Climate Change Discussion: the Oil Companies Knew All Along

Between the dates 10/31/2021 through 11/12/2021, a COP26 (26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties ) was held in Glasgow to discuss how to deal with the impending climate change. Scientists say that if we don’t do anything drastic such as dramatically cutting the production of oil, gas and coal in half (I think), then we won’t meet the net zero imperative by 2050 or hold to the 1.5 degree Celsius limit by the end of this century and the world will be facing a catastrophe. Reports produced this year indicate we don’t have much time left to keep the temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees C threshold by the end of this century. I think .8 degree Celsius (that’s the most common figure quoted when searching although I have seen 1 degree Celsius) has already risen in the last 100 years.

“An independent group called Climate Action Tracker estimates that under current policies, the planet is likely to warm by between 2.7 and 3.1 degrees Celsius (4.8 to 5.6 degrees Fahrenheit), compared to pre-industrial times. That’s higher than the aim of 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) rise agreed to in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and seen as necessary to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.”

“Latest climate pledges could limit global temperature rise, a new report says”, wskg.org, November 5, 2021.

This Glasgow conference’s pledges may limit the rise to 1.8 or 1.9 degrees Celsius so long as every country executes the pledges.tr

Because this conference was going on in Scotland, I’ve been seeing news articles about the complicity of the oil industry and how the oil and gas majors knew of the impending climate catastrophe forty or fifty years ago. FastCompany wrote a damning article outlining the statements and actions taken by the oil majors over the decades, kind of similar to the damning article from the New York Times regarding Exxon or maybe Mobil. Long story short, the industry probably knew as far back as 1959, way before most of us on the planet were born. Here’s a timeline culled from FastCompany:

…a petroleum conference from 1959 called the “Energy and Man” symposium, held at Columbia University in New York…warning industry executives and others assembled of global warming…

1965, and from an oil executive himself…Frank Ikard…“The substance 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.”

By the late 1970s, the American Petroleum Institute had formed a secret committee called the “CO2 and Climate Task Force,” which included representatives of many of the major oil companies, to privately monitor and discuss the latest developments in climate science.

Back in 1979, Exxon had privately studied options for avoiding global warming. It found that with immediate action, if the industry moved away from fossil fuels and instead focused on renewable energy, fossil fuel pollution could start to decline in the 1990s and a major climate crisis could be avoided.

In 1980…John Laurmann…warned that if fossil fuels continued to be used, global warming would be “barely noticeable” by 2005, but by the 2060s would have “globally catastrophic effects.”

In 1981, one of its (Exxon) managers, Roger Cohen, sent an internal memo observing that the company’s long-term business plans could “produce effects which will indeed be catastrophic (at least for a substantial fraction of the earth’s population).”

The next year, Exxon…predicted almost exactly the amount of global warming we’ve seen, as well as sea-level rise, drought, and more. According to the front page of the report, it was “given wide circulation to Exxon management”.

1986, the Dutch oil company Shell…predicting that global warming from fossil fuels would cause changes that would be “the greatest in recorded history,” including “destructive floods,” abandonment of entire countries, and even forced migration around the world.

Paris-based oil major Total was also aware of global warming’s catastrophic potential, as early as the 1970s.

“What Big Oil knew about climate change, in the industry’s own words”, FastCompany, Benjamin Franta, October 30, 2021

It’s sad that the oil industry did nothing but deny the potential impact of climate change. Today, the oil industry is being sued around the world for their complicity in lying to the public. Too bad the chief executives who worked to hide the scientific findings and influence the public are no longer around. All we can do now is sue the current players to obtain funding to mitigate the damage.

“Indeed, last May the Netherlands branch of the advocacy group Friends of the Earth won a landmark case against Shell. A Dutch court ordered Shell to bring its global operations in line with the Paris agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. This will require Shell to reduce both its own and its customers’ emissions by a staggering 45% from 2019 levels by 2030. “

“Exxon helped cause the crisis. It’s time they owned up”, The Guardian, Mark Hertsgaard, September 16, 2021.

As best as I can tell, Republicans were also denying climate change but their speaking points were probably based upon what the oil and gas industry provided them. In other words, the politicians probably did not have access to the scientific findings that the industry were producing and thus did not know the truth. It seems to me that the Republicans are now coming around to the view that climate change is real – whether produced by man or not – and have become quiet. I haven’t heard any news about Republicans making comments about the snow or the cold weather or some such smart alecky comments. As a matter of fact, there was a caucus of Republicans who attended the Glasgow conference and did not question the reality of the climate situation. Instead, the group wanted to stress the importance of dealing with the crisis. That’s such a turnabout from a few years ago. At the eleventh hour, some wake up and say “Oh my god, we got to do something!”

Today, the obstacles to getting real results comes from the “conservative” Republicans although I thought all Republicans were conservatives. A Vox article cited a researcher who said:

“The pattern that really jumps out to you is that there’s one group that’s really not like the others,” Leiserowitz said, “and that’s conservative Republicans.”

“The myth of the climate moderate: Joe Manchin isn’t a centrist”, Vox, Rebecca Leber, October 16, 2021.

Again, I’m a bit confused as I thought most if not all Republicans are conservatives. I thought most moderate Republicans have long left the party when the Republican leaders kept supporting Trump.

Republicans are not the only ones holding up progress: Democrats have two people who are holding back any bills containing language to address climate change – Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. Those two seem to be holding back any attempt to set goals and provide funding to get to where we need to go despite evidence that the majority of Americans, including Republicans (I presume non-conservatives?), are in agreement that climate change is occurring and something needs to be done.

We can’t deny the fires, flooding, extreme storms and hurricanes impacting all areas of the US. Just about everyone has been impacted by the extreme weather. It seems that it took weird weather at the 11th hour to wake everybody up. Unfortunately, scientists say it is too late to mitigate the dire effects since the change has been set in motion; all we can do is try to prevent the situation from getting worse.

Addendum

I forgot to include this photo last night when I ended the post. The image shows a genius copywriting on climate change. This is a snapshot from LinkedIn and Heather McGowan shared this post.