{"id":1612,"date":"2018-09-13T17:43:39","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T17:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euromenaenergy.com\/?p=1612"},"modified":"2018-09-13T17:43:39","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T17:43:39","slug":"global-warmings-paper-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/?p=1612","title":{"rendered":"Global warming\u2019s paper trail"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Benjamin Franta Stanford<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One day in 1961, an American economist named Daniel Ellsberg stumbled across a piece of paper with apocalyptic implications.
\nEllsberg, who was advising the US government on its secret nuclear war plans, had discovered a document that contained an official estimate of the death toll in a pre-emptive \u201cfirst strike\u201d on China and the Soviet Union: approximately 300mn in those countries, and double that globally.
\nEllsberg was troubled that such a plan existed; years later, he tried to leak the details of nuclear annihilation to the public.
\nAlthough this attempt failed, Ellsberg would later become famous for leaking what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers \u2013 the US government\u2019s secret history of its military intervention in Vietnam.
\nAmerica\u2019s amoral military planning during the Cold War echoes the hubris exhibited by another cast of characters gambling with the fate of humanity.
\nRecently, secret documents have been unearthed detailing what the energy industry knew about the links between their products and global warming.
\nBut, unlike the government\u2019s nuclear plans, what the industry detailed was put into action.
\nIn the 1980s, oil companies like Exxon and Shell carried out internal assessments of the carbon dioxide released by fossil fuels, and forecast the planetary consequences of these emissions.
\nIn 1982, for example, Exxon predicted that by about 2090, CO2 levels would double relative to the 1800s, and that this, according to the best science at the time, would push the planet\u2019s average temperatures up by about 3\u00b0C.
\nLater that decade, in 1988, an internal report by Shell projected similar effects, but also found that CO2 could double even earlier, by 2030.
\nPrivately, these companies did not dispute the links between their products, global warming, and ecological calamity.
\nOn the contrary, their research confirmed the connections.
\nShell\u2019s assessment foresaw a 60-70cm rise in sea level, and noted that warming could also fuel the disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, resulting in a worldwide rise in sea level of \u201c5 to 6m.\u201d That would be enough to inundate entire low-lying countries.
\nShell\u2019s analysts also warned of the \u201cdisappearance of specific ecosystems or habitat destruction,\u201d predicted an increase in \u201crunoff, destructive floods, and inundation of low-lying farmland,\u201d and said that \u201cnew sources of freshwater would be required\u201d to compensate for changes in precipitation.
\nGlobal changes in air temperature would also \u201cdrastically change the way people live and work.\u201d All told, Shell concluded, \u201cthe changes may be the greatest in recorded history.\u201d
\nFor its part, Exxon warned of \u201cpotentially catastrophic events that must be considered.\u201d Like Shell\u2019s experts, Exxon\u2019s scientists predicted devastating sea level rise, and warned that the American Midwest and other parts of the world could become desert-like.
\nLooking on the bright side, the company expressed its confidence that \u201cthis problem is not as significant to mankind as a nuclear holocaust or world famine.\u201d
\nThe documents make for frightening reading.
\nAnd the effect is all the more chilling in view of the oil giants\u2019 refusal to warn the public about the damage that their own researchers predicted.
\nShell\u2019s report, marked \u201cconfidential,\u201d was first disclosed by a Dutch news organisation earlier this year.
\nExxon\u2019s study was not intended for external distribution, either; it was leaked in 2015.
\nNor did these companies ever take responsibility for their products.
\nIn Shell\u2019s study, the firm argued that the \u201cmain burden\u201d of addressing climate change rests not with the energy industry, but with governments and consumers.
\nThat argument might have made sense if oil executives, including those from Exxon and Shell, had not later lied about climate change and actively prevented governments from enacting clean-energy policies.
\nAlthough the details of global warming were foreign to most people in the 1980s, among the few who had a better idea than most were the companies contributing the most to it.
\nDespite scientific uncertainties, the bottom line was this: oil firms recognised that their products added CO2 to the atmosphere, understood that this would lead to warming, and calculated the likely consequences.
\nAnd then they chose to accept those risks on our behalf, at our expense, and without our knowledge.
\nThe catastrophic nuclear war plans that Ellsberg saw in the 1960s were a Sword of Damocles that fortunately never fell.
\nBut the oil industry\u2019s secret climate change predictions are becoming reality, and not by accident.
\nAs the world warms, the building blocks of our planet \u2013 its ice sheets, forests, and atmospheric and ocean currents \u2013 are being altered beyond repair.
\nWho has the right to foresee such damage and then choose to fulfil the prophecy? Although war planners and fossil fuel companies had the arrogance to decide what level of devastation was appropriate for humanity, only Big Oil had the temerity to follow through.
\nThat, of course, is one time too many. \u2013 Project Syndicate<\/p>\n

* Benjamin Franta, a former research fellow at the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is a doctoral candidate at Stanford University, where his research focuses on climate politics and the manipulation\u00a0<\/em>of science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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