<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming>
"It was a typical November day in New York City. The year: 1959. Robert Dunlop,
50 years old and photographed later as clean-shaven, hair carefully parted, his
earnest face donning horn-rimmed glasses, passed under the Ionian columns of
Columbia University’s iconic Low Library. He was a guest of honor for a grand
occasion: the centennial of the American oil industry.
Over 300 government officials, economists, historians, scientists, and industry
executives were present for the Energy and Man symposium – organized by the
American Petroleum Institute and the Columbia Graduate School of Business – and
Dunlop was to address the entire congregation on the “prime mover” of the last
century – energy – and its major source: oil. As President of the Sun Oil
Company, he knew the business well, and as al director of the American
Petroleum Institute – the industry’s largest and oldest trade association in
the land of Uncle Sam – he was responsible for representing the interests of
all those many oilmen gathered around him.
Four others joined Dunlop at the podium that day, one of whom had made the
journey from California – and Hungary before that. The nuclear weapons
physicist Edward Teller had, by 1959, become ostracized by the scientific
community for betraying his colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer, but he retained
the embrace of industry and government. Teller’s task that November fourth was
to address the crowd on “energy patterns of the future,” and his words carried
an unexpected warning:
Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. I will
start by telling you why I believe that the energy resources of the past
must be supplemented. First of all, these energy resources will run short as
we use more and more of the fossil fuels. [....] But I would [...] like to
mention another reason why we probably have to look for additional fuel
supplies. And this, strangely, is the question of contaminating the
atmosphere. [....] Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon
dioxide. [....] The carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you
can’t smell it, it is not dangerous to health, so why should one worry about
it?
Carbon dioxide has a strange property. It transmits visible light but it
absorbs the infrared radiation which is emitted from the earth. Its presence
in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect [....] It has been calculated
that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon
dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. All the
coastal cities would be covered, and since a considerable percentage of the
human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical
contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe."
Via Shannon McElyea, who wrote:
Although this was published in 2018, I think it’s a good reminder what the
oil industry knew and what they’ve been hiding - seems that at least they
should be charged with criminal negligence.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
