piece, and… well — don’t despair! We can’t despair!
This is a website by and for Democrats. We are a rational, thoughtful, considered bunch. We mostly color within the lines, advocating for sensible, incremental change that occurs within the system. We are civilized and law-abiding above all else.
But sometimes, isn’t there a need for MORE? Isn’t there a need to flood the streets and strike and boycott and get up in the actual physical faces of the rich and powerful and scream at the top of our lungs and NOT RELENT until something changes?
Can we do that? Do we have the will – the tools – the stick-to-it-iveness – the gumption – the heart – the nerve? I think we do. And if we do: the time is now.
As always, thanks so much for reading and taking the time to comment.
-KïraThomsen-Cheek
@KiraOnClimate
kirathomsencheek@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/HairOnFirePeople/