Can you contribute more on 'That's the point of the article.' ? The question I asked, perhaps badly was exactly "What is the point of this article?"
You state "59 years ago ... well before the consensus about the reality of global warming began to form." And I had pointed out that 59 years ago there were several different threats to the world that were pointed out by brilliant people, what is the point of going back and cherry picking one that panned out? (the others haven't)
I really did not see any point to the article. Since you did (see the point) , and you assert that the point involved the timing of the conference and the discussion it contained, what is that relevant to? The greenhouse effect was discovered in the 19th century[1], and by 1959 it was common knowledge. Teller was doing a nice side by side comparison of energy technologies in 1959 and notes one side effect that burning fossil fuels has, based on 19th century science, that nuclear power does not.
When I read that article I felt that it creates a false narrative that somehow the petroleum industry was 'warned' and then through 'and its conspiracy of silence, deceit, and obstruction' somehow blocked something. And my argument is that this is silly, if we were to take any scientific hypothesis as fact and start acting before the science was in (and I gave several examples of where that would have been 'bad') we (collectively) would have made the wrong choice.
Can you contribute more on 'That's the point of the article.'?
Sure. I'm not a scientist but I have done some reading about Teller and his role in the Manhattan Project and its aftermath. He was clearly a genius. He was also a controversial figure and had a poor reputation in the physics community because of his churlish behavior in the theoretical physics group at Los Alamos, his claim to be the "father of the Hydrogen bomb", and the Oppenheimer affair.
It's no surprise that the petroleum industry ignored his 1959 warnings about CO2 pollution of the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. The point of the article is that because of his poor reputation in the scientific community, scientists might have dismissed his important message.
I didn't see in this article where it describes how Teller's poor reputation in the scientific community might have caused many scientists from dismissing his message.
While he was "ostracized by the scientific community for betraying his colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer" ... "he retained the embrace of industry and government."
It makes no mention of Teller's influence on how other scientists in the 1950s and 1960s viewed global warming.
Agreed, but I think the author implies that scientists didn't trust Teller and therefore weren't listening to him. It's an interesting claim. I have no idea if it's true.
I don't know either, but as the article was about Teller's influence (or lack thereof) on the oil industry, I don't think we can draw a conclusion about his influence on the scientific understanding of global warming.
The point is that the oil industry has long stated to the public and shareholders something along the lines of the 1997 advertorial: “Let’s face it: The science of climate change is too uncertain to mandate a plan of action that could plunge economies into turmoil.”
However, documentary evidence shows again and again that they had plenty of warning, and plenty of chance to investigate the possible effects. And the petroleum industry actually did research on the topic, which agreed with the general scientific conclusion.
It's not some single or small number of "brilliant people" who pointed it out, but something investigated by their own researchers, who came to similar conclusions.
We conclude that ExxonMobil contributed to advancing climate science—by way of its scientists' academic publications—but promoted doubt about it in advertorials. Given this discrepancy, we conclude that ExxonMobil misled the public.
... We stress that the question is not whether ExxonMobil 'suppressed climate change research,' but rather how they communicated about it [11].
as well as
A third example is a table (see https://perma.cc/9DGQ-4TBW) presented by Exxon scientist Henry Shaw at a 1984 Exxon/Esso environmental conference, which showed that Exxon's expected 'average temperature rise' of 1.3 °C–3.1 °C was comparable to projections by leading research institutions (1.5 °C–4.5 °C) .
That is, their own researchers knew that there was sufficiently strong evidence of global warming that it could justify changing large-scale change in economic policy. It just didn't make it out to Exxon general communications.
This Guardian article is "merely" an extension of the document trail backwards by a few more decades.
As this piece points out:
Dunlop went on to describe progress in controlling carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, and hydrocarbon emissions from automobiles. Absent from his list? The pollutant he had been warned of years before: carbon dioxide.
If your argument is "if we were to take any scientific hypothesis as fact and start acting before the science was in .. we .. would have made the wrong choice", then in 1967 what was the argument for controlling CO, NOx, and hydrocarbon emissions, and why was it stronger than the argument for controlling CO2 emissions?
This isn't rhetorical. I don't have an answer to that. SRI a year later pointed out to the API that CO2 pollution was important, so it's not like this was an obscure topic even then, only promoted by a couple of influential individuals.
One easy interpretation is that there were ways to handle those pollutants, and they had obvious local effects like smog, but no way to handle CO2 pollution or pressing need, so they shoved it under the rug in discussions with the public and with shareholders.
Comments
Can you contribute more on 'That's the point of the article.' ? The question I asked, perhaps badly was exactly "What is the point of this article?"
You state "59 years ago ... well before the consensus about the reality of global warming began to form." And I had pointed out that 59 years ago there were several different threats to the world that were pointed out by brilliant people, what is the point of going back and cherry picking one that panned out? (the others haven't)
I really did not see any point to the article. Since you did (see the point) , and you assert that the point involved the timing of the conference and the discussion it contained, what is that relevant to? The greenhouse effect was discovered in the 19th century[1], and by 1959 it was common knowledge. Teller was doing a nice side by side comparison of energy technologies in 1959 and notes one side effect that burning fossil fuels has, based on 19th century science, that nuclear power does not.
When I read that article I felt that it creates a false narrative that somehow the petroleum industry was 'warned' and then through 'and its conspiracy of silence, deceit, and obstruction' somehow blocked something. And my argument is that this is silly, if we were to take any scientific hypothesis as fact and start acting before the science was in (and I gave several examples of where that would have been 'bad') we (collectively) would have made the wrong choice.
[1] https://history.aip.org/climate/co2.htm
Sure. I'm not a scientist but I have done some reading about Teller and his role in the Manhattan Project and its aftermath. He was clearly a genius. He was also a controversial figure and had a poor reputation in the physics community because of his churlish behavior in the theoretical physics group at Los Alamos, his claim to be the "father of the Hydrogen bomb", and the Oppenheimer affair.
It's no surprise that the petroleum industry ignored his 1959 warnings about CO2 pollution of the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. The point of the article is that because of his poor reputation in the scientific community, scientists might have dismissed his important message.
I didn't see in this article where it describes how Teller's poor reputation in the scientific community might have caused many scientists from dismissing his message.
While he was "ostracized by the scientific community for betraying his colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer" ... "he retained the embrace of industry and government."
It makes no mention of Teller's influence on how other scientists in the 1950s and 1960s viewed global warming.
Agreed, but I think the author implies that scientists didn't trust Teller and therefore weren't listening to him. It's an interesting claim. I have no idea if it's true.
I don't know either, but as the article was about Teller's influence (or lack thereof) on the oil industry, I don't think we can draw a conclusion about his influence on the scientific understanding of global warming.
The point is that the oil industry has long stated to the public and shareholders something along the lines of the 1997 advertorial: “Let’s face it: The science of climate change is too uncertain to mandate a plan of action that could plunge economies into turmoil.”
However, documentary evidence shows again and again that they had plenty of warning, and plenty of chance to investigate the possible effects. And the petroleum industry actually did research on the topic, which agreed with the general scientific conclusion.
It's not some single or small number of "brilliant people" who pointed it out, but something investigated by their own researchers, who came to similar conclusions.
The link to the NYT op ed links to http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f saying:
as well as
That is, their own researchers knew that there was sufficiently strong evidence of global warming that it could justify changing large-scale change in economic policy. It just didn't make it out to Exxon general communications.
This Guardian article is "merely" an extension of the document trail backwards by a few more decades.
As this piece points out:
If your argument is "if we were to take any scientific hypothesis as fact and start acting before the science was in .. we .. would have made the wrong choice", then in 1967 what was the argument for controlling CO, NOx, and hydrocarbon emissions, and why was it stronger than the argument for controlling CO2 emissions?
This isn't rhetorical. I don't have an answer to that. SRI a year later pointed out to the API that CO2 pollution was important, so it's not like this was an obscure topic even then, only promoted by a couple of influential individuals.
One easy interpretation is that there were ways to handle those pollutants, and they had obvious local effects like smog, but no way to handle CO2 pollution or pressing need, so they shoved it under the rug in discussions with the public and with shareholders.