But starting in 1989, Exxon publicly dismissed its own findings. With floods, fires, and smoke growing noticeably worse, a social reckoning is at hand: Young people are turning away from careers in the stigmatized oil and gas industry.Īt the beginning of the 1980s, Exxon’s own scientists had warned that continuing to burn fossil fuels would lead to “catastrophic” and “irreversible” consequences. Harvard, Princeton, and other prominent universities are getting rid of investments in fossil fuels. Activist shareholders have gained seats at oil companies including ExxonMobil, seeking to align their business strategies with the climate crisis. The study comes at a time when oil giants are under pressure to curb carbon pollution and prepare for a future powered by renewables like wind and solar. The chart below shows how global warming projections modeled by Exxon scientists compared to the actual temperature that ensued. “It kind of took my breath away when I actually plotted for the first time Exxon’s predictions, and you see them land so tightly around that red curve of reality,” said Geoffrey Supran, a co-author of the study who researched fossil fuel propaganda at Harvard and is now a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami. The study could provide fresh support for lawsuits against ExxonMobil by quantifying just how well the company understood the threat of the climate crisis decades ago. Between 63 and 83 percent of Exxon’s projections, depending on how they’re measured, accurately predicted how the world would warm in the coming decades. Researchers at Harvard University and the University of Potsdam in Germany found that Exxon’s estimates from 1977 to 2003 proved to be just as precise as those from independent academics and government scientists. They turned out to be eerily accurate.Ī study published in the journal Science on Thursday is the first to systematically measure how those models matched up against the real world. In 1982, the company pivoted to a cheaper approach and directed its scientists to create mathematical models that calculated how rising carbon dioxide levels would change life on Earth in the coming decades. It took an oil tanker, revamped it into a research vessel, then sent it on long journeys around the Atlantic Ocean to measure how the ocean was absorbing rising carbon dioxide emissions. Rising emissions posed a threat to Exxon’s business - selling fossil fuels - so the oil giant took the lead on understanding what was called the “CO2 problem.”Īt the time, Exxon was pouring $900,000 a year into researching the effects of burning fossil fuels. In the early 1980s, America’s biggest company knew more about climate change than basically anyone else.
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