Exxon Scientists Predicted Global Warming in 1970’s

I thought we knew this about ExxonMobil

 

All I know is when I was in school in the 60s they taught us we were headed for an Ice Age.

 

Ergo: all of science is and will always be wrong.

 

This is exactly what I remember.

 

These days that’s not much of an exaggeration.

 

Science, technology, and overall knowledge, are always expanding. Well, for most of us.

 

There is also another answer. There is a ton of grant money that tends to sway scientist & researchers opinions from time to time. I heard Travis Taylor say once in an interview that one of his grad school professors refused to answer a question because he said the answer could cost the University a bunch of grant money.

 

No doubt that probably happens, at times.

 

I don’t have the time or energy to find it, but even in the early 70’s, academic papers ran something like 6-1 saying global warming was the likely outcome of what we were doing.
But hey, Time had one cover about cooling, and that’s what everyone seems to want to remember. It was never the expected outcome.

 

Yep. It was always the more likely result. It just isn't the story some people like while we live through the fairly obvious early climactic effects.

The debate occurred between a larger group that thought that our production of CO2 and other pollutants that had a warming effect would be more impactful than aerosol pollution, which likely would have a cooling effect. Another set of scientists thought it would go the other direction. Then, over decades, they observed what happened and it turned out the larger group was right in the end, especially as we were more successful in reducing aerosol pollution (the reduction of which had positive effects on health and wellness of people) than we were in reducing carbon pollution.

 

To doubt a paper by a company that would lose everything if society chose to act immediately on their science is beyond illogical. I guess it was guessing and belief in the supernatural that got us to the moon. This statement is probably the most ignorant statement I’ve heard since hearing the “world is flat”.
Education the application of logic and the scientific method will release you from such inane ignorance.

I will stick with the two great minds of the 20th Century; Bertrand Russell and Carl Sagan, over a mindless fool on the internet: As Carl Sagan says:

Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being. If we’re true to its values, it can tell us when we’re being lied to. It provides a mid-course correction to our mistakes.

[…]

Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us.

Carl Sagan on Humility, Science as a Tool of Democracy, and the Value of Uncertainty

 

I call BS on the one magazine cover is what everybody wants to remember. That magazine cover wasn't Time it was Newsweek in 1975. The media likes to quote that article and claim it is where the coming Ice Age story came from but I distinctly remember discussing the coming Ice Age in Jr High Science class during the early to mid 60s.

 

Time had more than one cover. Some may also remember the Parade magazine that came in the Sunday paper as well as Newsweek and the Washington Post reporting the same.

 

again. Those were the exceptions , the numbers are in this article. But people see what they want to see.

Study debunks 'global cooling' concern of '70s

 

If I recall the Parade magazine in the Sunday paper had a much greater distribution than Time magazine. Even National Geographic got in on the mantra as well a Life Magazine. I think at this point we can both agree that what gets reported and disseminated depends on what the media believes is worthy of print and ensures a return on investment. For what it's worth climate change - winter is killing my heating bill at the moment can that can be attributed to the rise in energy costs. Cyclical changes in climate where I live are not out of the norm. My energy bill however is a different story.

 

None of that changes the fact that anecdotal or one off stories didn’t represent the science view of the time. Whether 51 was indeed taught something in school or there were magazine covers, science at the time heavily leaned towards MMGW.

 

I shoulda put a sarcasm symbol on my post.

 

It should be noted that Dr. Schneider realized his mistake about 2 years after this was published. And 4 years later, he came out with a model that projected warming, more in line with scientific consensus.

The ice-age U-turn that set the stage for the climate debate

 

Follow the money for research and jump on the band wagon. The money is what drives the whole of it all. Let me tell you what you want to hear and make you believe it.

Let's be honest here the Federal Government didn't contact these people and ask for the research. These people asked the Federal Government for money to do it and the Federal Government was only to happy to oblige.