They Knew, They Lied: ExxonMobil and Climate Change

[WilliamPitt]

(Photo: Los Angeles Smog via Shutterstock)

They Knew, They Lied: ExxonMobil and Climate Change
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Thursday 16 July 2015

Between 1956 and 1964, Bell Laboratories produced a number of television specials titled "The Bell Laboratories Science Series." The topics ranged from an examination of the Sun, to human blood, deep space, the mind, the nature of time and life itself. The programs were produced by Frank Capra, whose films include It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, so the production value of the series was notably superior. Even 30 years later, schools all across the US were still showing these Bell Labs films to students.

In 1958, a chapter in this series titled "The Unchained Goddess" was broadcast. The topic was the weather, and it starred Richard Carlson and a USC professor named Dr. Frank C. Baxter. At one point in the program, Carlson asked Dr. Baxter, "What would happen if we could change the course of the Gulf Stream, or the other great ocean currents, or warm up Hudson Bay with atomic furnaces?" The "atomic furnaces" bit is a quaint throwback to the atom-crazy 1950s, but the response given by Dr. Baxter is what makes this particular film notable.

"Extremely dangerous questions," replied Dr. Baxter, "because with our present knowledge we have no idea what would happen. Even now, Man may be unwittingly changing the world's climate through the waste products of his civilization. Due to our release, through factories and automobiles every year, of more than 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide - which helps air absorb heat from the Sun - our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer. It's been calculated that a few degrees rise in the Earth's temperature would melt the polar ice caps, and if this happens, an inland sea would fill a good portion of the Mississippi Valley. Tourists in glass-bottomed boats would be viewing the drowned towers of Miami through 150 feet of tropical water."

(snip)

The ocean is coming. Many very smart people have been warning us of this for seven decades. As for the people who bent their shoulders to the task of denying this inexorable tidal truth for so many years that could have been spent checking and averting this looming disaster, well ... I hope their cash can act as a flotation device. They believe themselves to be so powerful, but the ocean brooks no challengers.

For the rest of us: the aftermath of lies. The tobacco companies tried this denial number, and it killed millions of people. The lies of ExxonMobil and the cohort of energy companies who paid through the nose to deny the damage they were doing may well have cashed the final check for life on Earth as we know it. They knew. They lied. How many will die for their profit margin? How many have died already?

Mind the tides. The brutal reality of consequences is coming up the beach.

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31885-they-knew-they-lied-exxonmobil-and-climate-change

[Gothmog]

1. Exxon is using same tactics as big tobacco used in the 1970s

[tclambert]

5. They hired some of the same people the tobacco companies used.

[Gothmog]

9. Fred Singer comes to mind

[cantbeserious]

2. Merchants Of Doubt - Naomi Oreskes

eom

[WillyT]

3. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[bjobotts]

4. Climate scientist say we are passing the point of no return

by 2050 if we don't act now for the survival of our species. Right now...right now...so dealing with climate change should be number one issue for all politicians or don't vote for them.

[jwirr]

6. Thank you. Great article.

[DirkGently]

7. Tyson's new Cosmos had a great piece on an earlier example

of oil companies using fudged science to rationalize deadly environmental hazards: leaded gasoline. For years, oil and gas companies, who needed lead as an anti-knock additive, maintained that high levels of lead in the bloodstream were "natural." It took a scientist devising a new way to calculate the true age of the Earth to prove them wrong:

In his effort to ensure that lead was removed from gasoline (petrol), Patterson fought against the lobbying power of the Ethyl Corporation (which employed Kehoe), against the legacy of Thomas Midgley — which included tetraethyllead and chlorofluorocarbons — and against the lead additive industry as a whole. Following Patterson's criticism of the lead industry, he was refused contracts with many research organizations, including the supposedly neutral United States Public Health Service. In 1971 he was excluded from a National Research Council (NRC) panel on atmospheric lead contamination, even though he was the foremost expert on the subject at that time.[7]

The United States mandated the use of unleaded gasoline to protect catalytic converters in all new cars starting with the 1975 model year,[8] but Patterson's efforts accelerated the phaseout of lead from all standard, consumer, automotive gasoline in the United States by 1986. Lead levels within the blood of Americans are reported to have dropped by up to 80% by the late 1990s.[9]

He then turned his attention to lead in food where similar experimental deficiencies had masked the increase. In one study he showed an increase in lead levels from 0.3 to 1400 nanograms per gram in certain canned fish compared with fresh, whilst the official laboratory had reported an increase of 400 ng/g to 700 ng/g.[10] He compared the lead, barium and calcium levels in 1600 year-old Peruvian skeletons and showed a 700- to 1200-fold increase in lead levels in modern human bones with no comparable changes in the barium and calcium levels.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/04/cosmos-neil-tyson-lead-industry-science-denial

[antiquie]

8. Another thank you.

We did accomplish some things...they just got undone.

[hifiguy]

10. The First Commandment of Predatory Capitalism

is Nothing Shall Stand In The Way Of Profits, Especially Human Life.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, WilliamPitt.

[hatrack]

12. Of course they did. It's what they do, as required by law - maximize profit.

And if other parts of the law get in the way, fuck 'em.

[spanone]

13. k&r...

[raouldukelives]

14. We will continue to deal with the problems corporations want us too.

Namely, anything that doesn't affect the flow of Wall St money to its sucklings.

Thanks to the shareholders of pain and deceit. Who would never dream of voting for conservatives, but have no problem funding their campaigns.

Who would never dream of beating a furry seal to a quick death, but have no qualms giving it a slow, horrible one.

The more weight behind Wall St, the more on all of us. The time to start legitimately caring about ones actions may be far past time, but its never too late to become a decent human being.