[MCN] What did Exxon know, and when did it know it?

[Lance Olsen]

"As early as 1977, one of Exxon's senior 
scientists warned a gathering of oilmen of a 
'general scientific agreement' that the burning 
of fossil fuels was influencing the climate. A 
year later, he had updated his assessment, 
warning that 'present thinking holds that man has 
a time window of five to 10 years before the need 
for hard decisions regarding changes in energy 
strategies might become critical.'"

"In the 1980s, Exxon scientists collaborated with 
academic and government researchers to build 
climate models and understand their implications. 
When one researcher expressed the opinion that 
the impacts would be 'well short of 
catastrophic,' the director of the Theoretical 
and Mathematical Sciences Laboratory at Exxon 
Research responded in a memo, 'I think that this 
statement may be too reassuring.' He said it was 
'distinctly possible' that the projected warming 
trend after 2030 'will indeed be catastrophic (at 
least for a substantial fraction of the earth's 
population),' a conclusion that most climate 
scientists now hold, assuming we continue 
business as usual."

Full report here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/opinion/exxons-climate-concealment.html?utm_source=climatenexus&utm_medium=referral&_r=0

-- 
============================================================
"Š energy consumption in 1960 was about half what 
it is now [i.e., 1970] Š. Surely we had a 
civilized country then, with roads, electricity, 
entertainment, and so on. Š. Have we, by doubling 
our energy consumption, doubled our happiness?"

Kimon Valaskakis, Peter S. Sindell, J. Graham 
Smith, and Iris Fitzpatrick-Martin. The Conserver 
Society. 1970. Harper & Row.

===========================================================
"We have only one planet and the time has come to 
transform our present lifestyle and consumption 
patterns in order to halt the degradation of the 
Earth's natural capital ..."

From the Executive Summary, WWF:  China 
Ecological Footprint: Report 2012 : Consumption, 
production, and sustainability.


























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