Climate change predictions -- from scientists who worked for oil companies

 

This was an eye-opening / sobering article in The Guardian.

The scientists hired by big oil who predicted the climate crisis long ago

This is from Marty Hoffert, physicist and consultant to Exxon:

"It never actually occurred to me that this was going to become a political problem. I thought: “We’ll do the analyses, we’ll write reports, the politicians of the world will see the reports and they’ll make the appropriate changes and transform our energy system somehow.” I’m a research scientist. In my field, if you discover something and it turns out to be valid, you’re a hero. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to convince people, even when they saw objective evidence of this happening.

Back in 1980, there was a guy working for Exxon and he was one of the inventors of the lithium battery, which electric cars now use. This guy won the Nobel prize in chemistry for his work on lithium batteries. Just imagine if Exxon management had taken our prediction seriously! They could have easily built huge factories to make lithium batteries to facilitate the transition to electric cars. Instead, they fired this guy. They shut down all their energy work. And they started funding climate [change] deniers."

Well, that's kinda why they're in court now.

Coming up, hopefully soon:  how nuclear energy (fission and fusion) can still save the world.