Forty five years ago, on this day, June 6, 1978, Exxon got told about the climate crisis to be caused by its product… We know this thanks to the hard work of the folks at Inside Climate News and Exxon Knew.
6 June 1978 PRESENTATION SHARED WITH EXXON MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE from Exxon Research and Engineering Science Advisor, James Black
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Exxon had been aware of the climate issue like anyone else for a long time. They were beginning to liaise with certain scientists, like Wally Broecker, to do some investigation of their own and to offer Exxon facilities, ships etc. as platforms from which useful data could be measured.
What I think we can learn from this. This isn’t necessarily an effort at silencing or cooptation (in fact, that would be a perverse reading). This is just a big company trying to figure out what’s going on.
What happened next
Of course, since then, Exxon has done pretty much everything within its power to block climate action, because that action would impinge on their profits.
The predictions their scientists made in the 1970s? Pretty good… https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.