The Hidden Cost of Climate Denia
This is the tale of how your future financial security was pilfered without your knowledge or awareness. In the 1970s, everyone was in favor of peace, but Exxon, an oil business, was also founded. They were fixated on invention, a concept that currently fascinates us. Thus, Exxon decided to make scientific investments. Once more, Exxon employed experts who were among the first to publish a number of ground-breaking studies outlining how burning fossil fuels will affect the climate because the carbon dioxide emitted will have a greenhouse impact. Don’t you think it’s ironic that oil firms were the ones who uncovered climate change?
When this occurred in the early 1980s, oil prices were falling; therefore, Exxon executives decided to disregard the facts and concentrate on expanding the company instead of paying attention to the information. They did request that the scientists continue to investigate. Their own scientists returned in 1982, but this time they had more comprehensive data and could confirm that “yep, it was worse than they thought.” According to Exxon’s plans, the extraction of fossil fuels will raise sea levels, warm the environment, and intensify severe droughts.
The repercussions on humans will be truly disastrous, which is why scientists recommend a significant decrease in the use of fossil fuels. A former Exxon employee named Lenny Bernstein said the following in an email: “Exxon needed to understand in the 1980s that concerns about climate change could lead to regulation of potential projects.” In this insight, they were well ahead of the rest of the industry.” Exxon could have invested in new energy sources and diversified the energy industry at this time if they had truly intended to be innovators, but instead they chose to lie. To your mother, to me, and to you.
Now in the 1980s, Exxon releases an internal document stating that they “need to start to emphasize the uncertainty of the scientific data around climate change.” This is the first time this has happened. They start to contradict their own research and sow the seeds of what is now recognized as climate change denial. This is a portion of an Exxon internal memo from that period. “At this time, there isn’t any conclusive scientific proof that the globe is warming. It is unlikely that we would notice a global warming trend prior to 1995.” The fact that Exxon actually believed their own climate change theory is one of the most annoying aspects of this tale.
In response to the expected rise in sea levels, drilling platforms were being constructed in the water at this very moment, a little higher up. Since they understood that the sea ice in the Arctic would eventually melt, they also began to make plans to drill there. The consequences of climate change started to show in the late 1980s. With the public becoming aware of the scientific consequences of burning fossil fuels, Time magazine featured an image on its cover depicting the world chained by climate change. 80% of Americans at the time agreed that using fossil fuels was the cause of climate change and acknowledged it as a problem. Nor was it a political matter.
In 1988, following a year in which hundreds of thousands of Americans perished due to extreme heat waves, this is Republican President George W. Bush senior speaking on the campaign trail: “Don’t say these problems are too big, that it’s impossible for an individual, or even a nation as great as ours, to solve the problem of global warming, or the loss of forests, or the deterioration of our oceans.” My answer is straightforward: we need to do it, and it is doable. Remember everything that has been done since 1970, when the United States, then under a Republican government, first focused on environmental preservation.”
During this period, the oil firms began to intensify their efforts to deny climate change because they were afraid of the government’s draconian regulations. They started to get creative, and they came up with the original newspaper advertisement (OPA), which appears to be an article but is actually a completely paid advertisement. This is an example of an opinion piece they sponsored in the left-leaning New York Times. “One of the brighter hopes with the climate change debate has to be the benefits achieved through technology.” Observe how they phrased the “debate” and how they implied that humans will come up with new ways to adapt to the changing environment, which may be a positive thing.
They bribed scientists in secret to propagate falsified research. “Climate change: a degree of uncertainty” was the headline for an article that stated, “The debate on climate change has been long, complex, and intense.” Naturally, this is untrue, as their own science indicates that there was never any discussion at all. A brief but straightforward explanation is that burning CO2 causes the earth to warm through the greenhouse effect. In 1997, Lee Raymond, the CEO of Exxon at the time, made the decision to state in his presentation that the world was truly cooling down, as per their scientific findings. It was an outright falsehood.
Once more, he repeated this in a 1997 talk with the provocatively false title, “Is the earth warming?” which came more than 20 years after his own scientists had first shown that the greenhouse effect is genuine. Is global warming caused by the combustion of fossil fuels? It’s a bad thing that Lee Raymond started making climate change a political issue. The younger George Bush was convinced by Lee Raymond to renounce his campaign vow to include carbon dioxide in the list of pollutants.
The Republican Party was heavily pressed by these large oil companies at the time, and they released this memo: “The scientific debate is closing [against us], but not yet closed.” These are the first instances in which we actually witness climate change becoming a political issue, a left or right issue. A window of opportunity remains to contest the science.” A little while later in the document, the following is stated: “People’s opinions toward global warming will shift if they start to feel that the scientific questions around it have been resolved. Consequently, we must never stop making the absence of scientific certainty the main topic of discussion.” This labor of love has paid off.
About 90% of Americans were not aware in 2017 that there was an agreement among scientists on global warming. Of US citizens, 52% believe that the threat posed by climate change has been overstated. Due to his ignorance, Rex Tillerson—the CEO of Exxon following its merger with Mobil to create Exxon Mobil—was able to get a $500 billion agreement to search for oil in the rapidly warming Russian Arctic. He received the Russian order of friendship in recognition of this scheme. Our massive usage of gas, coal, and oil as energy sources is the primary driver of climate change and global warming. As a result, heat that would have been radiated back into space is trapped when the carbon release combines with oxygen in the atmosphere to form CO2.
As a result, the additional heat trapped close to Earth is comparable to the daily heat gathered in our atmosphere from 400,000 bombs the size of those detonated on Hiroshima. The cost of rising sea levels on the planet will reach $14 trillion by 2100. Since 2000, nine out of the ten worst heat waves in human history have happened. Sixty percent of the world’s fauna has perished since the 1970s. With our present rate of greenhouse gas emissions, tropical places that experience oppressive, humid heat only once a year by 2070 would experience 100–250 days of it annually.
In the last ten years, 100 million trees have died in California, and research indicates that a quarter of the planet could face severe droughts and desertification by 2050 if global temperatures increase as expected. Given that leaving Earth may be our only chance of survival, Stephen Hawking set a century-long deadline for mankind to depart. Furthermore, who will be able to pay for this? Perhaps Lee Raymond, considering that ExxonMobil offered him a meager $400,000,000 as a retirement payout for his outstanding work of generating profits for the firm at your cost.
There is a real climate shift. You, I, and your parents were all deceived by lies. All of this was done by these oil firms due to their lack of foresight. They want financial gain for themselves, but we must consider the long term. It’s up to us young folks to sort of sort of sort through this issue. Although it’s not always our fault, this is a grave injustice. We must decide what to do right away, despite the unfairness of all the falsehoods and deceptions these corporations have perpetrated against the people. One issue, then, is that many are questioning and attempting to determine how the law ought to intervene with these firms. Legally speaking, they ought to be sued for what they did.