WEBVTT - How Exxon, Chevron and their buddies killed the world 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:08.039 But nope. Shit. Uh well, I'm Robert Evans. This is 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:10.879 another failed introduction. I don't I don't know. I don't 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.520 know why I keep I keep trying new things. It's 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:15.360 a bad idea to try new things. I should just 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:21.119 go back to what works, but I am permanently trapped 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:25.560 in a cycle of new attempts at success that in 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.440 only in failure. Anyway. My guest today Molly Lambert, Nightcall 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:34.320 podcast host. How are you doing? Molly? Excellent? Molly. I 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.040 like the new and trow thank you, just just the 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:42.839 word butts. It's better than Hitler. Yeah. Um, this is 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:45.159 a podcast where we talking about bad people. Molly. You 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:46.880 know that because you've been a guest on here before. 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:50.480 I'm ready ready to find out again who the worst 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.680 people of all time are. I am not ready. I 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:55.720 am strung at as fun because I got back from 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:59.240 a red eye from d C yesterday and I feel miserable. 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:02.200 But it's appropriate that I just got off of a 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:06.240 plane because planes are a major contributor to climate change, 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.759 and today we're talking about the bastards who covered up 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.119 climate change back when we could have done something about 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.920 it more easily. Molly, how do you feel about x 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:20.160 On Mobile. Are you a fan? Are you a mobis 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:27.000 stan Um? Aren't we all little little x on xcs xcs. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.360 Oh that's a good one. That was a band right 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:36.119 in like the early two thousand's. It's definitely a band. Probably, Yeah, 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:40.839 I remember listening to them when I was a depressed teenager. Well, Molly, 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:42.880 if you had to choose between let's say, x On 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:49.360 Mobile Chevron, Uh, what's another big one shell shell? Yeah? 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:51.640 Would would would? Which is? Which? Is going to be? Like? 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.080 You're who are you gonna like root for? I mean, 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.640 we're recording this on Valentine's Day. It's like I feel 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:03.639 like we're in a love quadrangle? Who can choose among 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:07.840 so many great suits? I think fine products? Yet I don't. 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.240 I don't really know enough about the difference between the 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.880 oil companies. I just know they're all pretty bad. I 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:19.760 do remember, I do remember was Exxon responsible for perhaps 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:26.000 an oil spill? They share work now in their defense. 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:33.000 How could you higher a captain for a boat filled 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:36.120 with volatile fluids and make sure he's sober at the 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.880 same time. That's an impossible barrier. I mean, I do 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.160 know that people go out on the oil wells for 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:46.680 like months at a time. Yes, the documentary Armageddon informed 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:51.080 me of that. Is that the documentary about how people 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.720 put animal crackers on each other's stomachs as well? Is 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.960 that in Armageddon? Do I need to rewatch Armageddon? That's 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.680 the one with Affleck, right, Yes, oh yeah, that's definitely 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:08.239 the animal crackers romantic sequence the that's I just I'm 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:10.320 thinking back on it now and I've realized that in 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.760 my memory the movie Armageddon has been condensed to the 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.400 scene where Bruce Willis points a shotgun at Ben Affleck, 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.440 the scene where they have that machine gun on an 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:24.200 asteroid for some reason up an asteroid. They have to 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.920 blow up an asteroid, but a machine anyway, there's like 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:31.359 three minutes from that movie in the Criterion collection. It 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:37.200 should be so all right, well, let's just well, let's 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:39.000 let's we should we should get into this thing that 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.280 I wrote about these people that I hate, and then 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:43.720 I hope you'll hate with me, because that's what the 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:50.040 show is about, hating together. Yeah. In two thousand fifteen, 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.600 and internal x and report from the nineteen eighties, which 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.080 discussed the reality of climate change, was leaked out to 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.200 the public via The Guardian. In two thousands seventeen, a 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.920 Dutch news organization released a similar report from Shell. And 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:03.840 I'm gonna guess most of the people listening have heard 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:05.840 at least a little bit about both of these disclosures. 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.320 You've heard about this, right, Molly, Like, yeah, yeah. The 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.520 story is generally summarized and outrage social media posts. Is 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.040 this exon Shell slash whoever knew about climate change for 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:18.880 decades and hid their research? And this is more or 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.720 less accurate, Like it's close enough for Twitter. But you'll 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.600 notice if you hop over to Google right now, those 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.080 of you who aren't actively pooping or driving to work 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.200 while you listen to podcasts. If you if you hop 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.880 over to Google and you type in XON covered up 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:37.200 climate change the first two of the six million results, 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.960 you'll receive our articles from xn's own website with titles 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.120 like x on Mobile, don't be Misled, Understanding the facts 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.920 and understanding the hashtag x on new Controversy by X 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:55.800 on Mobile. So obviously I'm biased. I mean, who can 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.400 we trust for unbiased reporting on X on Mobile? But 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.680 started out there and the blog sphere. It's like, how 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.120 the very best people to report on whether or not 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.920 police departments are responsibly using force. Are members of those 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.960 police departments, which is why we have such excellent statistics 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.080 on police use of force. What could be better than 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:18.440 an internal review? Yeah, I mean, at this job, I 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.520 am responsible for making sure I am sober enough to work, 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:23.839 which is why I have been sober enough to work 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.120 a hundred percent of the days when I've done this podcast, 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.240 even the one where I was actively tripling on asset, 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.680 which one was that it's a secret. It's a secret 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.960 to everybody, which is proof that the self monitoring thing 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:45.400 is flawless. So I agree, you won't his mom, I 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.479 will not. I will not. It's a secret for only me. 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:51.479 So today I'm going to tell everybody the story of 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:53.840 how this sorry state of affairs came to be. It 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.000 didn't start in the nineteen eighties, which is when all 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.480 those now leaked reports were written. It actually starts further 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:04.039 back nineteen fifty nine, when physicist Edward Teller warn't the 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.960 oil and gas industry about global warming and a keynote 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.279 address at the Energy and Man Symposium UH nineteen fifty 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.800 nine was seen as the hundred year anniversary of the 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:15.640 oil and gas industry, and so the event was a 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:19.680 celebration of petroleum and its cousins, but Edward Teller did 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.240 not take to the stage to celebrate. Instead, he gave 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:26.120 out a grave warning to the executives assembled. He said, quote, 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:28.400 ladies and gentlemen, I am here to talk to you 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:30.880 about energy in the future. I will start by telling 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:32.839 you why I believe that the energy resources of the 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.480 past must be supplemented. First of all, these energy resources 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:38.200 will run short as we use more and more of 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.599 the fossil fuels. But I would like to mention another 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.480 reason why we probably have to look for additional fuel supplies. 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:47.000 And this, strangely, is the question of contaminating the atmosphere. 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.320 Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon dioxide. The 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.280 carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you can't smell it. 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.360 It is not dangerous to health, so why should one 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.640 worry about it? Carbon dioxide has a strange property who 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.880 transmits visible light but absorbs the infrared radiation which is 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.520 emitted from the Earth. Its presence in the atmosphere causes 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.200 a greenhouse effect. It has been calculated that a temperature 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.640 rise corresponding to a ten increase in carbon dioxide will 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.360 be sufficient to melt the ice cap and submerge New York. 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.520 All coastal cities would be covered. And since a considerable 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.200 percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.880 think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:27.920 people tend to believe. So that's nineteen fifty nine wolf. Yeah, 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.680 he's a I mean, yeah, spot on. I mean, we 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.040 might quibble with him saying that, uh, you know, carbon 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.440 dioxide is not dangerous to health, but I think he's 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.400 saying specifically that, like, you're not gonna get sick from 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:46.040 carbon dioxide poisoning because of gasoline. Um, you won't be 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:50.440 able to tell it's happening until it's here. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um. 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.320 So they have this warning in nineteen fifty nine, and 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.360 we do not know how Teller's audience reacted in that 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:00.400 moment because nobody was really taking notes, but we know 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.120 that they did not heed his warning. Eight years later, 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.160 Robert Dunlop, head of the American Patroleum Institute, took to 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:08.640 the halls of Congress to argue that electric cars were 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.480 not a practical investment, but the time they reached a 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.560 point of utility, he said, science would allow for emission 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.440 free gasoline vehicles. You may notice that this has not happened, 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.160 nor is it closed to happen. Yeah. Yeah, so he 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.240 went up being wrong. Now, this might not have been 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.520 a lie at the time. People believed stupid things about 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.320 the future back then, like the Jetsons was on the 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:33.000 air flying cars. Yeah, exactly. So maybe he just was 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.400 really sure that we'd we'd hit that point. I think 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.640 a lot of people are just sort of like, we'll 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.160 figure it out later, you know, which is the problem 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:46.120 with everything, but especially with environmental issues. Being like the people, 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:48.000 this will be the burden of the people of the 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.960 future to figure out, not mine, just do my job 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.520 making all the money by drilling all the oil out. Yeah, 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.240 it's it's weird. There's always this like this idea that Okay, 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.080 we'll figure out the technology necessary to like solve our 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.640 environmental problems before they become critical. But then when it 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:10.520 comes time to actually, you know, use the resources capitalism 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:15.480 uh has uh in order to devote manpower and brain 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.319 power towards like research, they all wind up making dick 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:24.160 pills and baldness as opposed to making emissions. Doesn't want 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.400 to do anything that doesn't just make a lot of 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:32.200 money and is easy. Um there even yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:37.240 there's a good documentary about Rachel Carson, who wrote Silent Spring. Yeah, 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:41.280 you've seen that documentary. It's awesome because she's another person 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.240 who was like, hey, d d T is like gonna 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:48.600 give people health problems, and it was like actively buried 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.120 by the d d T lobby. But also because everyone 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.920 around her was like, it's a scientific innovation. We cannot 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.800 stand in the way of progress. Each new thing we 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.480 invent to exploit the environment is a or a coal 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:04.120 on the earth. So I don't know that we've gotten 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.080 out of that mindset really either, judging by like what 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.480 Silicon Valley thinks are the cool new things to invent. 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.640 We never will get out of that mindset because we're 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.240 very dumb. Or maybe we will, and I'm just a 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.199 pessimist because I spent all these hours researching X on 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:24.360 Mobile and Shell and Chevron and tell me more So. Yeah, 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.760 Dunlop like gets up in front of fucking Congress and 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.800 he's like, electric cars are stupid. We're gonna have emissions 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:32.920 free gasoline. That's what we ought to be working on. 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.000 And you know, the very next year after he does this, 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.440 he receives a report that the American Petroleum Institute had 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.640 commissioned from Stanford UH, and this report warned that carbon 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.480 diaccid emissions would lead directly to global warming and quote 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:51.959 serious worldwide environmental changes. So nifty nine Teller gets up 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:56.360 on warns people about this. Nineteen sixty seven, Robert Dunlop 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.920 takes to Congress and says that you know, none of 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:01.320 this is going to be a big issue. And then 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.080 the very next year his own organization gets a report 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.280 saying like we need to immediately start reducing carbon dioxide 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.880 emissions or horrible things are going to happen now. Dunlop 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.800 died in ninet He had a son, Richard G. Dunlop, 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.000 and a daughter, Barbara, neither of which I've been able 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.319 to find much out about. One presumes they're quite well off, 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:22.800 but since their dad shares the name of a member 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.199 of an Irish motorcycle dynasty who died tragically, the Google 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.280 results for them are kind of a mess. UH. And 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:30.120 we've got a lot more ground to cover here. So 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.280 while Dunlop deserves much blame for ignoring the early signs 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.199 of climate change, it must be noted that there were 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.160 warnings the broader American populace could have accessed and heated 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.000 if they had wanted to do so. UH. In nineteen 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.880 sixty five, philosopher Murray book Chin published Crisis in Our Cities, 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.320 a book about the negative consequences of urbanization UH. In it, 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:51.240 he noted, quote man's increased burning of coal and oil 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.280 is annually adding six million tons of carbon dioxide to 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.839 the air. This blanket of carbon dioxide tends to raise 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.280 the Earth's atmosphere by intercepting heat waves going from the 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.160 Earth into our or space. Book Chain was well ahead 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:04.320 of the curve on a number of environmental issues, including 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.160 the damage modern agriculture was doing the soil structure, but 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:09.160 no one listened to him. Part of the problem was that, 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.760 according to cultural critic Theodore Rozack, nobody cared to believe 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:15.760 the problem was so vast. Another reason why Bookchin was 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:17.440 ignored had to do with the fact that he was 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.800 an anarchist, and he suggested a fundamental revolution and human 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.960 civil organization as this way to combat climate change. So, 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:27.120 while it's important to point out and we're going to 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:28.840 spend the rest of this episode talking about all the 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.760 factory that oil and gas companies engaged to cover up 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.800 this stuff. We should note that there were people very 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:39.160 uh accurately predicting the problems in the future as far 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:43.040 back as the nineteen sixties. And yeah, it's just it's 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.440 it's very frustrating when you dig into all this, like 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.480 the number of warnings that we had, but also, like 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:51.520 I do think you have to have a little bit 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.320 of understanding for like our parents and grandparents and the 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:56.599 reason they didn't pay attention to this because in the 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.760 nineteen sixties, like we had all these fucking nuclear weapons 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.280 at everybody believe we're gonna get fired any day, and 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.400 like there was this this very real worry that like 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:06.440 the world was going to end at any moment, Like 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.520 my dad did like those those like duck and cover 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.320 drills where he'd get underneath the table because they were 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:14.679 afraid that nukes were going to come. So you can 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.199 also like, well you have where while like it's frustrating 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.760 that they had these warnings that they didn't heed, um, 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:22.760 there was also a lot of ship going on at 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.560 the time, Like my dad. My dad also talks about 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.800 the duck and cover drills, and there's a museum of 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.079 Nuclear History in Las Vegas. That is like one of 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.960 the best museum, the Smithsonian Museum of Atomic History. Uh, 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:42.360 that's all about that era. That is really terrifying. Um yeah, 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:44.640 and just to stand around some of those bombs, you're 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.520 just like, oh, yeah, there was a lot going on. 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.319 There was a lot going on. It was an immediate 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.880 threat and someone saying, hey, in like seventy years, gasoline 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:55.480 is going to be an issue. Like you can see 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.600 how like otherwise, like decent people could have been like, well, 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:00.560 fuck it, we'll probably figure that at if we have 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.520 time to figure They now understand why people always refer 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:07.640 to the sixties as tumultuous, you know, because I'm like, oh, 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.559 that is what it feels like now. It's funny. There's 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:13.840 so much to do. There's a lot going on, like 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:18.120 some of it good and some of it really really bad. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.120 there's something happening here, but what it is ain't exactly clear. 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.520 You know that songs about the Sunset Strip riots and 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:27.520 I read a really good essay about it by Mike 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.760 Davis about how people make fun of it for being 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:33.640 just like a riot of some kids, but it was 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:37.280 really about the beginning of like just intense police militarization 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.200 in Los Angeles of being like we're going to come in. 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.640 The cops were like beating up teenagers. Um. And so 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:48.400 some people, including Gilligan Bob Denver came to support the 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:52.920 kids on the Sunset Strip against the fast Wow, Bob, 0:14:53.200 --> 0:15:00.520 Bob Gilligan is Antifa. Gilligan's antis Antifa. Yeah, So civilization 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.080 trundled along, no one paying attention to the warnings about 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:05.240 climate change, and by the end of the nineteen seventies, 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.920 the American Patrol leav Institute had established a committee to 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.280 monitor the evolving field of climate science. That committee of 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.920 scientists was allowed to work unimpeded, and they came to 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:18.480 the inevitable scientific conclusion that quote globally catastrophic effects would 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:20.640 be evident by the middle of the twenty first century 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.920 if fossil fuel production wasn't halted. Now, Chevron did not 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:25.880 exist at this point, but the companies that merged to 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:27.960 form it were members of the API, and they knew 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.000 all of this. In nineteen seventy seven, one of xn's 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.040 senior scientists spoke to a gathering of oil industry executives. 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.960 He warned them of a general scientific agreement that the 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.760 use of fossil fuels was changing the climate. In nineteen 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.720 seventy eight, he updated his warning and stated unequippically that 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.680 present thinking holds that man has a time window of 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.320 five to ten years before the need for hard decisions 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:52.240 regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical. That's nineteen 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.520 seventy eight. By the nineteen eighties, the early signs of 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.280 climate change had become very noticeable, and the newly formed 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.120 oil titans of the day XN and SHELL launched internal 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.280 assessments to predict the impact of fossil fuels on the 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:06.480 global climate. In a nine eight two report, EXN scientists 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.040 predicted that by twenties sixty, c O two levels would 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.560 reach five hundred and sixty parts per million, twice the 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.920 pre industrial level. This, they found, would raise average temperatures 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.160 around the world by two degrees celsius or more. In 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:21.400 Shell came out with a report of their own. It 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:23.640 came to the same findings, but also warned that c 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.960 O two could double well before twenties sixty, possibly as 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.120 early as twenty thirty. You might expect oil and gas 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.960 industry scientists who have been deeply compromised by their employer, 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:35.680 but other climate scientists who evaluated their works seemed to 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:37.840 agree that it was all pretty top notch. They did 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.760 not hold any punches when reporting to their corporate masters 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.040 about the danger that these products were going to do 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.880 to like society. Um so they had like really stark 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.600 warnings about what was going to happen. Shell predicted a 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:52.880 one meter sea level rise at minimum, with a good 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.880 chance that warming would cause the West Antarctic Sheet to disintegrate, 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:59.160 causing a five to six meter worldwide rise in sea levels, 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:03.080 resulting in the destruction of multiple nations. Their analysts predicted 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:07.320 the disappearance of specific ecosystems or habit stat destruction, leading 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.560 to an increase in runoff, destructive floods, and inundation of 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.720 low lying farmland. They pointed out that new sources of 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.159 fresh water would be necessary in this climate and that 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.320 changes in temperature would drastically change life for most people. 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.520 Shell scientists concluded the changes maybe the greatest and recorded history, 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.960 So that's pretty clear, uh A. Excen scientists were equally direct. 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:29.840 They warned about desertification in the American Midwest and other 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.000 parts of the world and potentially catastrophic sea level rise, 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.199 although they also noted optimistically that the problem is not 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.679 a significant to mankind as a nuclear holocauster world family. 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:45.320 I mean, it's bad, but it's not as bad as 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.560 the end of all life on Earth and atomic health fires. 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.800 I'm sure if you're in the power industry, you must 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:52.960 be like, well, we're not as bad as those guys. 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.159 It's like, it's like coke cads. They're like, I'm not 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.359 as much of a cocade as that other cocad. That 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.439 guy's at cocaine. It's had the conundrum, you're all cokeheads. 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.720 You're all cokeheads. That's the that's the problem. I mean, 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:09.840 I don't know. Maybe if we'd given these people some 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:13.439 ecstasy or something back in the eighties might have increased 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:15.560 their empathy. I don't know. Isn't that why people wanted 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:20.760 to put LSD in the water streams from having nuclear war? 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.320 But you know, I've in my research come across a 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:28.879 lot of Nazis who trace their development to acid trips 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:33.360 they had. So maybe the solution is, yeah, yeah, it's 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:38.600 not uncommon, um like neo Nazis or like yeah, neo Nazis. Yeah, 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.280 the original the original Nazis are on speed. They were 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:44.840 doing speed. Yeah. Um, I don't think you should be 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.600 allowed to use psychedelic drugs for evil is my personal feeling, 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.920 but I would support that too. I have seen also, 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.280 just like even with the rise of microducing, the way 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.880 people when people started being like, I'm going to take 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:01.080 acid to come up with better ideas for capitalism's yeah, 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.600 that's not great. I feel like the right thing might 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:11.040 be mandatory m d m A trips for all boardrooms 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:15.160 and executives at all multinational corporations. Just you cannot sit 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.080 down to discuss business unless you are rolling so hard 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:22.120 you're chewing your goddamn lips off. It will at least 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.360 be entertaining. Yeah, I can film it. Yeah, I'm sure 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:27.439 those people are rolling their faces off when they go 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:31.000 to their weird like retreats on private islands. Oh my god. 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.040 Yeah yeah, but they need to be doing it while 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:37.680 they're making like financial decisions about where to invest money 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.600 and stuff. Like I want I want to have like 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.480 the CEO of fucking Shell like announcing their new products 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.679 while like chewing on a fucking glow stick. That that 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.960 would be fun at least, So all these studies noted 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.200 the fact that the gradual nature of climate change would 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:56.600 work to hide its effects from the world. Shell scientists 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.600 wrote in with the very long time skills involved, it 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.040 would be thing for society to wait until then before 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:05.520 doing anything. The potential implications for the world are, however, 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.560 so large that policy options need to be considered much earlier, 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.040 and the energy industry needs to consider how it should 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.800 play it's part. If the industry did not, they warned, 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.520 it could be too late to take effective countermeasures to 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:20.280 reduce the effects or even stabilize the situation. That's h 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.080 m hmmm. But despite this sober and accurate assessment of 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.920 the stakes, Shell's report did not actually suggest the company 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.240 do anything to fight climate change that would have impacted 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.159 their profitability. After all, and I'm gonna quote from the 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.080 Guardian now and Shell study. The firm argued that the 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.719 main burden of addressing climate change rests not with the 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:45.360 energy industry, but with governments and consumers. And that's not untrue. 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.960 Like legally corporate like corporations that are public like this 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:53.160 have a mandate to maximize profits and really nothing else. Um, 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.000 it is the job of governments to regulate them. In 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.000 our current system. The problem is that Shell did not 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.399 just sit back and to be regulated along with the 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.040 rest of these companies. They actively sought to convince the 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:07.440 governments that would regulate them that nothing was wrong when 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:09.359 they knew the opposite was the case. And that's really 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:12.960 like the core crime that's committed here. It's pretty bad, 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:17.120 it's pretty cool, pretty cool and good. For the next 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.119 ten years, climate change pushed more and more into the mainstream, 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:22.640 and an understanding about what was happening started to reach 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:25.800 well beyond the cloistered halls of gas company research teams. 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.760 Activists increasingly called for action, and despite knowing that all 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.800 these people were essentially right, Excell and Shell took every 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:38.320 available effort to stymy them. In February, released a review 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:42.080 of the Scientific Uncertainty and the Evolution of Energy Systems. 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:46.280 This was a public review, unlikely non public reviews that 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:48.200 they had released that had shown that all of this 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.120 was a serious problem, and in this public review, their 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:55.440 findings conveniently indicated that policies to curb greenhouse gases beyond 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:59.719 no regrets measures could be premature, divert economic resources from 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:04.760 more pressing needs, and further distort markets. So that's cool. 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:10.960 But you know what won't distort markets, Molly, the products 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:15.480 and services that support this podcast. That is right. Yeah, 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:18.600 they are fundamentally different from the products and services that 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:21.800