The first systematic analysis of data from over a hundred ExxonMobil documents has shown that the company's scientists have accurately modelled global warming caused by fossil fuels since the late 1970s. However, company executives chose to publicly denigrate climate models, insist there was no scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, and claim the science was highly uncertain when their own scientists were telling them the opposite, the study's authors say. Their findings are likely to figure in court proceedings around the world as fossil fuel companies face increasing legal and political attacks for their role in climate change.
[...] 'Exxon leadership had specific, accurate, state-of the art scientific information, presented to them by their own scientists,' says Oreskes. 'And that science was consistent with what academic and government scientists were saying at the same time. Our findings highlight the stark hypocrisy of ExxonMobil [chief executives] Lee Raymond and Rex Tillerson, who for decades insisted on the high degree of 'uncertainty' in climate models, when, in fact, their own scientists had produced models that were not highly uncertain, and which, in hindsight, we can say were highly accurate.'
[...] Another new finding involves ExxonMobil's claim that the science was too uncertain to know when – or if – human-caused global warming might be measurable. In fact, ExxonMobil scientists in the early 1980s offered the date of 2000±5 years, which turned out to be correct, says Oreskes. 'The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] first declared man-made climate change to be 'discernible' in 1995 so they got that right, too.'
[...] The study's findings are hugely significant, says international lawyer Stephen Humphreys from London School of Economics, UK. 'What is extraordinary about this analysis is that it demonstrates a near-perfect grasp of climate science on the part of Exxon scientists almost a decade before the UN's scientists reached the same conclusions. The analysis shows that models made at Exxon from 1982 – six years before the IPCC was even founded – correctly predicted the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the next 40 years, and the rise in global temperatures this would produce, with astonishing accuracy. As the study points out, Exxon scientists were arguably the leading climate scientists in the world at this time. Indeed, in the 1980s, Exxon knew more about fossil-fuel induced climate change than anyone else. [But] instead of acting on this knowledge, they suppressed it.'
Previously:
Trial Set in New York on Exxon's Climate Statements
Royal Dutch Shell Knew Too: Decades-Long Climate Lies
Investigation Finds Exxon Ignored its Own Early Climate Change Warnings
Journal Reference:
G. Supran, S. Rahmstorf, and N. Oreskes, Assessing ExxonMobil's global warming projections, Science, 379, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abk0063
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PBS Reports the Exxon Ignored their own internal climate change warnings:
Despite its efforts for nearly two decades to raise doubts about the science of climate change, newly discovered company documents show that as early as 1977, Exxon research scientists warned company executives that carbon dioxide was increasing in the atmosphere and that the burning of fossil fuels was to blame.
The internal records are detailed in a new investigation published Wednesday by InsideClimate News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning news organization covering energy and the environment.
The investigation found that long before global warming emerged as an issue on the national agenda, Exxon formed an internal brain trust that spent more than a decade trying to understand the impact of rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere — even launching a supertanker with custom-made instruments to sample and understand whether the oceans could absorb the rising atmospheric CO2 levels. Today, Exxon says the study had nothing to do with CO2 emissions, but an Exxon researcher involved in the project remembered it differently in the below video [Ed: in linked story.], which was produced by FRONTLINE in association with the InsideClimate News report.
Common Dreams reports:
Oil giant Shell also knew of the dangers of climate change decades ago, while it continued to lobby against climate legislation and push for fossil fuel development, a joint investigation by The Guardian[1] and the Dutch newspaper The Correspondent revealed [February 28].
Shell created a confidential report in 1986 which found that the changes brought about by global warming could be "the greatest in recorded history", and warned of an impact "on the human environment, future living standards, and food supplies, [that] could have major social, economic, and political consequences".
The company also made a 28-minute educational film in 1991 titled Climate of Concern that warned oil extraction and use could lead to extreme weather, famines, and mass displacement, and noted that the dangers of climate change were "endorsed by a uniquely broad consensus of scientists". The film was developed for public viewing, particularly for schools.
[...] Despite its own warnings, Shell invested billions of dollars into tar sands operations and exploration in the Arctic. It has also devoted millions to lobbying against climate legislation.
The revelations about Shell come after a separate investigation into ExxonMobil revealed that [that] company had also been waging a climate science suppression campaign and burying its own reports on the global warming impacts of fossil fuel use for decades. Exxon, whose former CEO is now U.S. secretary of state, is currently under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and state attorneys general for allegedly lying to investors about the risks of climate change.
In 2016, a group of lawmakers asked the Department of Justice to look into Shell's knowledge of global warming as well.
[1] Bogus link in TFA corrected.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Charges that Exxon Mobil misled investors on the financial risks of climate change will be heard in court this month after a New York judge gave the green light for a trial.
[...] Barry Ostrager, a New York judge, rejected motions on Wednesday night and set a trial to begin next Tuesday.
The lawsuit alleges that Exxon defrauded investors by claiming to fully account for the financial impact of future climate change mitigation policies, when it was not actually doing so.
[...] "As a result of Exxon's fraud, the company was exposed to far greater risk from climate change regulations than investors were led to believe," according to the complaint, which said the scheme enabled Exxon to avoid large asset write-downs that would have represented billions of dollars in lost revenue.
The complaint points the finger at the highest levels of Exxon, including former chief executive and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who "knew for years that the company's representations... were misleading," the complaint said.
An Exxon spokesman said the New York case against it "is misleading and deliberately misrepresents" the company's practices for assessing climate policies.
"The New York Attorney General's allegations are false," the spokesman said.
[...] In August 2018, the US Securities and Exchange Commission ended an investigation into Exxon's decision not to write down assets because of future climate change regulations, taking no action against the company.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RamiK on Saturday February 18, @01:27AM (7 children)
The scientists will be severely punished and the stock holders will be dutifully compensated for their losses.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 18, @01:52PM (6 children)
I worked for a leading respiratory monitoring research company in the 90s, the company sold a series of breath volume measurement devices to the research division of Phillip Morris over the decades.
They were paying top dollar for the best breath measurement equipment for ongoing research spanning decades, and they never published anything. Sure, that is how trade secrets work, but at what point are trade secrets too valuable to the general public to allow them to remain secret?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday February 18, @02:53PM (2 children)
Give them 3-7 (depends on the field) years. If they can't copyright or patent something after tinkering with it for so many years, have the protection invalidated.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 18, @03:39PM (1 child)
>If they can't copyright or patent something after tinkering with it for so many years, have the protection invalidated.
Great plan, but watch big business turn it into a pout fest of: "If we have to disclose our secrets, it lowers their value as a competitive advantage and we just won't do the research in the first place."
Or, if they're talking to a conservative set of legislators: "It's a crime against nature for government to intrude in private business affairs so invasively. The communists and heathens of the world will overtake us if we don't maintain our competitive advantages. Get your nose out of our business before we cut off your campaign contributions!"
I never really understood the fear of the communists rhetoric until I watched a documentary on the October revolution that brought Lenin, and later Stalin, to power. My take is that Lenin wasn't really playing to win, but when he did he had to become most of what he despised in order to ride the tiger to power so he could achieve at least some of his aims, which he did. Unfortunately, he setup a system that allowed Stalin to continue all the worst abuses of power "in the name of the communist state."
Not that I think Communism is all bad, but I believe in today's world transparency, even what people call "Radical Transparency" is a better answer. Time limits on trade secrets certainly would be part of that.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday February 18, @06:54PM
Then don't. The market will simply weed out the businesses that don't R&D just like it's already doing with copyright and patents.
Even if privacy and trade secrets are a moral right, it doesn't mean their enforcement by government is a given. The government enforces the rules of society per the public's interests. Not morals. So, if businesses don't want to rely on government protections for trade secrets since they don't like the disclosure conditions, they're free not to. But they won't enjoy the protection of the courts under such circumstances that's a.k.a. government intervention.
Since, fundamentally, trade secrets are MORE government intervention, the people advocating for them are the communists. Not the ones arguing against them.
compiling...
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Saturday February 18, @08:26PM (2 children)
What was supposed to be so valuable about the Exxon research? Meanwhile it's merely existence is being used in courts as an admission of guilt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19, @04:26AM (1 child)
> What was supposed to be so valuable about the Exxon research?
Wearing blinders again, are we? If the Exxon research was made public at the time it was performed, and if (as tfa says) it agreed with gov't and other climate research. Then, the price of Exxon stock (and all oil companies) would fall, due to the then-obvious need to reduce fossil fuel consumption. There's the value for you.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday February 19, @05:57AM
Sorry, such climate change research is not significantly actionable. Here's an example [soylentnews.org]. Shell got sued in 2017 for similar research and similar conclusions: namely, they determined that global warming could be a problem down the road. I hate to say that, but decades later and that's still the state of the art. Climate change could be a problem!
My take is that the real problem is that existing research is being substantially exaggerated in favor of a particular climate change alarmist narrative. For a glaring example of this in action, the IPCC has refused for years to study climate adaptation and insisted that a very small rise in temperature (earlier 2.0 C now 1.5 C) should be the cap on temperature increase. But at the same time, they have a huge error bar on climate sensitivity (the alleged long term temperature rise from a doubling of CO2 equivalent) of 1.5 C to 4.5 C (some even 6.0 C). The low end of that means that we can go centuries without significant need for action (especially if we don't cap temperature rise at 1.5 C!). Meanwhile 3.0 C (the estimated best value) means that we're already past the 1.5 C threshold! And 4.5 C means we would eventually blow past the 2.0 C threshold too. 6.0 goes much hotter, about 3 C more at current CO2 increases. So why are they studying a particular scenario that doesn't work even with their best guess for this parameter? Answer: because it's propaganda not actual science.
In summary, you have to ask first what current research actually predicts and that means looking at data not heavily manipulated computer models. The answer is that current warming which I assume would be mostly short term warming is about 1.5 C per doubling with some future warming expected. We are far off even from the most basic predictions.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Snotnose on Saturday February 18, @04:06AM
if the Exxon Scientists got Nobels for their work.
Not haha funny.......
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday February 18, @04:35AM (2 children)
The error bars would have been really high.
(Score: 4, Touché) by turgid on Saturday February 18, @11:05AM (1 child)
I dare say the quality of the code would have been better (smaller, simpler) so the results would be more trustworthy.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 18, @01:55PM
There was still plenty of shockingly bad code in the 70s, and even worse development practices. But, you are right: flaws were easier to find, if anyone (with the right skills) ever took the time to look.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by quietus on Saturday February 18, @03:48PM (11 children)
Back in 1996 I was at a week long symposium to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the British Mycological Society. We, a bunch of young scientists, wanted to give out a press statement that we were concerned about the possible impact of what was then still called the Greenhouse Effect. (Like plants, fungi do not tend to hop around: so if you see a bunch of Mediterranean types suddenly appear in your Northern meadow grasslands, that indicates something is amiss: and something already was amiss since the beginning of the 80s.)
The guy who took the initiative for that statement, and gathering the signatures underscoring its importance, was told in no uncertain terms by the President -- an Oxford Don -- of the BMS that he'd better forget about that, if he still wanted to have a career. We folded.
So, don't put all the blame on Exxon, or Big Oil, or whatever, here: there were, and still are, many complices. Just think about it: if you really wanted to change people's behaviour, would you continue the mantra of 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature rise, or a centimeters/inches rise in the sea level by 2100?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by khallow on Saturday February 18, @08:32PM (4 children)
Why would you think climate change rather than human-based transport?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday February 19, @02:56AM (3 children)
Indeed; if it were following the climate, there'd be a trail of specimens leading back to its original environment. Not just spot-appearance in some weird place. Spot appearance a long way from existing habitat means something tracked it in.
See also zebra mussels.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by lars_stefan_axelsson on Monday February 20, @11:02AM (2 children)
Not necessarily. You see, people have always tracked species all over the place, and that didn't lead to said species gaining a foothold. The conditions weren't conducive to they surviving and thriving (producing offspring) in their new habitat.
BUT, with changing climate that's changing. So if you all of a sudden see species adapted to a very different (e.g. warmer) climate gaining a foothold, then something has indeed changed.
So yes, with gradually changing conditions species can spread slowly into new habitats. But they can also spread through gaining a foothold in a locale where they wouldn't be viable before.
It's complex though. We of course have the greatest problems with species that are adapted to a set of conditions being introduced to new habitats which provide much the same conditions. So of course not all species gain a foothold due to changing environments. Far from it.
Stefan Axelsson
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday February 20, @03:03PM
"So if you all of a sudden see species adapted to a very different (e.g. warmer) climate gaining a foothold, then something has indeed changed."
Not necessarily, I have an example right in my front garden. When I moved back to Montana from SoCal, I brought local wild California Poppy seeds with me, from a desert area with rather extreme temps and some years rain is a myth. In CA they're a very short-lived annual that only shows up for a couple months after the spring rains, then dies. Care to guess what they are in Montana?
Here in Montana, California Poppies are short-lived perennials (3-4 years) that are unfazed by winter -- in fact I've had 'em bloom in November, after it's been well below zero, and current temps weren't above freezing. (Come to find out my neighbor has a naturalized patch of 'em too.)
And a bit to the east of me are stands of naturalized Tamarisk (saltcedar) ... a hot-desert tree that thrives in Montana (in fact much better than in the SoCal desert, where it's a large bush; with more water, it becomes a big tree).
Going the other way, Italian Stone Pines are native to a mild Mediterranean climate... but they're also one of the very few trees that survives the long droughts and extreme heat of the SoCal deserts. Likewise Osage Orange -- native to the Ohio valley, but also hardy in the SoCal desert (to the point of becoming naturalized). Neither of these is stunted by desert life, unlike saltcedar and peaches (which also live there).
Fact is there's a lot of life, plant, animal, and fungus, that is far more adaptable than an apparently-limited range would indicate, and the limiting factor isn't whether it can adapt, but whether it can travel the intervening distance. And if it can't on its own, but humans track it to a new location, then it mysteriously appears! OMG, Montana must be warming, look at all the California Poppies!!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 21, @03:10PM
(Score: 1) by BeaverCleaver on Sunday February 19, @10:11AM (5 children)
I can see why they do this - it's simple numbers that are technically correct, fit in a tweet and can be used globally... but yeah, 1.5 degrees just doesn't sound very urgent, does it? It's way too easy to think "oh well, that just means winters will be a bit milder and summer will be a bit warmer, it's gonna be fine."
But of course that's not how averages work. Maybe winter will stay cold, maybe spring and autumn will be unchanged too. Summers where you live could get 6 degrees warmer and the "1.5 degree average" increase would still be 100% accurate. And 6 degrees is plenty to do real damage. London got to 40C last year and loads of stuff broke and people died. How would they cope with 46C?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 20, @05:50AM (2 children)
Why would summers get 6 C higher with a fraction of 1 C increase in temperature (recall we're a bit more than 1 C into this 1.5 C increase)? Do you have evidence for that?
(Score: 1) by BeaverCleaver on Monday February 20, @10:02PM (1 child)
I'm not saying this will happen, or even that it's likely to happen. I was just commenting on the post that I quoted, musing on how using a global average number is quick and convenient but fails to convey any real urgency.
But in answer to your question, yes, there is plenty of evidence that climate change is not affecting the entire planet in one uniform way. For example, the Arctic tundra which is warming at twice the global average: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150706114229.htm [sciencedaily.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 21, @05:53AM
Plenty of stuff that falls in the unlikely to happen doesn't actually happen. And given that you (as well as the scientific community) can't actually come up with evidence for extreme land-based warming, then maybe we should worry about something else instead?
Because we have a ready mechanism for how that happens - albedo change from less snow cover resulting in more solar energy absorbed over the course of a year. London does get some snow so we would expect albedo change and enhanced local warming as a result. But there won't be snow cover at 40 C so that effect won't be relevant.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday February 20, @03:08PM (1 child)
Maybe Londoners aren't real bright? When I lived in the desert, I coped with 46C just fine. And I'm native to the Northern Wastes, where -46C is not unheard-of.
And somehow humans thrived during the Medieval Warm Period, and the Roman Warm Period, and the Bronze Age Optimum... all somewhat warmer than it is today.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by BeaverCleaver on Monday February 20, @10:09PM
What were the night time temperatures like in those deserts? How about the humidity? Did you have to share the desert with 10 million other people in close proximity?
I'm sure that if we lived like medieval people, we'd be fine, but if you're really thinking London (and human civilisation) hasn't changed since Roman or even Medieval times, I'm not sure what else to say.
I'm not a Londoner and London temperatures don't affect me directly. But their infrastructure has not been designed to work reliably in temperatures of 40+ degrees. Yes, they should have done something about this in the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was using "the greenhouse effect" as it was then known to punish blue collar workers in Britain. But they didn't, and in their defence neither did the rest of the world, and here we are seeing the consequences.