The Long Tale of Exxon and Climate Change

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  1. JohnT commented on Nov 5

    I just wanted to mention that scientists were aware of global warming at least since 1957 when Edward Teller (the father of the H-Bomb) presented a paper of the effect of fossil fuels.

    From Wikipedia
    Teller was one of the first prominent people to raise the danger of climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels. At an address to the membership of the American Chemical Society in December 1957, Teller warned that the large amount of carbon-based fuel that had been burnt since the mid-19th century was increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which would (as a contemporary account of his comments summarized) “act in the same way as a greenhouse and will raise the temperature at the surface”, and that he had calculated that if the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by 10% “an appreciable part of the polar ice might melt.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller#Global_Climate_Change

  2. intlacct commented on Nov 5

    Won’t there be tons of land in Greenland then? Won’t the setting for the movie ‘Fargo’ become unrecognizable (ie not bleak, desolate and blood-spattered)? Couldn’t it be just what the doctor ordered since we have ice ages every 10k years or so? Call me a madcap…

    • Liquidity Trader commented on Nov 6

      Its possible that the increased energy absorbed by planetary climate systems wont only result in hotter summers, but colder, snowier winters and more storms and weather volatility in general

    • DeDude commented on Nov 6

      madcap – the difference between now and back last time when the polar ice cap melted is about 50 trillion worth of infrastructure. Back last time whatever the monkey/humans “owned” – they could pick up and carry to a cave higher up the mountain. Nowadays moving Manhattan to up in the Catskills is goner take more than one trip. If it occurred in a natural cycle over thousands of years it would not be a big deal – but if it comes in 1-200 years it will be very disruptive and costly.

  3. RW commented on Nov 6

    Hmmm, the magic 8 ball is cloudy but are those RICO charges I see in Exxon’s future?

    Bet climate change gets a least a little nod when yellow fever starts killing people in Fargo.

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