INTRODUCTION | CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER 2 

CHAPTER 1:

Where Are We?
&
Why Are We Here?

The news is not great, but it is still pretty good. The climate has been changing since the ice age. It has been slowly warming for tens of thousands of years. In the past 100,000 years, the Earth's average temperature has risen by around 8^oF. Most Earth Scientists believe the Earth should be moving into a cooling cycle, but it’s not. In the past century, the Earth has been warming 100 times faster than before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. ^{Is today's climate change similar to the natural warming between ice ages? | MIT Climate Portal}

Our winters are still cold, but they are milder than they used to be. Our summers, on the other hand, are killing people. In Phoenix, Arizona, alone, more than 150 people died from the heat in 2023. This problem is called “the unseen disaster” because if a tornado hit Phoenix and killed 150 people, it would be in the news around the world, but when 150 people in Phoenix or 400 people in India or 650 people in Europe die from heat, it barely makes the local news.

Anthropogenic climate change is already here. We first recognized it in the late 1980s. When James Hansen testified to Congress that the greenhouse effect had been detected and the climate was fast changing. June 23, 1988. ^{James Hansen Testified to Senate About Climate Change - Zinn Education Project (zinnedproject.org)}

So, in short, that is where we are . . . in a climate that is already changing. No matter what we do, the climate will change. But we have the tools to help us avoid the worst of future changes and a few tools that can reverse much of the damage we have  already done, and trends seem to be moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, we are in something of a hole, and there are more than a few powerful people in power who insist we keep digging.

Where are we?

Sailors have long paid close attention to conditions at sea. For centuries, they measured wind speeds, air pressure, and water temperatures at noon every day and recorded that information in logs. We have those logs, so we know the average temperature of the Earth back hundreds of years.

Currently, the Earth's average temperature is around 1.1^oC above the temperatures in the 1880s. That seems like a tiny difference, but it’s not. The mass of the Earth is ~5.97 trillion-billion-tons. Imagine how much energy it takes to raise the temperatures of everything on the Earth – the atmosphere, the seas, and the landmasses by 1.1^oC. That imagined number is all added energy. If temperatures go more than 1.5^oC (above preindustrial levels), we might still be OK. If it goes more than 2^oC we will be unable to predict the consequences. By the time it goes over 3^oC, civilization is at risk. Most major economic centers will be flooded. This is not to say that the cities will be under water. Instead, huge storms will send walls of water through the cities, and super tides will flood them intermittently, much like Hurricane Sandy did in 2012. About this the city of New York says,

By any measure, Sandy was an unprecedented event for New York City. Never in its recorded history had the city experienced a storm of this size. Never had a storm caused so much damage. Never had a storm affected so many lives. As of the writing of this report, individuals, families, businesses, institutions, and, in some ways, the city itself are still recovering from this devastating natural disaster and will continue to do so for years. ^{SIRR- CH 1 (nyc.gov)}

The worst storm in the history of New York and New Jersey will be the norm if temperatures exceed that 3^oC benchmark. If we continue at our current pace, we will blow past 5^oC levels by 2075. That could be when civilization ends. We (humankind) will probably be unable to stop climate change or do anything to reverse it – ever. Fortunately, that isn’t likely. We will not continue on the same path. We are already “bending the curve” to a new path. Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions. (escholarship.org)

What we need to do.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says we need to cut greenhouse emissions (GHGs) by 50% by 2035 and by 100% by 2050 to stay under 2^oC above preindustrial levels.

As NOAA explains . . .

If all human emissions of heat-trapping gases were to stop today, Earth’s temperature would continue to rise for a few decades as ocean currents bring excess heat stored in the deep ocean back to the surface. Once this excess heat radiates out to space, Earth’s temperature would stabilize. Experts think the additional warming from this “hidden” heat is unlikely to exceed 0.9° Fahrenheit (0.5°Celsius). With no further human influence, natural processes would slowly remove the excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and global temperatures would gradually decline.

It’s true that without dramatic action in the next couple of decades, we are unlikely to keep global warming in this century below 2.7°F (1.5°C) compared to pre-industrial temperatures—a threshold that experts say offers a lower risk of severe adverse impacts. But the more we overshoot that threshold, the more serious and widespread the negative impacts will be, which means it is never “too late” to take action. Can we slow or even reverse global warming? ^{NOAA Climate.gov}

Although the task of reversing climate change will require many changes, you will see that many of these changes are underway. While the news media ran around, hair on fire, fretting about politics and generally spreading an atmosphere of bad news, people have been working in the background doing meaningful work. They have been developing the tools we need to stop damaging our little blue marble and even some designed to repair the damage we have already done.

And so, why are we where we are?

Looking back through history, we find that when corporations choose between saving a few million people or boosting their profits, they usually make the wrong choice. It is common for corporations to kill millions of people or wipe out whole biospheres in exchange for slightly higher profit margins.

Case in point: In 1924, seventeen oil company employees died of lead poisoning. Research showed that the material they were manufacturing and dispersing to the public (tetraethyl-lead) was highly toxic and dangerous, and it was tetraethyl-lead that killed the 17 employees.

Tetraethyl-lead is the chemical Ethyl Corporation (a Standard Oil and GM subsidiary) put into gasoline to prevent preignition in engines (knocking). It also improved power and extended the life of engines.

On the other hand, it was highly poisonous, and there is no counting how many inner-city people died prematurely or how many of their children lost mental capacity. Still, cars worldwide spewed it into the atmosphere as lead halide pollution from 1924 until 1975, when the catalytic converter came into common use and lead in gasoline was no longer a possibility.

When faced with the threat of disbursing a poisonous, lead-based chemistry, Ethyl claimed that the science was overblown and that there was no objective evidence that tetra-ethyl lead was a problem. The problem was, they claimed, lead paint. The company paid scientists to write reports that reinforced their claims and to spread doubt about the real science.

For example, Dr. Robert Kehoe, who was simultaneously the medical director of the Ethyl Corporation, a professor of physiology at the University of Cincinnati, and director of the Kettering Laboratory, said,

During the entire history of man on this Earth, he has had lead in his body. He has had lead in his food, he has had lead in his drinking water. . . . The question is not whether lead per se is dangerous, but whether a certain concentration of lead in his body is dangerous. Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Senate Committee on Public Works - United States. Congress. Senate. ^{Committee on Public Works - Google Books}

According to Kehoe, “Lead in the body is so natural that it goes back to Adam.” Even after evidence showed that the fumes were negatively impacting the growing bodies and IQs of inner-city children and that fragile people were dying from the pollution, Ethyl refused to budge.

Eventually, in 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency was formed. In the end, Ethyl gasoline was finally phased out for autos (but not planes) in 1975, not because Ethyl and its allies saw the need to discontinue its use, but because it became incompatible with the catalytic converters in new cars.

As leaded gasoline phased out, Ethyl Corp struggled to find a replacement product. The company moved into plastics and aluminum and even founded a life insurance company before disappearing in 2004.

Ethyl was able to hold out for so long by misleading the American public. They did that with ad agencies, paid politicians (who protected their interests in Congress), and paid scientists (like Kehoe) to undermine the science.

Petroleum companies now face a truly, existential threat --
clean, cheap energy.

Ethyl had only one product. They were willing to go to any lengths to protect that product. The oil industry has two products: oil and natural gas. Both products are poisonous for life on Earth, and the oil industry has demonstrated that they will go to any lengths to protect their ability to market those products. They seem unconcerned over how many people might have already died or been displaced. Nor do they seem concerned about how many more might die or be displaced in the future.

Scientific knowledge that CO₂ is a greenhouse gas is not new. In 1824, Joseph Fourier suggested that the Earth ought to be much cooler given our distance from the sun. He speculated that a gas in the atmosphere might act as a greenhouse ‘blanket’ to keep the Earth warmer than expected. In 1856, Eunice Foote discovered that CO₂ in the atmosphere formed that blanket. In 1857, John Tyndall came to the same conclusions using the same methods.

According to NASA,

In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized Earth's natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. In 1938, Guy Callendar connected carbon dioxide increases in Earth’s atmosphere to global warming. ^{Evidence (nasa.gov)}

When the petroleum industry knew all of this.

In 1959, Edward Teller announced in a presentation to the American Petroleum Institute that if the fossil fuel companies continued producing fossil fuels, New York City could end up under 50 feet of water. Although they first heard this grim prediction in 1959, at that time the information was still theoretical.

Over the next decades, EXXON researched the topic and proved to their satisfaction that the threat was real. In 1968, EXXON scientists produced a report presenting proof that the threat was real. If humankind burned all the fossil fuels the industries could produce, humankind would be in grave danger.

Year after year, their own scientists told the oil and coal companies that they were damaging the ecology – GHGs were causing the atmosphere to warm, and civilization could end as a result. Moreover, it was possible that most of the complex life on earth could go extinct. By 1978, there was no room for error, and EXXON and the American Petroleum Institute had the irrefutable proof.

What the petroleum industry did about the threat.

As with Ethyl, the petroleum industry basically has two products—oil and natural gas. The threat clean fuel posed to them was existential. If the world stopped using gasoline, diesel, heating oil, coal, and the like, the fossil fuel industry would be reduced to selling its products to the plastics industry. Plastics is a large industry, but it is tiny compared to everybody on Earth using fossil fuels all day, every day.

From 1978 until now, they have spread doubt about the harm caused by the continued production, sale, and burning of fossil fuels. Only by changing their business model could they prevent the global warming catastrophe, and they chose not to do that.

In 1972, Standard Oil became Exxon, and for almost 60 years, they have continued slowly driving us toward what might well become the end of civilization on an inhospitable planet.

Their tactics

The tactics they used when defending tetra-ethyl lead worked so well that Exxon and the others simply picked them up again, dusted them off, and put them back into use – and by then, they were a lot better at using the disinformation. As they did before, they hired ad agencies, politicians, and paid scientists to act as their spokespeople, who, in concert, denied the science of climate change while calling real climate scientists “quacks.” Moreover, this time, Exxon was able to hire people with even more skills gained from doing the same things for the tobacco industry.

In 1984 they founded the George C. Marshall Institute, which basically did for climate change what the Tobacco Institute had long been doing for cigarettes. The Marshall Institute claimed that climate change was caused by natural variations in the sun, and that, in any case, a warmer climate might be beneficial.

The claims above are only allegations. Where is the evidence?

There are dozens of lawsuits targeting fossil fuel companies. According to the online publication, “Stateline” (Alex Brown),

Richard Wiles’ group has tracked 32 cases filed by state attorneys general, cities, counties and tribal nations against companies including ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell. The lawsuits cite extensive news reporting — including investigations by the Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News — showing oil companies’ own research projected the dangers of climate change decades ago, even as the industry tried to undermine scientific consensus about the crisis. ^{After a long slog, climate change lawsuits will finally put Big Oil on trial • Stateline}

The State of Massachusetts is suing ExxonMobil for lying to the Massachusetts public and to ExxonMobil’s Massachusetts shareholders, denying the dangers of climate change. In page after page of the 201-page complaint, Massachusetts showed that ExxonMobil fully understood the problem of climate change as far back as 1978. At one point in their complaint, the State of Massachusetts spells out the ExxonMobil strategy.

Like the tobacco companies before it, which were disseminating advertisements, publications, and public statements denying any adverse health effects of smoking and promoting their ‘open question’ strategy of sowing doubt, at the same time they internally acknowledged as fact that smoking causes disease and other health hazards, ExxonMobil began a sophisticated, multi-million dollar campaign to sow doubt about whether climate change was occurring, and what role, if any, fossil fuel use played in causing climate change. ^{Complaint: Commonwealth of Massachusetts v Exxon Mobil Corporation 10-24-2019 - DocumentCloud}

So, precisely who lied to us and when?

What does it mean to lie? According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, lying is, “to make a false statement with the intent to deceive.” The Definition of Lying and Deception

When scientists began warning us that the chemicals in cigarettes were causing cancer, the tobacco companies began telling us that the science was unproven. Claiming that the science on the matter was still unsettled, was lying because the tobacco companies knew full well from their own research that using tobacco lead disease and death for many people.

But the tobacco industry didn’t stop with a lie. They developed a full-blown campaign that involved declaring war on science. They formed bogus “think tanks” and hired professional scientists who, for the money, would attack the science for them. They hired ad agencies and public relations businesses to carry their increasingly dishonest stories to the public. And they hired politicians to fight anti-smoking legislation.

When the fossil fuel industry first realized that their products were causing global warming, they all got together, picked up this tobacco industry playbook (the same playbook Ethel used) and have used it against us since then. They have lied to us since 1978, and they are still lying to us even now.

Proof of their lies comes from their own records.

Because of all the lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry, with dozens of subpoenas for discovery, those subpoenas, along with leaked information, provide the litigators (and us) with a complete understanding of everything they had done all the way back to 1959 when Edward Teller first told them in no uncertain terms that they were destroying civilization and possible humankind. The fossil fuel industry told us that everything was fine for decades, although they knew that things were not fine about the problem 65 years ago. Here is the record from the fossil fuel industry’s own archives.

Proof

1959: Dr. Edward Teller, Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, presented to the American Petroleum Institute. One of the things Teller said was, “Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect, and burning more fossil fuels could melt the ice caps and submerge New York.” This was when the American Petroleum Institute and its member companies were first publicly told of the threat their industry posed on the future of civilization. 

1965: Oceanographer Roger Revelle explained in a report to President Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee that increasing amounts of carbon dioxide could be trapped in the atmosphere and function “much like the glass in a greenhouse, to raise the temperature of the lower air.” ^{(The Daily Climate | 2015)}

1968: The American Petroleum Institute hired Professor E. Robinson and Professor R.C. Robbins, scientists from Stanford University, to look into the problem of global warming. These scientists concluded, “Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000 . . . there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe.” ^{(Georgetown University | Defense, Denial, and Disinformation)}

1977: Exxon senior scientist James Black warned the company that, “… there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels. Scientific American  

 

1978: Exxon senior scientist, James Black warned, “Doubling CO₂ gasses in the atmosphere would increase average global temperature by two or three degrees." ^{Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago | Scientific American}

1979: Exxon hired Professor Steve Knisley to examine the problem. His report included dire warnings of dramatic climate change. According to him, only 20% of recoverable fossil fuel could be used before doubling the atmospheric content of CO₂ to 550 PPM (parts per million), raising the temperature by more than 3^oC, and raising sea level by as much as 35ft.

1979: A month after Knisley’s report, Exxon scientist Henry Shaw wrote a memo suggesting that Exxon should position itself to influence future legislation to block bills that would tighten environmental controls. In the memo, he continued with, “It behooves us to start a very aggressive defensive program in the indicated areas of atmospheric science and climate because there is a good probability that legislation affecting our businesses will be passed.” Based on this dire prediction, Exxon began its still ongoing campaign, denying the global warming its own scientists warned it about.

1980: Exxon formed the “CO₂ and Climate Task Force.” The next year they brought in yet, another scientist, Dr. J.A. Laurman, who told them that current fossil fuel production will lead to the following consequences: “In 2038 the average temperature of the earth will have risen by 2.5^oC, with major economic consequences and by 2067 the temperature will have risen by 5^oC, with globally catastrophic effects.” ^{InsideClimateNews}

1980: Because of their concerns about the role of fossil fuels in global warming, in a March 1980 Meeting of the AQ-9 Task Force, the American Petroleum Institute specifically discussed the need to consider a, “new energy source into worldwide use.” 

 

1981: Gilbert Gervasi, scientist at Esso Eastern sent a letter to G.A Northington, Exxon Researcher, saying that the impact of CO₂ emissions will be twice that of a similar amount of coal.

1982: Exxon’s Manager of Environmental Affairs Program wrote that the effects of climate change could melt the ice caps and flood coastal cities. ^{InsideClimateNews}

1988: Shell Oil predicted the loss of habitat, increase in runoff, loss of access to fresh water, and the worst weather in history. ^{The Guardian}

1988: James Hansen testified to Congress, saying, “Climate change from fossil fuels has been detected.” Climate change was happening as far back as 1988. According to an article from Brown University (below), this report goaded the fossil fuel industry into action.    (NY Times | "Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate)

1989: The American Petroleum Institute merged with the Global Climate Coalition, which became a collection of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and several oil industry ad agencies. This increased the number and volume of their denials that climate change was happening. Their arguments were, " The link between fossil fuels and global warming is unproven” and “The threat of climate change is junk science done by quacks.” .” Climate change was happening as far back as 1988. 

The dramatic testimony of James Hansen and the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 marked the emergence of climate change as a major public issue, and amplified calls for government action to reign in carbon emissions. In response, corporations with strong ties to fossil fuels, acting in coordination with allied trade associations, and a number of other organizations mounted a series of efforts to oppose reductions in carbon emissions (Dunlap and McCright 2015). These efforts form an amalgam of loosely coordinated groups that can be understood as the climate change countermovement. (Brown University| "Advocating inaction: a historical analysis of the Global Climate Coalition") |  

1990:  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) disagreed. They said that it is certain that increased carbon dioxide is already causing global warming.

1991: A leaked strategy memo from the Information on the Environment (a front group for the coal industry) describes the audiences that can be most affected by their propaganda campaign:

• People who respond most favorably to such statements are older, less-educated males from larger households. These men are not typically active information-seekers and are not likely to be “green” [environmental stories] consumers.
• Another possible target segment is younger, lower-income women. These women are more receptive than other audience segments to factual

1993:The American Petroleum Institute and Global Climate Coalition combined climate deniers with hired economists and fake grassroots organizations to successfully defeat a carbon tax proposed by President Bill Clinton.

1995:The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) commissioned an internal report from a team led by scientists from Mobile Oil. The report said, “The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO₂ on climate is well established and cannot be denied.

1996:The Chairman of Exxon said, “Scientific evidence remains inconclusive as to whether human activities affect global climate.”

1996:The IPCC published a report saying, “The balance of evidence suggests discernible human influence on global climate.”

1996: The president of Mobil Oil stated that the IPCC went “beyond what can be justified by current scientific knowledge.”

1996 :In a report published by Exxon titled “Global warming: who’s right? Facts about a debate that’s turned up more questions than answers,” Exxon described the warming of the world was beneficial, variously arguing . . .

• Rising temperatures could be part of the natural fluctuations that occur over long periods of time.
• Computer climate models have been unable to represent current temperatures and climate accurately.
• Computer models have begun to forecast less extreme temperature rises caused by GHG emissions.
• A warmer world would be far more benign than many imagine.
• A slightly warmer climate would be healthful.
• Climate modeling “suggests that the number of hurricanes and their average wind speed will decline.”
• There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty about climate change.

1997: In the hottest year in history until that point, Exxon’s CEO, Lee Raymond, said in a conference in Beijing, “It is cooler today than 20 years ago.”

1997: The Kyoto Protocol is signed, but the Global Climate Coalition and its allies in the Senate and House blocked ratification in the U.S. In the meantime, the American Petroleum Institute drafted a 3-part plan to defeat the Kyoto Protocol and all future climate policies.

1997: BP withdrew from the GCC, saying,

The time to consider the policy dimensions of climate change is not when the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is conclusively proven but when the possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously by the society of which we are part. We at BP have reached that point. BP

1998: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and other fossil fuel companies merged their communications apparatus into a group named “Global Climate Science Communications Team.” They hired Steven Milloy to head it. Steven Milloy previously headed The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, formed by Phillip Morris to discredit the medical science argument that smoking is unhealthy. In internal documents, they crafted a plan to actively discredit earth and atmospheric scientists and argue that the science concerning climate change was unsupported. “Does the tiny portion of greenhouse gases caused by burning fossil fuels have a measurable effect on worldwide climate?” they asked, ”No one knows for sure,” they answered.

1998: The American Petroleum Institute produced a “Roadmap for Climate Deception.” It said in part, that they will have succeeded when,

• recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the “conventional wisdom.”
• Media “understands” (recognizes) uncertainties in climate science.

Of course, they already know there were no uncertainties in climate science, or, for that matter their own science. They also wanted from their politicians, to make . . .

• . . . them stronger ambassadors to those who shape climate policy.
• Those promoting the Kyoto treaty on the basis of extant science appear to be out of touch with reality.

The roadmap also said,

Unless “climate change” becomes a non-issue , meaning that the Kyoto proposal is defeated and there are no further initiatives to thwart the threat of climate change there may be no moment when we can declare victory for our efforts.

The report was truly a roadmap to eliminating all efforts to thwart climate change.

1998: Using its stable of politicians, lobbyists , and the tactics above, ExxonMobil and the others blocked the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. They also persuaded other countries not to ratify it (e.g., China and India).Union of Concerned Scientists

2000: At ExxonMobil’s first shareholder meeting after the ExxonMobil merger, Lee Raymond presented a slide with an image of a now-famous letter that he claimed had been signed by 17,000 scientists who argued that the climate change controversy was a hoax. It suggested the science on global warming was still unsettled. At the time he showed the letter, it had already been thoroughly discredited, counting among its supporting “scientists” numerous fake signatories, including fictional characters from the Star Wars movies. He also presented a statistical study that he claimed showed the Earth was actually cooling.(science.org)

It is important to note that Science suggests that an examination of ExxonMobil's own climate science research at the time had been  extremely effective. Climate models produced by ExxonMobil's scientists averaged a 72% accuracy level. compared to 67% for scientists not in the employ of the company. The best accuracy levels, however, were 99% accurate. The worst case scenario of this graph is we reach 3.5^oC.

2000:  In December, a senior researcher at the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution complained to Raymond in a letter that Raymond’s evidence that the Earth was cooling misrepresented his Sargasso Sea research, saying that his study did not show what Raymond claimed it did.

2001: George Bush announced that the United States would be withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol. The State Department told the Global Carbon Coalition (GCC) that the withdrawal was based, in part, on GCC arguments.

2008: Wei-Hock Soon published a paper casting doubt on climate change science. All of Soon’s research ($ 1.2 million) came from fossil fuel companies. Senator Inhofe used Soon’s publication as proof that scientific knowledge about climate change is incomplete. The fossil fuel companies used shell companies to keep their relationship with Soon secret. Soon referred to his scholarly papers as “deliverables.” NY Times

2009: The American Petroleum Institute created front groups of “energy citizens” to demonstrate against the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 in around 20 states. These “energy citizens” were meant to create the appearance that a large percentage of the country opposed the bill when almost no one opposed it. The oil companies provided additional people from their ranks to make the crowds look larger.

2009: The coal industry sent forged letters from respected non-profits expressing reservations about the American Clean Energy Security Act. These letters came with letterheads from the NAACP, Creciendo Juntos, the American Association of University Women, The American Legion, and the Jefferson Area Board on Aging. ^POLITICO

2014: At the 2014 annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council, Joseph Bash (president of the Heartland Institute) claimed that “There is no scientific consensus on the human role in climate change

2015: The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report titled, The Climate Deception Dossiers: Internal Fossil Fuel Memos Reveal Decades of Corporate Disinformation. It begins with, “There is a climate hoax that continues today. It is the decades’ long campaign by a handful of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies—such as Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Peabody Energy – to deceive the American public by distorting the realities and risks of climate change, sometimes acting directly and sometimes acting indirectly through trade associations and front groups. The report presents eighty-five internal company and trade association documents, “that have leaked to the public, come to light during lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information requests.” The Climate Deception Dossiers: Internal Fossil Fuel Industry Memos Reveal Decades of Corporate Disinformation ^{Union of Concerned Scientists}

2015: Senator James Inhofe carried a snowball onto the Senate floor to demonstrate that “climate change is a hoax.”

2017: Donald Trump said climate change was a Chinese hoax, and withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, he said he was doing it based on input from economists on the GCC’s payroll. He also appointed a whole team of climate change deniers, including,

• Mike Pence, Vice President: “Follow the science” instead of “rushing into” restrictions on the economy
• Jeff Sessions, Attorney General: “Carbon dioxide “is plant food” that “doesn’t harm anybody except that it might include temperature increases.”
• CIA Director Mike Pompeo: “There’s some who think we’re warming, there’s some who think we’re cooling, there’s some who think that the last 16 years have shown a pretty stable climate environment”
• Scott Pruit, Environmental Protection Agency: “We know that humans have most flourished during times of what? Warming trends.”
• Bll Wehrum, EPA AIR Quality Chief: “Humans’ influence on the climate is an open question.”
• Cathy Stepp, EPA Midwest Administrator: “I’ve read competing pieces, so yes I would say there is debate out there.”
• Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior:  "There’s debate on “what that influence is, what can we do about it?”
• Douglas Domenech, Interior’s assistant secretary for Insular Areas: “Climate alarmists are once again predicting the end of the world as we know it. This time the culprit is carbon dioxide.”
• Sony Perdue, Agriculture Secretary: “Liberals have lost all credibility when it comes to climate science." 
• Rick Perry, Energy Secretary: “Climate’s changing, always has. Man at this particular point in time is having an effect on it. How much effect is what’s at debate here”.
• Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security:  "I can’t unequivocally state it’s caused by humans. . . . There are many contributions to it."
• Tom Bossert, White House Homeland Security Advisor:  "We continue to take seriously the climate change – not the cause of it, but the things we observe."
• Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary: “I know there are a lot of people who say ‘overwhelming science,’ but then when you ask them to show the overwhelming science they never can show it.”
• Jim Bridenstine, NASA Administrator: Do humans cause climate change? “That is a question that I do not have an answer to.” (A partial list extracted from “Trump’s climate science doubters")

(POLITICO)

. . . fourteen different ways to say, "The science is in doubt, so let's do nothing."

2019: A group called the Sunrise Movement went on what they called “Road to the Green New Deal Tour.” Shell’s chief lobbyists said, “I wish them the very best . . . and bedbugs.”

In short: The fossil fuel industry was faced with an existential problem – mass bankruptcy. If the world was successful at mass-producing energy alternatives to fossil fuels, they would have no marketable products. They knew as far back as 1978 that they would eventually be replaced, but they held it off for as long as possible by sewing doubt and dissention.

Are we to blame?

One thing big oil did more recently was begin a campaign of laying the blame for the world’s growing carbon footprint on us (we the people of the world). According to the Harvard Gazette,

From the mid-2000s through to the 2010s, ExxonMobil and other fossil-fuel companies gradually “evolved” their language, . . . They did so by drawing straight from the tobacco industry’s playbook of threading a very fine rhetorical needle, using language about climate change just strong enough to be able to deny that they haven’t warned the public, but weak enough to exculpate them from charges of having marketed a deadly product.

as an example,

To give just one example, did you know that the very notion of a personal carbon footprint — a concept that’s completely ubiquitous in discussions about personal responsibility — was first popularized by BP as part of a $100 million per year marketing campaign between 2004 and 2006?

So, they have begun telling us that impending climate change is all our fault. Their argument is that we should have reduced our carbon footprint back when we could. It isn’t their fault, they say. After all, they were only doing what we wanted.

Like crack-house drug dealers:They say they have simply been meeting our demands. In the meantime, they have invested hundreds-of-millions into blocking efforts to fin sustainable replacements for fossil fuels. If not for the fossil fuel industry and their allies (including allies in the House and Senate), we would long since have been living in a sustainable economy.

There is not much we can do as individuals: The biggest impacts on climate change will come from what our governments and industry sectors do. Most of the relevant industry sectors are moving the ball nicely. Unfortunately, there are headwinds in our government. Many or our Representatives and Senators in Federal Government are in league with the fossil fuel industry, and they are either sitting on their hands or actively hostile to legislation that could end the drift toward climate change.

ExxonMobil has a stable of loyal legislators: ExxonMobil insider Keith McCoy (past Senior Director for Federal Relations) publicly named eleven United States Senators that he often spoke to (weekly in some cases). He says that “Congressmen are fish – Exxon is the fisherman ... we reel them in ... they need us, and we need them.” He offers an example of what he told the congresspeople,

We’ve got this issue, and we need congressman so and so to be able to either introduce this bill; we need him to make a floor statement; we need him to send a letter, you name it, we do that for everything . . . If I need to get something done, I call on these Senators – Joe Manchin, Mark Kelly, Chris Coons, Shelly Moore Capito, Kirsten Cinema, John Testa, Maggie Hassan, John Barrasso, Steve Danes, John Cornyn, and Marc Rubio. Revealed: ExxonMobil’s lobbying war on climate change legislation (youtube.com)

McCoy specifically named these Senators as his allies in the US Senate: Joe Manchin (D), Mark Kelly (D), Chris Coons (D), Shelly Moore Capito (R), Kirsten Sinema (I), Jon Tester (D), Maggie Hassan (D), John Barrasso (R), Steve Daines (R), John Cornyn (R), and Marc Rubio (R). Note that when money is involved political affiliation seems not to matter,

In truth, dozens of Senators and Representatives are directly or indirectly funded by the fossil fuel industry or have hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments in fossil fuel companies. In the House of Representatives, 134 members own ~$94-million in stock. One might think these are all restricted to Republicans, but both parties are well represented by these people. I will discuss this in detail in a later chapter in this book, but the one most important thing we can do is get these people out of government. The same thing applies to state legislatures.

So where are we?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Is a body of researchers founded by the United Nations in 1988 to study the problems associated with climate change and to recommend strategies for mitigating those problems. Since 1988, people in research organizations around the world have been warning us that we were in danger of changing the world into a barren place and that we would be unable to change it back. That seems counterintuitive. If we quit what we are doing and begin undoing what we have done, it seems like we should be able to get back to the climate we had in the 1950s.

Unfortunately, that isn’t how things work. Imagine you are at the dinner table having a casual conversation with friends. Now, imagine that one of your friends leans back in his chair, balanced on the back two legs. After a while, he leans back a little more. At some point, he reaches a tipping point and topples over backward. Once he has passed that tipping point, there is nothing he can do to set the chair back down. At one point, he is relaxed. At the next point, he is on the floor, bleeding from the back of his head, and you are dialing 911. After we pass a climate tipping point, there is no coming back.

The Earth has over a dozen tipping points, and we are quickly approaching some of them. We may even have passed some. Going past a global tipping point happens unnoticed because although the collapse is inevitable, it all happens very slowly and can go unnoticed for decades. For example,

Greenland’s ice shelves are melting at an astonishing rate. From 2002 through 2022, Greenland has lost five-thousand-billion tons of water into the oceans. If we quit emitting CO2 right now, Greenland’s ice shelves would continue melting because the Earth's average temperature trails the addition of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by a decade or so. Since Greenland’s ice sheets are already melting at our current temperatures, it follows that they will continue melting. If we have passed this tipping point, the entire ice sheet will melt, and the global sea level will rise by around 23ft over the next half-century. Greenland's ice shelves are on the verge of collapse, new research shows (youtube.com)

The Arctic ice floe is melting three times faster than expected.  Because this ice is floating, it will not impact sea level, but the white ice on the Arctic Sea reflects 90% of the sunlight that hits it. The open ocean, however, absorbs 95% of the light that hits it – adding to the Earth’s warming trend. If we pass this tipping point and then stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere, the Earth will continue warming anyway because of the albedo of the open Arctic Sea.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) may be collapsing. The AMOC is part of a global current that begins in the Indian Ocean, passes between Africa and Antarctica, and flows up past the Gulf of Mexico, picking up the Gulf Stream and transporting it to Europe (accounting for Europe’s mild winters). Along the way, because water evaporates from the AMOC, it becomes saltier and denser until it plunges to the bottom of the ocean near Greenland and begins its long, undersea trip back to India. Currently it is running into the freshwater melt from Greenland and the Arctic, and rather than being very dense, it becomes somewhat thinned out. It has slowed measurably, and it may stop.

In 2023, we passed a critical benchmark. We have already passed the 1.5^oC global temperature increase we are desperately trying to avoid hitting before 2035. So, unfortunately, we are a bit ahead of schedule. Every month in 2024 is on record as being the hottest in history. Ironically, the month of March was hotter than any March before it, but it was also hotter than any April in history.

So why are we here?

We are here because corporate executives (mainly in the fossil fuel industry) cared more about short-term profits than about their grandchildren.When they realized what they were doing, they chose to spin a series of untruths and continue selling even more of their poison year after year.

We are here because our economic system encourages our businesses, politicians, communicators, and even our a few of our scientists to give up long-term security for short-term wealth.Ninety-eight percent of our scientists absolutely accept that our climate is changing and that we are the cause, but that leaves two percent of our scientists shouting back that climate change is a hoax. Their voices are amplified by fake research centers, ad agencies, and the corporations at risk. These businesses, scientists, politicians, and communicators (including some news outlets) made a great deal of money from the universal use of fossil fuels, and they do not want to give it up.

It is not just them. We are here because we are not genetically adapted to coping with a modern Earth. Ten-thousand years ago, we were just fine. We were a part of a world where nothing was wasted, and where our instincts and skills were in harmony with our environment. If we saw a tiger, we recognized the immediate danger and instantly responded, ducking into cover or running for the nearest tree. We were integrated into nature and our instincts were appropriate for our world. We no longer live in that world, and our instincts no longer work. A car comes at us at 70mph, and we don’t even flinch as it goes by.

Inability to cope with slowly growing danger.On the other hand, 10,000 years ago we didn’t have to plan for a distant future. For us, the world around us was unchanging. Through the eons, the world did change, but given our lifespans, we generally didn’t notice. We have no instincts that help us deal with timespans of hundreds or thousands of years, so if we see a mortal danger that will happen in a hundred years . . . yawn . . . oh well, not my problem.

Since the 1970s, scientists have been warning the world was warming and that if it continued to warm, at some point in the future it could become too hot to host humans. Most of us simply duck our heads and dealt with our more immediate needs. That danger is in the distant future and will not impact me personally, and anyway, it’s not like I can do anything about it. Somebody needs to fix it, but I have to go pick up the kids. According to Political Psychologist Conor Seyle (Director of Research at One Earth Future Foundation), “We have evolved to pay attention to immediate threats. We overestimate threats that are less likely but easier to remember, like terrorism, and underestimate more complex threats, like climate change." ^{How the brain biases prevent climate action | BBC}

This inability to recognize distant dangers introduces another mental flaw. We pay little attention to what we are doing to the biosphere around us. As a group, we will overgraze a field if its care seems not to be our individual responsibility. Together, we will completely drain an aquifer. Together, we will desertify entire regions, states, and countries if we don’t see their care as our responsibility. Together, we will ruin a world if we do not see its care as our responsibility. That propensity among humans is called the tragedy of the commons. Whenever a group uses a common resource, some of the people will take advantage of the opportunity to take as much as they want, even if it means destroying the resource. It is a problem so old and universal that even Aristotle has written about it. ^{Tragedy of the Commons: Examples & Solutions | Harvard Business School Online}

As a species, our most dangerous and destructive psychological nature may be our tribalism. Our priorities are self, family, and community. It is only natural we would distrust those outside our community. As a result, the United States has been rife with conflict since its foundation. Our families and communities, however, are not always geographical. They can be ideological. Around the world, people in the same neighborhood may kill each other over differences in how they interpret their holy books. In the 20th century, the Balkans, Kenya, Ireland, suffered civil wars because of cultural tribalism. Even in the 21st Century, genocide is not unusual (e.g., Chechnya, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo).

Tribalism remains a powerful force everywhere; indeed, in recent years, it has begun to tear at the fabric of liberal democracies in the developed world, and even at the postwar liberal international order. To truly understand today’s world and where it is heading, one must acknowledge the power of tribalism. Failing to do so will only make it stronger. Cultural Tribalism - ECPS (populismstudies.org)

We can also feel like we have met our goals after making token efforts.We might recycle or buy and drive a hybrid auto, or maybe we buy carbon offsets and think or hope we have done enough. As you will see, there is more that we can do.

Fossil fuel companies have put us in a hole, but there is a path out.

So, as I mentioned above, we are in a bit of a hole. Those people and companies I mentioned above are why we are in this hole, and humans have instinctive problems with slowly approaching danger and the “others” outside our tribes. We didn’t put ourselves here; the fossil fuel industry put us here. They and their allies have long known how to manipulate us (having learned from the tobacco industry), and that is what they did. Moreover, they are still doing it. We are here because this is where they want us to be. for as long as we allow them to do this they will do it for as long as they have oil to sell.