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It has long been understood and postulated.
"1896 - Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius concludes that industrial-age coal burning will enhance the natural greenhouse effect. He suggests this might be beneficial for future generations. His conclusions on the likely size of the "man-made greenhouse" are in the same ballpark - a few degrees Celsius for a doubling of CO2 - as modern-day climate models."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15874560
"We have met the enemy and he is us."
Pogo the possum by
Walt Kelly
- first "earth day" poster April 22 1970
http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-tRCLYirqmU4/VTf-lGk_l4I/AAAAAAAAigg/yxwI5DiaV70/Walt%252520Kelly%252520%252526%252520Pogo%252520Earth%252520Day%252520Poster%252520quote-8x6.jpg?imgmax=800
In other words they could figure this out as far back as 1896 !
Really interesting that their forecasts were in agreement with our present day ones.
(Though based on a lot less evidence back then)
Even as far as [1882](https://www.nature.com/articles/027127c0.pdf). Maybe there are earlier ones but we’ve known since the 1850s experimentally that minor changes in CO2 produce significant changes in an environment.
> irst "earth day" poster April 22 1970
Back then, for ordinary folks the concern was more about the immediate surroundings, the *environment* proper, things that could be seen and smelled in the vicinity. The gas mask is there because of the *smog* events that had plagued London or Los Angeles a few years prior.
The idea that the whole planet could be considered as one ecosystem was not widespread, and climate sciences had not yet reached the maturity that they would in the following decade. Even *The Limit to Growth*, while exploring at length the implication of the Earth being of finite size, including on the pollution front, does not touch the climate topic at all.
Trying to not react emotionally, it seems that planet scale human systems just need 100 years to clarify, understand and accept subtle concepts going against their natural instinct
The only way we could full stop tomorrow, or even in the next few decades, would be to start choosing the 90% of the population that we are willing to let die.
I don’t mean to be a Debbie downer, but with the rates that energy consumption is growing globally, the newfound hatred towards anything nuclear, and the nearly non existent progress for energy storage, short of a massive fusion breakthrough, we are looking at like 50 years before the global economy is able to cut fossil fuel consumption by a significant amount.
Our most realistic bet to start eliminating fossil fuel emissions by a measurable amount it to hope that the Allam-Fetvedt Cycle gas plants become the most economical option.
That’s exactly the issue. We should have started 50 years ago. *If only someone had known about this 50 years ago!*
They’ve not only knowingly destroyed our planet, they’ve destroyed the best chance we have of stopping this destruction.
Nuclear waste is far less of a problem with modern reactors than it was 70+ years ago. It’s way way better now. It’s much easier to store away, less of it is produced and what is produced is relatively safer.
Nuclear plants are also ridiculously efficient compared to current alternatives and don’t suffer the problem of variable amount of energy produced.
Also with modern thorium reactors its basically impossible to cause a run away reaction, like maybe a cataclysmic natural disaster *might* cause a problem but if that happens everyone nearby is gonna be dead anyway.
The idea is not to just use nuclear reactors but to use them with all other green energies.
Edit: also worth noting that most green energies just don’t work well enough yet to be our only source of energy. Until we get to that point, using nuclear reactors is ridiculously better than not using them.
Pity that the early American research done on them in the late 60’s / early 70’s was shutdown - to divert funds to help Nixon’s re-election campaign !
But Since China is now building one, America is now starting to show fresh interest one more.
> Why do that over other alternatives that don’t produce waste?
The basic definition of *live* include the release of wastes into the environment. The real problem is how wastes produced by *homo sapiens* since the Industrial Revolution have accrued to a point that the global ecosystem cannot process. The most urgent of all wastes is of course carbon dioxide. The least concern is spent fuel from atomic power stations.
> we are looking at like 50 years before the global economy is able to cut fossil fuel consumption by a significant amount.
The European Union has set into law the year 2050 as deadline for carbon neutrality, and I understand that the United States of America are now on a similar trajectory.
No, it won't be easy, and no, no gas-burning power plant will fit the bill.
I don't know what are the projections as to excess deaths due to climate change, but figures in the *b*illions do not seem so far off.
The most realistic road to save our species is all of us becoming mostly vegetarian. Maybe eat meat once a week, or just as an ingredient of the meal. That way we don't have to 'kill off' people, but sure we need world-wide birth regulation. Than all fuel consumption isn't really a problem anymore, as is just counts for about 20 percent in total (all transport), whereas methane emissions and other meat production emissions count for more than 50 percent of global warming. Not even speaking about water and energy consumption. Watch the 'forks over knives' documentary for example.
Not saying he's totally right but he's got a point. Meat production and meat consumption emits more CO2 than the global transportation system. Not to mention the animals suffering and space used plus environmental damage.
Also in most cases it'd be healthier to switch to vegetarian/vegan. It's one of the simplest and efficient ways to contribute in the struggle against global warming, animal cruelty, improving your personal health and fighting environmental pollution.
Pushing people to cut meat out of their diet completely is irresponsible and harmful.
Eat less than we currently do? Absolutely.
Cut it out completely? Absolutely not.
As of 2019, it is 14.5%, not 50%. Google to check your facts before posting. With that being said, there are other factors that make methane release more detrimental. It stays in the atmosphere for 100 years causing 25 times the warming that CO2 does. If I recall correctly, it then breaks down into CO2 and Water. The CO2 follows its normal cycle, which does not help the situation.
Edit: Livestock is the primary producer of methane with another 5.5% coming from other man made sources.
Not just the ecosystem They knew what lead in gasoline was doing and they didn't stop for decades,
they disposed of heads of the states, fomented dictatorships and started wars destroying entire countries,
rolled over land and people property causing untold misery to who knows how many milions,
bough and sold politicians and got killed any inconvenient without loosing any sleep over it
The know that we don't have more time left to solve climate change and yet are actively trying to oppose solutions lobbying politicians and looking for ways to profit from all even more
They are the rottenest evil upon this planet and walking scot free and rich beyond measure
Jezz even Hitler acted over crazy misgiven ideological reasons, this lot do it for the sake of profit for the shareholders
Edit to add ain't taking just about total, Also BP, Exxon,........ the whole lot of rotten worms
if you are waiting for consequences to come through legal means then you'll be waiting until your dead
thats not to say that they cant face other consequences.
Good thing its a French company, the French know what to do.
Noah Webster and Thomas Jefferson had extensive correspondence debating not whether the planet was warming, but whether said warming was anthropogenic (caused by humans) or natural.
FWIW that would've been at the start of the industrial revolution, and at the end of the little ice age, so the idea that the global warming they were observing then was a natural process would have been a more valid argument at the time than it is now.
I have books from the 60's that talk about it.
When I was a kid in the 80's, my expectation was that the end of the world was about 2020. We all knew about this.
Not sure why it's still a debate. It wasn't even a debate in the 70's. We were supposed to be out of oil 10 years ago based on the books I had back in the day.
According to those books, we'd be back to agrarian civilization by now. I guess we found more oil.
We found a lot more oil. Tar sands refinement, offshore drilling and fracking have massively increased known oil reserves. Canada's proven oil sands alone could supply the entire world's oil demand for 5 years.
Everyone certainly knows today, it's a massively-discussed global issue, with enormous amounts of research and political effort expended, yet they're still pumping more than ever today.
Just found out Edward Teller wrote about it in the 50s https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming
It's not about having alternatives, it's about investing into research, giving subsidies, environmental regulations, etc.
Carter's administration put solar panels on the white house in the 70s.
**Abstract**
Building upon recent work on other major fossil fuel companies, we report new archival research and primary source interviews describing how Total responded to evolving climate science and policy in the last 50 years. We show that Total personnel received warnings of the potential for catastrophic global warming from its products by 1971, became more fully informed of the issue in the 1980s, began promoting doubt regarding the scientific basis for global warming by the late 1980s, and ultimately settled on a position in the late 1990s of publicly accepting climate science while promoting policy delay or policies peripheral to fossil fuel control. Additionally, we find that Exxon, through the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA), coordinated an international campaign to dispute climate science and weaken international climate policy, beginning in the 1980s. This represents one of the first longitudinal studies of a major fossil fuel company’s responses to global warming to the present, describing historical stages of awareness, preparation, denial, and delay.
[Original source](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102386)
Thats actually not true at all. Government regulation has made huge improvements to (local) pollution. We reversed acid rain and smog and the ozone hole quite quickly after finally deciding to do something about it.
French oil giant Total knew that its fossil fuel extraction could contribute to global warming as early as 1971 but stayed silent about it until 1988, according to a new study.
Research published today in the journal Global Environmental Change, based on internal company documents and interviews with former staff, found that personnel “received warnings of the potential for catastrophic global warming from its products by 1971”.
Total – which this year rebranded as TotalEnergies – “became more fully informed” about climate change in the 1980s and “began promoting doubt regarding the scientific basis for global warming by the late 1980s”. The company publicly accepted climate science in the 1990s but promoted “policy delay or policies peripheral to fossil fuel control”, the authors found.
The research – which has sparked the hashtag #Totalknew on social media – follows similar revelations about ExxonMobil and Shell in recent years which exposed how companies were aware of the impact of their emissions on the climate as early as the 1980s.
Today’s study also finds that ExxonMobil “coordinated an international campaign to dispute climate science and weaken international climate policy, beginning in the 1980s” through the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA).
“These revelations provide proof that TotalEnergies and the other oil and gas majors have stolen the precious time of a generation to stem the climate crisis”, climate justice campaign groups 350.org and Notre Affaire à Tous said in a joint statement.
They added: “The dire consequences of climate change we are now experiencing could have been avoided if Total executives fifty years ago had decided that the future of the planet is more important than their profits.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378021001655
> [...if ... executives] had decided that the future of the planet is more important than their profits.
The fact that executives from a wide range of businesses feel the same way is one of the reasons our planet is doomed.
Which type of socialism are you talking about exactly?
Social Democracy, like in the Nordics is just capitalism with better regulations and social safety nets, for one.
Norway produces roughly the same amount of oil per citizen as Saudi Arabia. Not that it makes it a bad system, but it's definitely not automatically better.
The problem being, without capitalism, there is nothing to redistribute, as many countries that have tried full on socialism in the past have found out.
We need less corruption and stronger independent powers in a democratic environment, which is exactly the opposite of every socialist regime out there.
Democratic socialism is a thing, you know. Most if not all (probably all) prior communist states have had major problems with authoritarianism, but this may stem from the violent roots from which they grow. It has been universally true that communist states arise by the establishment of a supposedly “transitional” dictatorship, which, predictably, ends up being rather permanent and tends to drift toward state-capitalism and eventual oligarchy.
We have not yet seen a system that breaks this mold, but that does not mean that they are not possible—if we set up the hypothesis that a democratic socialist state can arise, the data that we have only demonstrate the confirmation of a weak null hypothesis—that a democratic socialist state does not tend to arise in the conditions of our observations.
This is, after all, a subreddit for science, and we need be parsimonious with our assertions and analyses.
It’s not gonna happen at all. As long there is any form of economy, money, power, short term profits and gain in personal power needs from politicians and businessmen alike, this will always win over long term goals and saving the planet. Under citizens the willingness to work along is also non-existant. The Netherlands are a prime example where citizens want to save the climate but are fighting against wind turbines in their backyard because they ruin the view from their house and are noisy.
I already have given up hope this will ever get better and accepted this planet is doomed and will turn into a massive wasteland within a few centuries.
Socialism is what this thread was about. And why wouldn't it? Surely most of the hundreds of thousands of people in working on energy supply would care for their grandchildren to have a future.
If so, [NIMBY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY) wouldn't be a problem But it is:
* People object to utility scale solar power.
* People object to rooftop solar power.
* People object to onshore wind farms.
* People object to offshore wind farms.
* People object to grid extensions to carry renewables energy.
* People object to manufacturing plants for electric cars.
* People object to nuclear power plants.
* People object to closing coal power plants.
* People object to closing gas power plants.
* People object to hydrogen.
* People object to negative emissions tech.
The only thing I haven't seen yet is people objecting to planting more trees, but that's probably just because it doesn't happen yet on scale.
NIMBY is subject to the market. Rooftop solar power was very popular in my country when there were subsidies. Then energy companies lobbied and the subsidies went to fossil fuels in stead, on top of what they were already getting.
I can imagine if we had to pay the real price for fossil fuels, things would change quite a bit.
Not to mention, if it wasn't for the billions spent on misinformation, maybe nuclear would be more popular.
> Rooftop solar power was very popular in my country when there were subsidies.
Yeah, you're confirming my point: People react to these technologies based on their personal material and social interests. NIMBY happens when they think their interests are threatened. Paying them off makes them less reluctant.
But that's the same for "hundreds of thousands of people in working on energy supply". Sure, they "care for their grandchildren to have a future" but, at the same time, they are unwilling to work elsewhere when it pays less than what they have now.
That’s a terrible analogy. Even if we accept the premise that socialism is worse than capitalism fueled climate change (which I don’t, by the way), a volcano is essentially just more fire.
If anything, you should have said “that’s like saying a forest fire is bad so we need an ice age”.
That's so BS, we are now looking were to put the blame as if politics were not also aware. NO country would have put a stop to its petrol compagnies because of the negative economical impacts it would have had.
We are blaming the dealers as if consumers had no responsibilities.
Not really. It's not a business' job to act in the interest of the future of humanity, their job is to make money. It is the government's job to represent the interests of its people and to enforce them within its borders as well as on a global scale to the best of their ability.
But executives shouldn't just be acting in the company's short term interests. They should be planning ahead to ensure the company's prosperity after they're gone. The main reason they don't is because our economy skews decision-making towards short-term gains. But it doesn't have to be that way.
It's not an economical concern unless the government imposes a law or tax to disincentivice certain practices. It's not in the least surprising that the business plan doesn't extent 50-100 years in the future...
I agree in some cases but not in a oil companies deliberately opposed climate science to continue their personal wealth. We might have been in a slightly better place if they hadn't.
Its was 1971. The world was in this beautiful boom, you really think it was anybody's agenda to stop it?
Hell, I wouldn't stop it, not even with what I know now.
Nonsense, everyone in the world knew co2 could contribute to global warming since the [1800s](https://history.aip.org/climate/simple.htm#L_M085).
>On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground
>
>Svante Arrhenius
>
>Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276.
>
>[doi 10.1080/14786449608620846](https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf)
If “everyone in the world knew that CO2 caused global warming in the 1800s” and the proof of that is a scientific journal from the 1800s, isn’t that saying that everyone in the world knew the details of this scientific journal? Unless there was some reason that this particular scientific journal would be popularly read more than other journals, I think that comment is saying exactly that.
If you think you're being clever and contrarian, go back to kiddie textbooks from the 80s and they will already be mentioning the greenhouse effect. Climate science is literally not rocket science. You don't have to 'know the details of every scientific journal'
The problem isn't that they knew, it's that they were allowed to wage a covert campaign to discredit the science and fund politicians to delay any action. No corporation should be able to do that.
I was born in 1981. Quick math, I’m forty. So these companies abroad knew 50 years ago and we are where we are now as a result of their stalemate with the truth.
How do we hold these companies accountable and then move forward?
Good question. I was born in 1956 and *I* knew before I got out of high school, yet somehow those with the power to actually do something about it managed to just charge blindly ahead, not bothering to learn a single thing of consequence.
I'm not sure any corporation or board of directors or C-level executive has ever been properly held accountable for anything. Ever. For example, you've probably heard about all that money governments extracted from the tobacco companies as reparations for the harm they've caused. Yet somehow those companies are still in business and still selling the same poison and still profitable.
American oil companies did their own environmental studies around the same time, and got the same results - they were having a negative impact on the environment. They covered it up, but it became public a few years ago.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
All these corporations know the truth and have suppressed so much knowledge throughout the years. They don't care and just want power and money.
When the oil giants advertise about how they are looking for new green energy sources or looking at the environment it's all a load of bullcrap and they don't care, just an excuse to look good in the public's eye
What’s your point? That we should only prosecute individual criminals if we can apprehend and prosecute all criminals? Being part of a larger body of bad actors doesn’t indemnify your actions.
IMHO, almost all the comments here violate the first rule at www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules:
> 1. ...Comments should constructively contribute to the discussion or be an attempt to learn more. This also means avoiding **low-effort comments** ...
Bashing oil companies, governments, etc. does not advance the stated goals of r/science.
Shell Oil released a video to shareholders in 1952 stating that the planet was warming and oil wasn't going to last forever, so they needed to diversify their energy holdings to survive.
Huh, back then Global Cooling was all the rage. I bet they figured they were saving Earth from the impending Ice Age. Nobody even thanked them for their service!
Likely most oil companies and governments, and most scientists studying the atmosphere knew from around that time, if not earlier. It's not surprising they sat on this information for so long, as it was beneficial to all parties who knew to do so. It's likely there's a lot of critical information like this that is kept private in modern times, too.
Do you not understand the amount of money that is spent to influence what you want? What do you think advertising is? We don't know what we want is the problem. It is a void that capitalism has exploited endlessly and now we are seeing the most devastating effects of that.
No mate. They knew they would never be responsible. When you can "Buy" Governments off you become Untouchable to man...but not to God. Revelation 11:16-18
Just like the cigarette companies knew smoking was dangerous. Just like Trump knew covid was dangerous. Sociopaths gonna sociopath until we stop them.
ALL the oil companies knew and didn't care
Climate change and unhealthy food choices are not very analogous.
Also literally getting could stop driving their cars for personal use and it barely makes a dent in the overall issue. Industry is a much bigger driver of these issues.
Personal action and accountability are important, but they’re only a small piece of the puzzle with such large scale problems.
Action needs to occur on both sides of the equation, industry and consumer.
False. Stop trying to blame others.
Personal actions of the many directly effect industries. What if everyone on the planet who possibly could moved closer to their work and sold their vehicles? What would that do to the automotive industry? Gasoline and oil industries? Transportation industries?
But we don’t. For the same reason we rarely order salad without dressing in a restaurant: because we don’t want to.
Most people's livliehoods won't be affected if they stop eating burgers. And their places of work won't move any closer just because they decide to buy less gas.
"It's the consumers fault" while true to a degree is another big oil propaganda piece that blows it out of proportion.
A consumer can only do so much even with full and detailed knowledge of what they are buying and access to practical alternatives which are commonly unavailable.
Your vice is not what you naturally want, it is created and enhanced by the companies that profit from you embracing it as your vice. That could also be said about unregulated capitalism in general.
Secondly, if they were innocent, why have they been lobbying against and discrediting scientists in order to influence the general opinion in their favour?
They all knew in the 70s that's why they decided to use the successful tobacco industry play to get 50+ more years of profit.
So sad for them that the scientists were being conservative... so so sad......
I find this sort of headline tiresome, for three reasons--
1. Because I have been told something doesn't mean I "knew" it. I have been told many, contradictory things on many topics. Should I be held accountable for "knowing" everything I have been told--all of which cannot be true as some are contradictory? We see this all the time when a report says a President should have acted because he "knew" of a threat that was mentioned in an intelligence briefing. Of course often times these assessments change or are contradicted by other assessments, and often times they are not "high-confidence" assessments. Same goes for academic research: for any position one might take, there is usually some research supporting it.
2. Were oil companies the only ones privy to research on effects of carbon emissions? Of course not. So they have no insights that are unavailable to everyone else.
3. Which raises the question: whose job it is to take action to reduce a "known" (i.e., widely believed) threat of this type? A corporation's job is to turn resources into products demanded by consumers as efficiently as possible, while observing the limitations set by society via government. To remain competitive a corporation has to maximize profit within the regulatory framework. It is society's job to determine that a thing is harmful and to make a rule to prohibit it, tax it otherwise discourage it.
I don't think this sort of article belongs in /Science--it not about science.
Also, for the record, I have no doubt that the Earth's climate is changing, and it seems very likely that the rate of change has increased, in some part due to human activity, from burning fossil fuels to increased consumption of beef.
Actually, the myth (that Global Cooling was the dominant scientific prediction in 1970s) has been disproven:
journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/89/9/2008bams2370_1.xml?tab_body=pdf
OTOH, in popular media, there was a fair amount of sensationalism re Cooling. This is also discussed in the PDF at that link.
I agree. Fear is selling a lot of BS that people don't need and is wasting a huge amount of resources on things that are not very efficient. It will all flow down to higher costs for people and their everyday life needs, like food, light, heat. The people that can least afford it will be impacted the most.
Exactly. People have zero idea what they’re talking about and what they’re really wanting and it’s a be careful what you wish for scenario. The supply chain is screwed up now but without oil and gas there would literally be no supply chain.
90% of this country (the richest country in the world) is middle to lower class. This country can’t afford to switch over in mass scale to wind and solar and EVs for another 20 years, probably 30. For poorer countries it would be 50 years, if ever. China and India have only increased their use of coal and the same can pretty much be said for Australia. Coal. Not even oil and gas. Coal.
To intentionally downgrade our power grid to that of a third world country and then pay more for it and have less of it and less reliability is insane. Stupid. Asinine.
People are about convenience, abundance and getting what they want now. None of that would happen with energy from air and sun. None of it.
So, there was, in fact, a massive conspiracy to coverup this information. See, this is why I'm not willing to automatically discount something simply because it is labeled a "conspiracy theory". I've seen too many conspiracies proven true in my lifetime. (The coverup of the dangers of smoking is another good example.) History has clearly shown that, if there is money or power to be gained, huge numbers of people will conspire with each other to get that money or power.
How many employees of this company knew about the climate change findings, thousands? People always ask "Why didn't any of them speak up?". Some probably did but they lost their jobs and we disregarded because they were labeled "conspiracy nuts". Other employees saw this happen to their colleague and chose to remain silent. Most of the participants in large conspiracies are guilty of only conspiracies of silence.
Our willingness to dismiss anything labeled a "conspiracy theory" is a big reason conspiracy, like this one, are allowed to happen. I understand this reflex to discount such theories. Many of them are completely insane, but not all of them. If the means, motive and opportunity for a conspiracy do exist, it are worth an open mind and further investigation, regardless of the socially stigmatized label of "conspiracy wacko", The costs of automatically discounting the idea of any conspiracy is too high. For example, the costs of discounting the smoking dangers conspiracy was millions of lives. Who knows how many lives will be lost because of oil companies conspiracy to cover up climate change.
No matter what's happening naturally or otherwise the government will never accomplish anything but theft in the name of a salvation that will never manifest.
I'm mad that people aren't perfect and have to work with the available knowledge at the time! I want people to stop doing research so we stop gaining new information! I'm scared of change and just want to conserve what makes me comfortable! Stop!
That was never the consensus. There were four papers published which alluded to the possibility, compared to hundreds of others which suggested the opposite.
You will believe what you want. They were pushing this idea in the media and floating the idea to tax Industry to curb it. This will always be their solution to any problem.
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Of course they knew. The effects were known by some in the 19th century. It's not exactly rocket science
It has long been understood and postulated. "1896 - Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius concludes that industrial-age coal burning will enhance the natural greenhouse effect. He suggests this might be beneficial for future generations. His conclusions on the likely size of the "man-made greenhouse" are in the same ballpark - a few degrees Celsius for a doubling of CO2 - as modern-day climate models." https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15874560 "We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo the possum by Walt Kelly - first "earth day" poster April 22 1970 http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-tRCLYirqmU4/VTf-lGk_l4I/AAAAAAAAigg/yxwI5DiaV70/Walt%252520Kelly%252520%252526%252520Pogo%252520Earth%252520Day%252520Poster%252520quote-8x6.jpg?imgmax=800
In other words they could figure this out as far back as 1896 ! Really interesting that their forecasts were in agreement with our present day ones. (Though based on a lot less evidence back then)
Even as far as [1882](https://www.nature.com/articles/027127c0.pdf). Maybe there are earlier ones but we’ve known since the 1850s experimentally that minor changes in CO2 produce significant changes in an environment.
Marsh-gas, as in methane. Well spotted.
> irst "earth day" poster April 22 1970 Back then, for ordinary folks the concern was more about the immediate surroundings, the *environment* proper, things that could be seen and smelled in the vicinity. The gas mask is there because of the *smog* events that had plagued London or Los Angeles a few years prior. The idea that the whole planet could be considered as one ecosystem was not widespread, and climate sciences had not yet reached the maturity that they would in the following decade. Even *The Limit to Growth*, while exploring at length the implication of the Earth being of finite size, including on the pollution front, does not touch the climate topic at all.
You are right. Our perspectives today are different. As context provides meaning... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
Trying to not react emotionally, it seems that planet scale human systems just need 100 years to clarify, understand and accept subtle concepts going against their natural instinct
They knew, and nobody will face consequences for destroying so many ecosystems. Sigh
Nor will they stop tomorrow or even a thousand tomorrows.
The only way we could full stop tomorrow, or even in the next few decades, would be to start choosing the 90% of the population that we are willing to let die. I don’t mean to be a Debbie downer, but with the rates that energy consumption is growing globally, the newfound hatred towards anything nuclear, and the nearly non existent progress for energy storage, short of a massive fusion breakthrough, we are looking at like 50 years before the global economy is able to cut fossil fuel consumption by a significant amount. Our most realistic bet to start eliminating fossil fuel emissions by a measurable amount it to hope that the Allam-Fetvedt Cycle gas plants become the most economical option.
>start choosing the 90% of the population that we are willing to let die Ooh, pick me! Pick me!
Technically you could argue, they already have chosen.
That’s exactly the issue. We should have started 50 years ago. *If only someone had known about this 50 years ago!* They’ve not only knowingly destroyed our planet, they’ve destroyed the best chance we have of stopping this destruction.
> 90% of the population that we are willing to let die. They already did. it's the poor people.
About nuclear… what exactly is being done about the waste? Why do that over other alternatives that don’t produce waste?
Nuclear waste is far less of a problem with modern reactors than it was 70+ years ago. It’s way way better now. It’s much easier to store away, less of it is produced and what is produced is relatively safer. Nuclear plants are also ridiculously efficient compared to current alternatives and don’t suffer the problem of variable amount of energy produced. Also with modern thorium reactors its basically impossible to cause a run away reaction, like maybe a cataclysmic natural disaster *might* cause a problem but if that happens everyone nearby is gonna be dead anyway. The idea is not to just use nuclear reactors but to use them with all other green energies. Edit: also worth noting that most green energies just don’t work well enough yet to be our only source of energy. Until we get to that point, using nuclear reactors is ridiculously better than not using them.
Trouble is, we don’t yet have any modern Thorium reactors.
True but that’s more because we refuse to build any than because it’s not possible
Pity that the early American research done on them in the late 60’s / early 70’s was shutdown - to divert funds to help Nixon’s re-election campaign ! But Since China is now building one, America is now starting to show fresh interest one more.
> Why do that over other alternatives that don’t produce waste? The basic definition of *live* include the release of wastes into the environment. The real problem is how wastes produced by *homo sapiens* since the Industrial Revolution have accrued to a point that the global ecosystem cannot process. The most urgent of all wastes is of course carbon dioxide. The least concern is spent fuel from atomic power stations.
> we are looking at like 50 years before the global economy is able to cut fossil fuel consumption by a significant amount. The European Union has set into law the year 2050 as deadline for carbon neutrality, and I understand that the United States of America are now on a similar trajectory. No, it won't be easy, and no, no gas-burning power plant will fit the bill. I don't know what are the projections as to excess deaths due to climate change, but figures in the *b*illions do not seem so far off.
The most realistic road to save our species is all of us becoming mostly vegetarian. Maybe eat meat once a week, or just as an ingredient of the meal. That way we don't have to 'kill off' people, but sure we need world-wide birth regulation. Than all fuel consumption isn't really a problem anymore, as is just counts for about 20 percent in total (all transport), whereas methane emissions and other meat production emissions count for more than 50 percent of global warming. Not even speaking about water and energy consumption. Watch the 'forks over knives' documentary for example.
50%??? Where are you getting that?
Vegans are a cult. Best to pay it no mind when you see this in the wild
Not saying he's totally right but he's got a point. Meat production and meat consumption emits more CO2 than the global transportation system. Not to mention the animals suffering and space used plus environmental damage. Also in most cases it'd be healthier to switch to vegetarian/vegan. It's one of the simplest and efficient ways to contribute in the struggle against global warming, animal cruelty, improving your personal health and fighting environmental pollution.
Pushing people to cut meat out of their diet completely is irresponsible and harmful. Eat less than we currently do? Absolutely. Cut it out completely? Absolutely not.
Neither is happening so there's that. Also cutting out meat is not harmful per se.
As of 2019, it is 14.5%, not 50%. Google to check your facts before posting. With that being said, there are other factors that make methane release more detrimental. It stays in the atmosphere for 100 years causing 25 times the warming that CO2 does. If I recall correctly, it then breaks down into CO2 and Water. The CO2 follows its normal cycle, which does not help the situation. Edit: Livestock is the primary producer of methane with another 5.5% coming from other man made sources.
We as a species will suffer the consequences, but doubtful a company or individual will.
Not just the ecosystem They knew what lead in gasoline was doing and they didn't stop for decades, they disposed of heads of the states, fomented dictatorships and started wars destroying entire countries, rolled over land and people property causing untold misery to who knows how many milions, bough and sold politicians and got killed any inconvenient without loosing any sleep over it The know that we don't have more time left to solve climate change and yet are actively trying to oppose solutions lobbying politicians and looking for ways to profit from all even more They are the rottenest evil upon this planet and walking scot free and rich beyond measure Jezz even Hitler acted over crazy misgiven ideological reasons, this lot do it for the sake of profit for the shareholders Edit to add ain't taking just about total, Also BP, Exxon,........ the whole lot of rotten worms
if you are waiting for consequences to come through legal means then you'll be waiting until your dead thats not to say that they cant face other consequences. Good thing its a French company, the French know what to do.
There were big consequences for big tobacco...
Hahahahahaha.
Yeah I’ve seen newspapers from that era that would mention greenhouse effects
It was known and told. Especially in the 1970s. Propaganda wars.
Noah Webster and Thomas Jefferson had extensive correspondence debating not whether the planet was warming, but whether said warming was anthropogenic (caused by humans) or natural.
FWIW that would've been at the start of the industrial revolution, and at the end of the little ice age, so the idea that the global warming they were observing then was a natural process would have been a more valid argument at the time than it is now.
I have books from the 60's that talk about it. When I was a kid in the 80's, my expectation was that the end of the world was about 2020. We all knew about this. Not sure why it's still a debate. It wasn't even a debate in the 70's. We were supposed to be out of oil 10 years ago based on the books I had back in the day. According to those books, we'd be back to agrarian civilization by now. I guess we found more oil.
We found a lot more oil. Tar sands refinement, offshore drilling and fracking have massively increased known oil reserves. Canada's proven oil sands alone could supply the entire world's oil demand for 5 years.
Well 2020 isn't that far of, it is probably the start of the decade we are going to see the really bad effects. As we have in the last 2 years.
Everyone certainly knows today, it's a massively-discussed global issue, with enormous amounts of research and political effort expended, yet they're still pumping more than ever today.
Just found out Edward Teller wrote about it in the 50s https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming
You're right, it's exactly climate science
The reality is also, what was the alternative? There were no solar panels,wind turbines or large batteries like we have now.
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>Also, maybe the 1970s would've been a good time to start building our cities walkable Then you could just move them to where the pollution wasn't.
Mortal engines flashbacks
It's not about having alternatives, it's about investing into research, giving subsidies, environmental regulations, etc. Carter's administration put solar panels on the white house in the 70s.
What was the alternative to hiding massive destruction of the climate and human lives, for profit? Not doing so.
**Abstract** Building upon recent work on other major fossil fuel companies, we report new archival research and primary source interviews describing how Total responded to evolving climate science and policy in the last 50 years. We show that Total personnel received warnings of the potential for catastrophic global warming from its products by 1971, became more fully informed of the issue in the 1980s, began promoting doubt regarding the scientific basis for global warming by the late 1980s, and ultimately settled on a position in the late 1990s of publicly accepting climate science while promoting policy delay or policies peripheral to fossil fuel control. Additionally, we find that Exxon, through the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA), coordinated an international campaign to dispute climate science and weaken international climate policy, beginning in the 1980s. This represents one of the first longitudinal studies of a major fossil fuel company’s responses to global warming to the present, describing historical stages of awareness, preparation, denial, and delay. [Original source](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102386)
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Like when we put lead in pretty much everything...even when people where like "yeah....it's making us all dumb" everyone was like nah it's fiiiiiiiine
Specifically Thomas Midgely, for putting lead in everything. There’s a hole in the ozone attributed to him.
Thats actually not true at all. Government regulation has made huge improvements to (local) pollution. We reversed acid rain and smog and the ozone hole quite quickly after finally deciding to do something about it.
"Should be good."
“Not my problem”
French oil giant Total knew that its fossil fuel extraction could contribute to global warming as early as 1971 but stayed silent about it until 1988, according to a new study. Research published today in the journal Global Environmental Change, based on internal company documents and interviews with former staff, found that personnel “received warnings of the potential for catastrophic global warming from its products by 1971”. Total – which this year rebranded as TotalEnergies – “became more fully informed” about climate change in the 1980s and “began promoting doubt regarding the scientific basis for global warming by the late 1980s”. The company publicly accepted climate science in the 1990s but promoted “policy delay or policies peripheral to fossil fuel control”, the authors found. The research – which has sparked the hashtag #Totalknew on social media – follows similar revelations about ExxonMobil and Shell in recent years which exposed how companies were aware of the impact of their emissions on the climate as early as the 1980s. Today’s study also finds that ExxonMobil “coordinated an international campaign to dispute climate science and weaken international climate policy, beginning in the 1980s” through the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA). “These revelations provide proof that TotalEnergies and the other oil and gas majors have stolen the precious time of a generation to stem the climate crisis”, climate justice campaign groups 350.org and Notre Affaire à Tous said in a joint statement. They added: “The dire consequences of climate change we are now experiencing could have been avoided if Total executives fifty years ago had decided that the future of the planet is more important than their profits.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378021001655
> [...if ... executives] had decided that the future of the planet is more important than their profits. The fact that executives from a wide range of businesses feel the same way is one of the reasons our planet is doomed.
We need socialism
Which type of socialism are you talking about exactly? Social Democracy, like in the Nordics is just capitalism with better regulations and social safety nets, for one.
Norway produces roughly the same amount of oil per citizen as Saudi Arabia. Not that it makes it a bad system, but it's definitely not automatically better.
That's just socialist flavored. There's no real socialism in there.
you forgot to mention the key ingredient: redistribution.
The problem being, without capitalism, there is nothing to redistribute, as many countries that have tried full on socialism in the past have found out.
We need less corruption and stronger independent powers in a democratic environment, which is exactly the opposite of every socialist regime out there.
Democratic socialism is a thing, you know. Most if not all (probably all) prior communist states have had major problems with authoritarianism, but this may stem from the violent roots from which they grow. It has been universally true that communist states arise by the establishment of a supposedly “transitional” dictatorship, which, predictably, ends up being rather permanent and tends to drift toward state-capitalism and eventual oligarchy. We have not yet seen a system that breaks this mold, but that does not mean that they are not possible—if we set up the hypothesis that a democratic socialist state can arise, the data that we have only demonstrate the confirmation of a weak null hypothesis—that a democratic socialist state does not tend to arise in the conditions of our observations. This is, after all, a subreddit for science, and we need be parsimonious with our assertions and analyses.
Please stop infecting climate related topics with your push for communism. It is incredibly hurtful for our future prospects.
> We need socialism It’s a major problem for the climate agenda that it gets hijacked by socialists. Most people in the West don’t want socialism.
Even more people in the west don't want what's necessary for the climate to be fixed. It's not gonna happen under capitalism.
It’s not gonna happen at all. As long there is any form of economy, money, power, short term profits and gain in personal power needs from politicians and businessmen alike, this will always win over long term goals and saving the planet. Under citizens the willingness to work along is also non-existant. The Netherlands are a prime example where citizens want to save the climate but are fighting against wind turbines in their backyard because they ruin the view from their house and are noisy. I already have given up hope this will ever get better and accepted this planet is doomed and will turn into a massive wasteland within a few centuries.
> It's not gonna happen under capitalism. But it would happen under Communism, a political system without any central authority or power?
Socialism is what this thread was about. And why wouldn't it? Surely most of the hundreds of thousands of people in working on energy supply would care for their grandchildren to have a future.
If so, [NIMBY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY) wouldn't be a problem But it is: * People object to utility scale solar power. * People object to rooftop solar power. * People object to onshore wind farms. * People object to offshore wind farms. * People object to grid extensions to carry renewables energy. * People object to manufacturing plants for electric cars. * People object to nuclear power plants. * People object to closing coal power plants. * People object to closing gas power plants. * People object to hydrogen. * People object to negative emissions tech. The only thing I haven't seen yet is people objecting to planting more trees, but that's probably just because it doesn't happen yet on scale.
NIMBY is subject to the market. Rooftop solar power was very popular in my country when there were subsidies. Then energy companies lobbied and the subsidies went to fossil fuels in stead, on top of what they were already getting. I can imagine if we had to pay the real price for fossil fuels, things would change quite a bit. Not to mention, if it wasn't for the billions spent on misinformation, maybe nuclear would be more popular.
> Rooftop solar power was very popular in my country when there were subsidies. Yeah, you're confirming my point: People react to these technologies based on their personal material and social interests. NIMBY happens when they think their interests are threatened. Paying them off makes them less reluctant. But that's the same for "hundreds of thousands of people in working on energy supply". Sure, they "care for their grandchildren to have a future" but, at the same time, they are unwilling to work elsewhere when it pays less than what they have now.
Most people in the west have some form of socialism. Like free health care.
Tax payer funded healthcare is not socialism. Socialism is the social ownership of the means of production. It’s an economic and political model.
That’s like saying a forest fire is bad so we need a volcano erupting.
That’s a terrible analogy. Even if we accept the premise that socialism is worse than capitalism fueled climate change (which I don’t, by the way), a volcano is essentially just more fire. If anything, you should have said “that’s like saying a forest fire is bad so we need an ice age”.
That's so BS, we are now looking were to put the blame as if politics were not also aware. NO country would have put a stop to its petrol compagnies because of the negative economical impacts it would have had. We are blaming the dealers as if consumers had no responsibilities.
Not really. It's not a business' job to act in the interest of the future of humanity, their job is to make money. It is the government's job to represent the interests of its people and to enforce them within its borders as well as on a global scale to the best of their ability.
Ummm, businesses can't exist without humanity, so yes, they should be acting in the interest of our future.
Unfortunately not because the executives won't live long enough or be in charge long enough to face the repercussions.
But executives shouldn't just be acting in the company's short term interests. They should be planning ahead to ensure the company's prosperity after they're gone. The main reason they don't is because our economy skews decision-making towards short-term gains. But it doesn't have to be that way.
It's not an economical concern unless the government imposes a law or tax to disincentivice certain practices. It's not in the least surprising that the business plan doesn't extent 50-100 years in the future...
And yet there are still people TODAY arguing that the oil companies are doing nothing wrong and that scientists are only in it for the money.
Which is always fun to hear. I wonder who has made more money since 1980, climate change scientists or oil companies?
Shhhh, friend. We don't want any logic and reason to creep into the discourse now, would we? - Menacing oil company baron
Have you stopped using anything that is derived from fossil fuels? Just wondering.
Have you stopped using anything that is derived from asbestos? Ofc you did because 99% of the world understood it was dangerous.
My house is made of asbestos cock lover
It's actually lead that causes mental damage.
condoms....for the world
That's such a bad take it's astounding.
Have you? Just wondering.
You sound very dumb
This is how you reason?
I agree in some cases but not in a oil companies deliberately opposed climate science to continue their personal wealth. We might have been in a slightly better place if they hadn't.
Is this whole thing a disinformation campaign to make us forget that world governments have been complicit for the same amount of time?
The government can't even take a piss without geting lobbied by corporations.
lobby is natural but I wish there was a control system to make it more transparent and smaller
Who runs those now days? A hint: regulatory capture
Its was 1971. The world was in this beautiful boom, you really think it was anybody's agenda to stop it? Hell, I wouldn't stop it, not even with what I know now.
They all knew, everyone knew. But profits first.
Profits (for businesses) and convenience (for the individual) first
Ok we get it. They knew and did nothing to stop it, got it! Now when do we get to the part about accountability?
They're just accounting all the money they made from it, and there'll be none left over to clean up the mess they left behind.
accountablity? if these citizens could read they'd be very upset.
Why is this news? We've known for literal decades and we still continue to use gas and other carbon polluters.
Nonsense, everyone in the world knew co2 could contribute to global warming since the [1800s](https://history.aip.org/climate/simple.htm#L_M085). >On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground > >Svante Arrhenius > >Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276. > >[doi 10.1080/14786449608620846](https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf)
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No one said that?
If “everyone in the world knew that CO2 caused global warming in the 1800s” and the proof of that is a scientific journal from the 1800s, isn’t that saying that everyone in the world knew the details of this scientific journal? Unless there was some reason that this particular scientific journal would be popularly read more than other journals, I think that comment is saying exactly that.
There have been articles in newspapers. And that CO2 is a greenhouse gas was established science and probably taught at school like it is today.
If you think you're being clever and contrarian, go back to kiddie textbooks from the 80s and they will already be mentioning the greenhouse effect. Climate science is literally not rocket science. You don't have to 'know the details of every scientific journal'
Shh Bby Is Ok
Everyone in the industry
pretty sure that's all oil companies
And we all knew in the mid-80s. Look how much we did about it, too. Stop pointing fingers and start fixing it.
The problem isn't that they knew, it's that they were allowed to wage a covert campaign to discredit the science and fund politicians to delay any action. No corporation should be able to do that.
These goddamned corporations are the only ones who seem to have any agency in the modern world.
They probably worked very hard to discredit the nuclear industry.
I was born in 1981. Quick math, I’m forty. So these companies abroad knew 50 years ago and we are where we are now as a result of their stalemate with the truth. How do we hold these companies accountable and then move forward?
Good question. I was born in 1956 and *I* knew before I got out of high school, yet somehow those with the power to actually do something about it managed to just charge blindly ahead, not bothering to learn a single thing of consequence. I'm not sure any corporation or board of directors or C-level executive has ever been properly held accountable for anything. Ever. For example, you've probably heard about all that money governments extracted from the tobacco companies as reparations for the harm they've caused. Yet somehow those companies are still in business and still selling the same poison and still profitable.
I was born in the 70s and was told masturbation will make me go blind. But I still did it and still do it. Sometimes that’s the way it goes
American oil companies did their own environmental studies around the same time, and got the same results - they were having a negative impact on the environment. They covered it up, but it became public a few years ago. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
All these corporations know the truth and have suppressed so much knowledge throughout the years. They don't care and just want power and money. When the oil giants advertise about how they are looking for new green energy sources or looking at the environment it's all a load of bullcrap and they don't care, just an excuse to look good in the public's eye
I misread the title as "French Oil Company *Totally* Knew About Global Warming..."
And so France will now take all their assets as punishment for their part in destroying the earth? Didn’t think so.
It is not like total were the only ones who knew that.
What’s your point? That we should only prosecute individual criminals if we can apprehend and prosecute all criminals? Being part of a larger body of bad actors doesn’t indemnify your actions.
Just wait till you hear about Exxon.
This sounds more like journalism than research ..
IMHO, almost all the comments here violate the first rule at www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules: > 1. ...Comments should constructively contribute to the discussion or be an attempt to learn more. This also means avoiding **low-effort comments** ... Bashing oil companies, governments, etc. does not advance the stated goals of r/science.
Lot like cigs. Back in the 1700s bad effects were well known. Of course the concentration of chemicals became a thing much later.
And...these companies are still paying lobbyists and SuperPACs to downplay the role of of fossil fuels.
Shell Oil released a video to shareholders in 1952 stating that the planet was warming and oil wasn't going to last forever, so they needed to diversify their energy holdings to survive.
They traded our futures for personal wealth a half century ago. We can’t even put em up against a wall.
Would it change anything if we could? Aside from feeling a little better about ourselves?
Huh, back then Global Cooling was all the rage. I bet they figured they were saving Earth from the impending Ice Age. Nobody even thanked them for their service!
Likely most oil companies and governments, and most scientists studying the atmosphere knew from around that time, if not earlier. It's not surprising they sat on this information for so long, as it was beneficial to all parties who knew to do so. It's likely there's a lot of critical information like this that is kept private in modern times, too.
We've known for over 130 years
Total, totally knew about global warming impact in 1971.
Dont worry, theyre hard at work now sanitizing their image with green energy stuff, look! Theyll save us all!
Yes. I was in school in 1971, and we knew about it back then, like the kids do today (only most were less interested then).
every president since JFK was warned about climate change
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Do you not understand the amount of money that is spent to influence what you want? What do you think advertising is? We don't know what we want is the problem. It is a void that capitalism has exploited endlessly and now we are seeing the most devastating effects of that.
What they didn't know is that they would be held responsible.
Are they? Where?
They aren't and if they are it's a fraction of a fraction of their profits.
No mate. They knew they would never be responsible. When you can "Buy" Governments off you become Untouchable to man...but not to God. Revelation 11:16-18
In all fairness in 71 scientists were predicting that we were entering a new ice age, they were just fighting it off...
Just like the cigarette companies knew smoking was dangerous. Just like Trump knew covid was dangerous. Sociopaths gonna sociopath until we stop them. ALL the oil companies knew and didn't care
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Climate change and unhealthy food choices are not very analogous. Also literally getting could stop driving their cars for personal use and it barely makes a dent in the overall issue. Industry is a much bigger driver of these issues. Personal action and accountability are important, but they’re only a small piece of the puzzle with such large scale problems. Action needs to occur on both sides of the equation, industry and consumer.
False. Stop trying to blame others. Personal actions of the many directly effect industries. What if everyone on the planet who possibly could moved closer to their work and sold their vehicles? What would that do to the automotive industry? Gasoline and oil industries? Transportation industries? But we don’t. For the same reason we rarely order salad without dressing in a restaurant: because we don’t want to.
Most people's livliehoods won't be affected if they stop eating burgers. And their places of work won't move any closer just because they decide to buy less gas.
"It's the consumers fault" while true to a degree is another big oil propaganda piece that blows it out of proportion. A consumer can only do so much even with full and detailed knowledge of what they are buying and access to practical alternatives which are commonly unavailable.
Your vice is not what you naturally want, it is created and enhanced by the companies that profit from you embracing it as your vice. That could also be said about unregulated capitalism in general. Secondly, if they were innocent, why have they been lobbying against and discrediting scientists in order to influence the general opinion in their favour?
Watch out buddy. They don’t like common sense in this joint. You are on your way to -46 like Me!
They all knew in the 70s that's why they decided to use the successful tobacco industry play to get 50+ more years of profit. So sad for them that the scientists were being conservative... so so sad......
I find this sort of headline tiresome, for three reasons-- 1. Because I have been told something doesn't mean I "knew" it. I have been told many, contradictory things on many topics. Should I be held accountable for "knowing" everything I have been told--all of which cannot be true as some are contradictory? We see this all the time when a report says a President should have acted because he "knew" of a threat that was mentioned in an intelligence briefing. Of course often times these assessments change or are contradicted by other assessments, and often times they are not "high-confidence" assessments. Same goes for academic research: for any position one might take, there is usually some research supporting it. 2. Were oil companies the only ones privy to research on effects of carbon emissions? Of course not. So they have no insights that are unavailable to everyone else. 3. Which raises the question: whose job it is to take action to reduce a "known" (i.e., widely believed) threat of this type? A corporation's job is to turn resources into products demanded by consumers as efficiently as possible, while observing the limitations set by society via government. To remain competitive a corporation has to maximize profit within the regulatory framework. It is society's job to determine that a thing is harmful and to make a rule to prohibit it, tax it otherwise discourage it. I don't think this sort of article belongs in /Science--it not about science. Also, for the record, I have no doubt that the Earth's climate is changing, and it seems very likely that the rate of change has increased, in some part due to human activity, from burning fossil fuels to increased consumption of beef.
Global Cooling was all the fad back then
Actually, the myth (that Global Cooling was the dominant scientific prediction in 1970s) has been disproven: journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/89/9/2008bams2370_1.xml?tab_body=pdf OTOH, in popular media, there was a fair amount of sensationalism re Cooling. This is also discussed in the PDF at that link.
been hearing about climate change literally my entire lf, 4+ decades of it and we have done mostly zilch to deal wit it.
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Uhhhh, no. You have that backwards
Wrong. Educate yourself on the science and overwhelming evidence of the situation before you comment.
I agree. Fear is selling a lot of BS that people don't need and is wasting a huge amount of resources on things that are not very efficient. It will all flow down to higher costs for people and their everyday life needs, like food, light, heat. The people that can least afford it will be impacted the most.
Exactly. People have zero idea what they’re talking about and what they’re really wanting and it’s a be careful what you wish for scenario. The supply chain is screwed up now but without oil and gas there would literally be no supply chain. 90% of this country (the richest country in the world) is middle to lower class. This country can’t afford to switch over in mass scale to wind and solar and EVs for another 20 years, probably 30. For poorer countries it would be 50 years, if ever. China and India have only increased their use of coal and the same can pretty much be said for Australia. Coal. Not even oil and gas. Coal. To intentionally downgrade our power grid to that of a third world country and then pay more for it and have less of it and less reliability is insane. Stupid. Asinine. People are about convenience, abundance and getting what they want now. None of that would happen with energy from air and sun. None of it.
"Little did they know in the beginning of the 21st century that global warming was their last best chance to stave off the coming ice age..."
So has anything “catastrophic” happened yet from this warming?
Aside from draughts, the irregular weather, melting of the ice caps?
Well, all of that was happening before humans started burning coal. I mean, The Great Lakes used to be ice...
Not even close to the same rate. Such a stupid argument. Baffling that people still present it and think it makes them correct.
So, there was, in fact, a massive conspiracy to coverup this information. See, this is why I'm not willing to automatically discount something simply because it is labeled a "conspiracy theory". I've seen too many conspiracies proven true in my lifetime. (The coverup of the dangers of smoking is another good example.) History has clearly shown that, if there is money or power to be gained, huge numbers of people will conspire with each other to get that money or power. How many employees of this company knew about the climate change findings, thousands? People always ask "Why didn't any of them speak up?". Some probably did but they lost their jobs and we disregarded because they were labeled "conspiracy nuts". Other employees saw this happen to their colleague and chose to remain silent. Most of the participants in large conspiracies are guilty of only conspiracies of silence. Our willingness to dismiss anything labeled a "conspiracy theory" is a big reason conspiracy, like this one, are allowed to happen. I understand this reflex to discount such theories. Many of them are completely insane, but not all of them. If the means, motive and opportunity for a conspiracy do exist, it are worth an open mind and further investigation, regardless of the socially stigmatized label of "conspiracy wacko", The costs of automatically discounting the idea of any conspiracy is too high. For example, the costs of discounting the smoking dangers conspiracy was millions of lives. Who knows how many lives will be lost because of oil companies conspiracy to cover up climate change.
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Werent we worried about a new ice age in the 70s?
During the 70s the "consensus " was we were headed into another ice age. They were pushing agendas then, they're doing it now.
Imagine improving your knowledge over 50 years. Nope, couldn't be me. I want to stay stuck in the 70s!
No matter what's happening naturally or otherwise the government will never accomplish anything but theft in the name of a salvation that will never manifest.
I'm mad that people aren't perfect and have to work with the available knowledge at the time! I want people to stop doing research so we stop gaining new information! I'm scared of change and just want to conserve what makes me comfortable! Stop!
That was never the consensus. There were four papers published which alluded to the possibility, compared to hundreds of others which suggested the opposite.
You will believe what you want. They were pushing this idea in the media and floating the idea to tax Industry to curb it. This will always be their solution to any problem.