In 1969, oil industry was warned about global warming . . .

In 1969, oil industry was warned about global warming . . .

Postby Oscar » Thu Oct 24, 2024 4:18 pm

On its 100th birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming

[ https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... al-warming ]

Benjamin Franta - Mon 1 Jan 2018 11.00 GMT - This article is more than 6 years old

Somebody cut the cake – new documents reveal that American oil writ large was warned of global warming at its 100th birthday party.

EXCERPT: "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. . . . . "
Oscar
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