For 50 Years the Major Oil Companies Have Known They’re Destroying the Planet

Literary Hub reports on research that Exxon scientists conducted nearly fifty years ago. In nineteen seventy-seven, senior scientist James Black presented findings to the company's management committee showing that burning fossil fuels was warming the global climate—with potential temperature increases of two to three degrees Celsius, or as much as ten degrees at the poles. To determine whether the world's oceans could absorb enough carbon dioxide to delay an energy transition, Exxon commissioned a three-year research project aboard a supertanker called the Esso Atlantic, equipped with custom climate-monitoring instruments. The research delivered what the company called "bad news": the oceans' carbon-absorption capacity was limited. Yet Exxon's internal knowledge and external messaging diverged sharply in the years that followed. Those early climate models proved remarkably accurate, tracking atmospheric carbon and temperature changes almost perfectly for over four decades.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton