Looking back to thirty four years ago, I was vaguely aware of the greenhouse effect and knew some scientists were sounding warnings, but the issue seemed distant. At the time, I was more concerned that a second-rate actor, who had been upstaged by a chimp, had his finger on the nuclear trigger and was talking about evil empires. But someone did know how serious the problem is. Their identity makes their subsequent actions all the more criminal.
“Pope Francis blasts global warming deniers,” the Washington Post wrote last month. The Pope’s climate encyclical focused on the immorality of climate inaction — which makes the immorality of knowingly spreading disinformation for the purpose of delaying action all the more base.
Now the Union of Concerned Scientists has disclosed an email revealing that Exxon understood the scientific reality of climate change as far back as 1981. “Other companies, such as Mobil, only became aware of the issue in 1988, when it first became a political issue,” Exxon’s former in-house climate expert, chemical engineer Leonard S. Bernstein wrote last year. The 30-year veteran of Mobil and Exxon explained:
Exxon first got interested in climate change in 1981 because it was seeking to develop the Natuna gas field off Indonesia. This is an immense reserve of natural gas, but it is 70% CO2. That CO2 would have to be separated to make the natural gas usable.
And yet despite a growing understanding of the scientific reality of climate change in the 1980s and 1990s, Exxon became one of the biggest funders of scientists and think tanks and others who do little but deny and cast doubt on the scientific understanding of human-caused global warming.
As recently as February 2015, a New York Times exposé revealed that a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who routinely casts doubt on widely accepted climate science had “accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers.” This included funding from ExxonMobil and “at least $230,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.”… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
I just can’t get my head around how criminal greed can be so pervasive that they did this for all these years, when they had a better understanding than most Americans do now. Only one word is sufficient to describe it: Republican!
17 Responses to “Knowing is NOT Caring”
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I'm with you TC–and Jesus was ahead of us by letting us know how hard it would be for the wealthy to make it into heaven. And Dorian Gray's Picture shows what should have happened to those involved in the disinformation campaign.
PS–I was more focused on the damage RR left CA with when he became POTUS–something that became exponentially more as more became known with time.
The Harvard Lampoon did a parody of Dorian Gray based on "sin" being "environmental irresponsibility." I'm afraid the book which contained it got sold with my Mom's estate, but I do remember that when he and the picture (it was a Polaroid) changed back, his body was mistaken for a piece of dog poop on Lord Henry's shoe.
LOL! Thanks for the giggle Joanne!
I like it!
So is this really any worse than the tobacco companies? Who have been doing the same thing for much longer? And now that they are prohibited from some of the worst abuses here (though by no means all), have taken the act on the road to the third world? Where they have kids as young as six smoking? Or maybe even younger. I'm not fighting to keep Exxon out of prison, I'm just sayin' throw Philip Morris and the Marlboro man in the same cell. And drop the key in the Great Barrier Reef – if it isn't too toxic to leave there.
And stop making it easier for all these companies to do so with how trade treaties are written, like the TPP
At least most of tobbaco companies' victims used their products by choice. We get climate change regardless of personal responsibility.
Tobacco companies victims started by choice. They didn't stay on by choice but by addiction. Also, the second hand smoke victims did not choose anything.
. . . and all for a few farthings! To quote Sir Walter Scott:
There is an old saying 'those whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad' – these days it might be more applicable to say 'those whom the Gods would destroy, they first make believe their publicity'. The more heavily invested that liars are in their lies, the more extreme their behaviour and the more desperate their attempts to denigrate those who tell the truth.
If proof were needed, look at the behaviour of multi-nationals and giant corporations when their income is threatened (no matter if a product they have been selling turns out to be harming or even killing people) – they react as a sect does when one of their leaders is exposed having committed crimes, raining down hatred, hysteria and personal attacks on those who try and expose the truth.
Sadly, this article doesn't surprise me in the least – and a lot of the responsibility for this parlous state of affairs lies with Reagan, Thatcher et al – remember a stockbroker mantra under their reign 'greed is good' – and that is still a pervasive attitude amongst these giant companies – it makes you want to weep.
I'm glad the Pope spoke out about climate change. NASA has given their opinion and it coincides with the rest of the scientific world. It just doesn't suit Big Oils ' profit margins.
The truth of the matter is that nothing will be done about it until the politicians stop accepting money from them.
NASA's projections : http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/10/nasa-climate-change-projection-data/
In the early 1980 over here we were quite concerned with acid rain, the destruction of forests by acid rain in Northern Europe and the effect the acidity had on everything connected to water in lakes and seas. The acidity was then attributed to farming methods and to air pollution in general and not linked to CO2 emissions as such. On hearing on Exxon's understanding of global warming at that time – and if Exxon knew it, you can bet on it that other global oil companies like Shell knew it too – I think we were thrown acid rain as a bone to contend ourselves with while keeping us from seeing the bigger picture. Next came the holes in the ozone layer, and Freon became the sole culprit and we still weren't allowed to see the bigger picture. Now the whole colony of feral cats is out of the climate-change bag, it becomes crystal clear that the fossil fuel industry is as immoral as the narcotics industry, having the planet hooked on fossil fuels, maintaining use will not harm its health and taking no responsibilities for the devastation both the use and the business itself in terms of gang wars/oil spills and meth lab explosions/earthquakes from fracking. Of course the total and worldwide devastation caused by global warming has no parallel in the drugs or tobacco racket and I really think that it's about time that any scientists bought to "cast doubt" on climate change and those who have paid them to do so, should be brought to trial, as should be all of those who have deliberately manipulated or withheld information for capital gain. As I've said before, if there is an international court for war crimes, it stands to reason there is an international court for global environmental crimes too.
Have greenhouse emissions been declared a crime anywhere?
34 + years ago brought me to a time when I was in college and reading Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring".
I wonder what Rachel would say about Today's Climate Changes and to the poisoning of our food supplies with Monsanto's RoundUp with the highly toxic Glyphosate.
VIDEO from 1963:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eogwoY-_j2I&feature=player_embedded
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Rachel+Carson+%2B+Climate+Change&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=X&as_q=&nfpr=&spell=1&ei=C6CiVdD9O8O6ogTW67XADQ&ved=0CBEQvwU
http://www.desmogblog.com/rachel-carson-s-legacy-guides-today-s-climate-change-battle
Thanks all. I wonder when the next round of extreme weather will hit.
It would be easier for a camel to get thru the eye of a needle that for these folks to get in to heaven!
Hate to pull the Bible verse out, but it plays to their base and they should know it!