What Did Shell Know and When Did They Know It?

Guest ridicule by David Middleton

It just doesn’t get any more fracking stupid than this:

NEWS

06/04/2018 1:12 AM IST

In 1998, Shell Predicted It Would Be Sued Over Climate Crisis Someday

By Chris D’Angelo

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell was well aware of the world-altering climate risks associated with carbon dioxide emissions by at least the mid-1980s, according to a trove of internal company documents recently uncovered by a European journalist.

In a confidential 1988 report titled “The Greenhouse Effect,” Shell researchers wrote that planetary warming largely driven by burning fossil fuels could “create significant changes in sea level, ocean currents, precipitation patterns, regional temperature and weather” — changes that they predicted would “impact on the human environment, future living standards and food supplies, and could have major social, economic and political consequences.”

[…]

(Blah, blah. blah… #ExxonKnew redux ad nauseum.)

Read more at the Huntington Post

The triple top secret 1988 evil oil industry secret science confidential report on “The Greenhouse Effect” is drawn from published scientific literature that was publicly available in 1988.

Shell_1
Page 6… Immediately after a highlighted paragraph.

At least one of the sources had been publicly available since 1861.

Tyndall

The “Greenhouse Effect” wasn’t an industry secret in 1988.  It was even mentioned in some of my Earth Science textbooks (albeit briefly and dismissively) in the 1970’s.  My Historical Geology textbook even mentioned Tyndall.

Suggestion that changing carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere could be a major factor in climate change dates from 1861, when it was proposed by British physicist John Tyndall.

[…]

Unfortunately we cannot estimate accurately changes of past CO2 content of either atmosphere or oceans, nor is there any firm quantitative basis for estimating the the magnitude of drop in carbon dioxide content necessary to trigger glaciation.  Moreover the entire concept of an atmospheric greenhouse effect is controversial, for the rate of ocean-atmosphere equalization is uncertain.

Dott, Robert H. & Roger L. Batten.  Evolution of the Earth.  McGraw-Hill, Inc.  Second Edition 1976.

“Moreover the entire concept of an atmospheric greenhouse effect is controversial, for the rate of ocean-atmosphere equalization is uncertain”…

And… Notably not highlighted by the junk science journalists…

Shell_0
Page 1… “However, there is no consensus about the degree of warming and no very good understanding what the specific effects of warming might be”… No fracking consensus. Note how practically the entire page is highlighted apart from this passage.

This is just a redux of the moronic #ExxonKnew crap.  No secret science, no proprietary oil industry climate models… Just summaries of the publicly available publications on the state of the “science” and potential for future regulatory malfeasance.

The pièce de résistance idiotic babbling about Shell’s 1998 “prediction” that it could face a “climate crisis” lawsuit.  This was cherry-picked from an internal publication: The Group of the Future and Group Scenarios 1998-2020.  

Shell_2

Shell_3
“Scenarios are plausible and challenging stories, notforecasts.

The document laid out many (more than I have time to count) challenging scenarios that could occur from 1998-2020.  These ranged from Gorebal Warming junk lawsuits, to Indian politics, to the Supercar…

No… Not that Supercar… This Supercar:

Shell_4
Shell predicted Tony Stark and Stark Industries Elon Musk and Tesla.

Technically Gerry Anderson and Reg Hill predicted the Supercar in 1961 and Stan Lee created Elon Musk Tony Stark in 1963.

So… There you have it.  Shell didn’t know anything that the Climatariat didn’t already know in 1988.

Shell logo from Wikipedia.

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Bloke down the pub
April 11, 2018 6:03 am

‘The pièce de résistance idiotic babbling about Shell’s 1998 “prediction” that it could face a “climate crisis” lawsuit.’
So what Shell were in fact predicting was peak Eco-Nut.

Craig
Reply to  David Middleton
April 11, 2018 6:09 am

Not sure we’ve seen peak Eco-Nut yet.

Reply to  David Middleton
April 11, 2018 9:53 am

Trump is in till at least 2021. Winning!

gnomish
Reply to  David Middleton
April 11, 2018 12:52 pm

there will never be a shortage of eco-nut pique. it’s got electrolytes.
however if the demand should ever diminish, the supply would, too.

Caligula Jones
Reply to  Bloke down the pub
April 11, 2018 8:48 am

Sorry, but predicting a lawsuit in the United States is like predicting fish in a barrel.
Or something. Sometimes, even metaphors aren’t worth the effort.

gnomish
Reply to  Caligula Jones
April 11, 2018 12:55 pm

ikr? up one side and down the other like a ton of bricks till the cows come home

Reply to  Caligula Jones
April 11, 2018 3:01 pm

How do fish get into barrels, never seen such a thing. Is this a modellers construct or some kind of unlikeliness euphemism that does not travel?

Nigel S
Reply to  Caligula Jones
April 11, 2018 3:11 pm

They’re pretty easy to shoot too (1000 herring per barrel).
https://sizes.com/units/barrel_herring.htm

Michael Kelly
Reply to  Caligula Jones
April 11, 2018 5:30 pm

That was a simile, but who’s watching?

Tom
Reply to  Caligula Jones
April 11, 2018 6:44 pm

…predicting fish in a barrel. LOL Good one!

Reply to  Bloke down the pub
April 11, 2018 6:34 pm

Craig April 11, 2018 at 6:09 am “Not sure we’ve seen peak Eco-Nut yet.”
You’ll NEVER see peak Eco-Nut! However brain-damaged the latest eco scare is, someone somewhere will get a promotion, grant, or better job predicting something even more insane.

April 11, 2018 6:10 am

Shell didn’t know anything that the Climatariat didn’t already know in 1988.

Absolutely. How could they possibly know something about the climate (not their business), that was not known and publicly published by climate researchers? And what about the governments? If they knew fossil fuels were hazardous to people, and they have the responsibility to keep up with the science they fund, they had the obligation to introduce legislation to protect people, as it was done with unleaded gas when it became clear that lead from fuel was a health hazard.
As you say “It just doesn’t get any more fracking stupid.” It is all money for lawyers.

Bill Illis
Reply to  David Middleton
April 11, 2018 7:51 am

The oil companies had the best geologists in the world and were actually doing or funding most of the paleoclimate research throughout the 1970s and and 1980s.

Craig
Reply to  David Middleton
April 11, 2018 10:21 am

Mitchum or Mitchell? I bet you knew Billy Mitcham. I miss that guy.

Warren Blair
Reply to  David Middleton
April 11, 2018 4:43 pm

Hagens Berman LLP for the plaintiffs in current #ExxonKnew case will be paid 23.5% of any net monetary recovery.
In 2006 Steve Berman (CEO) sued Apple Computer alleging that iPod music players could cause hearing loss if the volume were too high.
Only in the USA . . .

Reply to  Javier
April 11, 2018 10:27 am

Actually they very easily could know far more about the climate and CO2 than was in the public domain. Shell employs chemists physicists and engineers who are (gasp!) paid to come up with the RIGHT answer in terms of truth content> rather than the right answer in terms of political correctness.
They knew from the get go that cliamte science was bunk…
They knew from the get go that renewable energy was a crock of …..
But it was not in their interest to say so.
In fact it was entirely in their interest to spend several billion on ‘green technology’ to make them look like the ‘good guys’.
Shell ultimately has but one incentive: to make money out of selling petrochemical based products.
All they had to do was look at climate stuff and assess whether it was a threat to their business or not.
They correctly assessed that the main threat to their business would be from environmentalists, not renewable energy, so they went to great lengths to present a ‘green’ spin without actually doing anything else.
In short Shell was fully aware from the start that the emperors new green clothes were non-existent. That this was not a war of substance, but of marketing perceptions alone.
With luck, they will have the guts to say so.

April 11, 2018 6:11 am

Radiation effects of H2O and CO2 were being quantified for designing “radiation boilers” at least as early as the ’50s (they’re in my Babcock & Wilcox steam-boiler book).

oeman50
Reply to  beng135
April 11, 2018 9:13 am

Are you sure that isn’t “radiant” boilers? That’s what’s in my 1978 version.

Reply to  oeman50
April 11, 2018 10:36 am

Quite right — radiant boilers.

MarkW
Reply to  beng135
April 11, 2018 1:15 pm

If you want to know about radiation boilers, go talk to Retired Kit P.

Doug MacKenzie
Reply to  MarkW
April 11, 2018 3:58 pm

I actually used to use those old Hottel charts, I think first published in 1949, for emissivity of CO2 and H2O to design fired heaters. I break into laughter when someone says there is no greenhouse back radiation effect due to CO2.

Reply to  beng135
April 12, 2018 9:21 am

My point above was that radiation effects of H2O and CO2 were out in the public long before the 70s or whenever the fake-lawsuit stipulates. Anyone curious could have known that. But extrapolating that those particular facts would lead to CAGW or whatever disaster de jour is absurd — can’t even “prove” that now after trillions spent studying it.

Paul Schnurr
April 11, 2018 6:14 am

Isn’t it the users that create the demand and in using fossil fuels create carbon dioxide? Why aren’t the users being sued?
I don’t remember the tobacco farmers being sued for the use of their product.

Pierre DM
Reply to  David Middleton
April 11, 2018 7:13 am

Government makes more money of the sale of oil products than any of the oil companies. They want more,

Caligula Jones
Reply to  David Middleton
April 11, 2018 8:58 am

As with PETA….old ladies wearing fur don’t threaten to knock your teeth in like leather-wearing bikers would…

drednicolson
Reply to  David Middleton
April 11, 2018 10:11 am

They don’t want to lose money on the onerous tobacco taxes either, hence why only half-solutions for quitting smoking are ever pushed and why one of the most effective quitting aids invented, e-cigarettes, are so demonized.

RockyRoad
April 11, 2018 6:20 am

So they’re “aware of the world-altering climate risks associated with carbon dioxide emissions”?
Enhanced foodstuff production would be the biggest risk, as long as their nefarious plan is to control world population with famine.
These people are either useful tools or evil to the max.

Pop Piasa
Reply to  RockyRoad
April 11, 2018 9:01 am

The first red flag is “climate crisis”.
The only crisis I’m presently aware of is the one facing global socialist planners.

Latitude
April 11, 2018 6:33 am

….and in 1998 we were supposed to do what?
Even today, no one can make this “new technology” work……….

Keith J
April 11, 2018 6:34 am

Tyndall also measured the effects of water vapor and correctly judged it to have the greatest green house effect.

Reply to  Keith J
April 11, 2018 10:23 am

No one has measured the greenhouse effect of either water vapor or CO2. Everyone has speculated; no one has measured the actual alleged mechanism of greenhouse warming. There is no foundation to the theory.

philincalifornia
Reply to  Don132
April 11, 2018 1:52 pm

That’s not totally true:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14240
The results a) were not scary enough, and b) did not include total radiation which, for all I know, could have stayed the same, so you don’t hear much about this study.

Reply to  Don132
April 11, 2018 2:38 pm

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2011JCLI4210.1
The above link contradicts the supposed radiation increase: “The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site.”
We have to ask what are the alleged mechanisms for GHG warming. I find three:
1. LWIR backradiation/trapped radiation directly warms the surface, except that heat flows from warmer to cooler and in any case this mechanism has never been demonstrated. The Wood/Pratt/Nahle/Spencer “trapped radiation” experiments are inconclusive, and in any case are basically backyard experiments.
2. LWIR radiation excites GHGs which in turn excite N2 and O2, warming these up; this warming inhibits atmospheric cooling. Two problems: a) this excitation of N2 and O2 by collisions with GHGs has never been demonstrated to result in a temperature increase and b) even if it were true, warming means rising and rising means cooling according the gas laws and the lapse rate, so how is convective flow inhibited? Demonstrate, please? No confirming experiment means this is just speculation.
3. CO2 raises the emissions height and we count down from there using the lapse rate to get surface temp. But the lapse rate isn’t determined by emission’s height; there is no term in the lapse rate for either radiative properties or for emissions height. This is last-resort hand waving. Furthermore, if there were no GHGs the dry lapse rate would still hold true and the atmosphere would still conduct heat from the surface warmed by the sun, except that there would be one less means of atmospheric cooling: no radiation from the atmosphere.

Keith J
Reply to  Don132
April 12, 2018 5:03 am

Tyndall measured the effects of carbon dioxide AND water vapor. Water vapor dominated the absorption based on energy.
The problem is understanding his language. Archaic chemistry plus Irish/English brogue confuses many. My parochial education via classical Irish nuns and fascination with medieval chemistry makes understanding easy. Plus I enjoy the occasional light wisp of Spirits of Hartshorn. I’m twisted a bit.

Reply to  Don132
April 12, 2018 5:40 am

Keith J April 12, 2018 at 5:03 am
“Tyndall measured the effects of carbon dioxide AND water vapor. Water vapor dominated the absorption based on energy.”
Tyndall did not measure how the absorption of IR by CO2 and water vapor leads to a temperature change. We are assuming that radiative effects translate into temperature effects; nowhere that I know of has this actually been demonstrated.
For example, it’s asserted, without any proof that I know of, that IR activity on CO2 causes N2 and O2 to increase internal energy; one would assume that this same process applies to water vapor. It would seem to be a simple matter to demonstrate that this actually happens: IR action on GHGs affects non-radiative molecules such that the temperatures of the volume of gas within which these non-GHG molecules reside increases. That’s a wonderful theory and it may be true, but I don’t think it’s asking for too much for the physical demonstration that this is in fact true. I would also think that immediately someone would point out that I’m completely wrong, that in such-and-such year these people did this experiment that proved conclusively that this mechanism exists.
I admit that the more I ask for experiments, the more I’m baffled that no one can come up with any. Surely someone has tested whether or not what the theory predicts is true?? Any college lab in the country could do this.

MarkW
April 11, 2018 6:39 am

“past CO2 content of either atmosphere ore oceans”
Is that geologist humor?

Tom Halla
April 11, 2018 7:08 am

So Shell predicting junk climate lawsuits somehow makes those junk science lawsuits valid?

Marlo Lewis
Reply to  Tom Halla
April 11, 2018 7:44 am

LOL!

JohnWho
Reply to  Tom Halla
April 11, 2018 8:11 am

Yeah, that was my thought too.

AGW is not Science
Reply to  JohnWho
April 11, 2018 9:33 am

Mine too – circular reasoning is the true mark of the Eco-Fascists.

Nigel S
Reply to  Tom Halla
April 11, 2018 10:34 am

Perhaps Shell’s shareholders will sue them for not investing in junk science chasing lawyers when Shell knew.

Gary Pearse
April 11, 2018 7:10 am

I recall reading somewhere some of the papers in the literature by Exxon (Esso?) scientists were coauthored with academics and have been available for decades.

AGW is not Science
Reply to  Gary Pearse
April 11, 2018 9:34 am

Yes, and yet there was no panic until they got money and propaganda behind it.

Dave O.
April 11, 2018 7:25 am

Consider the world without fossil fuels. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to live in it either. Although, I would always be receptive to something better, and a great deal of wealth will flow to those who can drive the evil oil companies out of business with something better.

Reply to  Dave O.
April 11, 2018 7:46 am

Fossil fuels and hydrocarbon molecules make the world a much, much better place.

AGW is not Science
Reply to  Dave O.
April 11, 2018 9:36 am

I think every zealot who tries to act like “climate change” is a human-induced “crisis” needs to be confronted with that consideration at every turn. At the end of the day, they’re all hypocrites who take EVERYTHING THEY HAVE for granted. Because ALL of it is thanks to fossil fuels.

April 11, 2018 7:41 am

The Merchants of Doubt stategy hatched under Naomi Oreskes tutiledge at Scripps La Jolla in 2012 is not ending well. That was foreseeable to everyone except the warmunists.

AGW is not Science
Reply to  ristvan
April 11, 2018 9:40 am

I’d much prefer being a “Merchant of Doubt” to being a “Merchant of Stupidity,” which is what Oreskes and her ilk are. The idiots that DENY that there is any uncertainty regarding what they laughingly call “science” are the TRUE “den!ers.”

HDHoese
April 11, 2018 7:45 am

“Industrial developments have increased the carbon dioxide concentration locally to a slight extent, but this has had no demonstrable effect on organisms. ……(recall that CO2 is a basic raw material in photosynthesis and that its concentration is very low, about 0.03 by volume.) Odum, E. P. 1953. FUNDAMENTALS OF ECOLOGY. This was ‘the’ college textbook, no greenhouse effect in the index, mentioned the positive experimental fertilization by CO2. Later editions would be interesting, got much fatter and expanded human effects. This one has a short chapter– “…. Controversy here simply indicates that we do not have the information needed for sound prediction.” It does have the usual population growth curves and a reference to Malthus.
Geology texts of the period did not even cover sea flood spreading as I recall, but it was an intense period of petroleum activity that helped confirm it.
There was a serious US drought in the 1950s, warming was the interest, changed rather soon to cooling. Scientific papers on climate and warming effects were old news.

kakatoa
April 11, 2018 7:47 am

It appears that John Ehrlichman knew about the risk(s) back in 1969!-
https://cliscep.com/2018/03/09/when-did-warming-change-from-good-to-bad/?c=23959#comment-23959

April 11, 2018 7:51 am

June 23, 1988. Dr. James Hansen from NASA GISS testifies to the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Thankfully, nothing happens in the Senate for thirty years in the “world’s greatest deliberative body” to enact a carbon tax or to regulate carbon dioxide as though it were a pollutant, even in 2009-2010. Now if only the endangerment finding can be unraveled.

RockyRoad
Reply to  David Dibbell
April 11, 2018 8:08 am

“If” is the biggest word in the English language, David. You’re certain to win the Nobel for something if you can unravel your so-called “endangerment finding”.
However, for every dollar of endangerment you find, I can find double, perhaps triple, maybe even quadruple the enhancement.
Good luck.

Bill Illis
April 11, 2018 7:55 am

What did Hollywood know in 1950? They knew it was coming.

JimG1
April 11, 2018 7:55 am

David,
You geologists are heretics to the religion of global warming/climate change. Good example, friend of ours is a retired school teacher and due, I am sure, to the left wing drivel prominent in the educational college establishment, is a definite left leaner. I was discussing climate with her and she revealed that one of her sons was now a geologist and told her that this climate change stuff was bs and this had now upset her because, ” I just can’t not believe in climate change!”.
So, there you have it, Heresy. And it is spreading. You should be ashamed of yourself.

April 11, 2018 8:10 am

I really admire your posts! This one is so crazy… It’s as if they all knew but didn’t care. All about the money.

phaedo
April 11, 2018 8:18 am

I just thought you might like this one:

ResourceGuy
April 11, 2018 9:45 am

They need to look again. There might be something in the Nostradamus files.

Gamecock
April 11, 2018 10:11 am

‘At the time, de Blasio said the world is facing a “painful, horrible reality” and the city will “no longer participate in a system that endangers our very own people.”’
They closed all the gas stations?
‘New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio filed a lawsuit against five major oil companies, including Shell’
The height of decadence: suing the people who keep you alive.

April 11, 2018 10:15 am

I met with several Shell engineers and chemists around 1998 at an ‘alternative’ energy conference One thing they certainly knew was that ‘alternative’ energy (now ‘renewable’ energy) was completely non-commercial from the get-go and would only exist with massive subsidies, and wasn’t especially effective at reducing CO2 emissions or replacing fossil fuels, and was, therefore, not a commercial threat to Shell or any other oil company.
This is very important. It makes the claims that Big Oil is behind climate scepticism ridiculous. It isn’t and it never was. Because it had no reason to be. Renewable energy was never a threat to the oil industry and they knew that back in 1998.
It is an extremely stupid moved by the climate mythologists to move against Big Oil, because not only do they risk damaging their own climate mythology, they risk the inconvenient truth about renewable energy being revealed as part of Big Oil’s defence.
In this case the truth is extremely damaging to the whole green-spin industry. Not only is there no problem with CO2, the means proposed and implemented to reduce it actually don’t work either.
Bring in the lawsuits, and lets see the companies fighting back.
If the truth comes out, its the death knell for renewable energy and eco-warriors, both.
I can’t wait.

kristi silber
Reply to  Leo Smith
April 11, 2018 7:17 pm

” It makes the claims that Big Oil is behind climate scepticism ridiculous. It isn’t and it never was.”
Original industry memos refute this directly.

paqyfelyc
Reply to  kristi silber
April 12, 2018 5:22 am

which memos? the non existent one from “big oil”, where they push climate scepticism, which they never did?
Unless of course you include gas-company into “big Oil”. There, we have proof. We have Dana “nuts” Nuccitelli running a climate-scare blog, while being a gas-company employee.
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/danas-dirty-little-secret/
oops…

Chuck in Houston
Reply to  kristi silber
April 12, 2018 12:21 pm

C’mon, kristi, Just one cite. A real cite, not a huffpo allegation. Your “concern” trolling has become irritating. Not sure why you’re here, but it seems unlikely that you actually want to learn anything. I assume you’re a recent graduate with some sort of B.A. in something that sounds sciency. Speaking only for myself, your comments the last several months have not been impressive.

michel
April 11, 2018 10:32 am

They don’t understand how scenario planning works. They think scenarios are forecasts, and that they are forecasts of known future events. This is so wildly wrong that its hard to believe they really think it. There are books on the Shell scenario planning methodology. They should read some of them.
Scenario planning works, not when any of the scenarios are right or wrong, but when the process leads the senior team to find and focus on what they think are the key drivers.

michel
Reply to  David Middleton
April 11, 2018 10:54 am

Yes, as a planner running the process, your aim is to get the top team and their senior reports to think about the drivers. You get to drivers which have a role in all of the scenarios, then you are collectively on to something. And the drivers that emerge come from debating, how if at all could this scenario emerge.
I recall a company going through a similar exercise about Internet connectivity demand, and running some scenarios in which piracy had different roles.
When they went in, the key drivers were not obvious, but when they got through it, it became clear to them that social acceptability of copyright restraint and breach was going to be a key driver. Also porn of course….

Hivemind
Reply to  michel
April 11, 2018 4:40 pm

They know exactly how scenario planning works, which is why they are able to misrepresent it so effectively.

michel
Reply to  Hivemind
April 12, 2018 5:21 am

The crazy thing is that you include in scenario planning exactly those scenarios that you are not sure of. If you were sure of one of them, it would no longer be a scenario to be studied, it would be part of the background briefing, the starting point.
Actually what they cite as evidence that Shell knew in reality proves that Shell didn’t know and was trying to think its way through what was not at all clear or settled as far as top management were concerned.

Ed Zuiderwijk
April 11, 2018 11:31 am

Alarmists believe in fairies doing global warming. Apparently Shell also believes in the same fairies. Now the former are sueing the latter for not having done anything about those fairies.
More surreal it can’t get.

Barbara
Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
April 11, 2018 12:35 pm

Many businesses thought it was cheaper to play along with environmental groups and their lawyers than it was to fight them.

Barbara
Reply to  Barbara
April 11, 2018 1:59 pm

UNEP FI, 2017
‘Principles for Positive Impact Finance’
Re: Sustainable Development financing.
Webpage has links to more information on this topic.
http://www.unepfi.org/positive-impact/positive-impact

Barbara
Reply to  Barbara
April 11, 2018 4:11 pm

UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), U.K., launched 2006
Webpage has links to more information and the Founding Signatories.
Also includes Sustainable Development Goals.
http://www.unpri.org/about-the-pri

Barbara
Reply to  Barbara
April 11, 2018 7:20 pm

UN Sustainable Development
Partnerships for the SDGs
Re: Sustainable Development
Webpage includes partners.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnership/?p=11784

Barbara
Reply to  Barbara
April 12, 2018 7:38 am

UNEP FI
‘Global Framework for Climate Risk Disclosure’, October 2006, 10 pages
Re: Corporate Disclosure
Began in May of 2005.
Steering Committee included in this report.
http://www.unepfi.org/fileadmin/documents/global_framework.pdf

Barbara
Reply to  Barbara
April 12, 2018 12:23 pm

UN Sustainable Development
Partnerships for the SDGs
Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data
Re: Implementation and monitoring
Webpage has links and members.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnership/?p=9691

Barbara
Reply to  Barbara
April 12, 2018 1:22 pm

UN Sustainable Development
Partnerships for the SDGs
SDG Compass
Partners:
GRI
UNGC
WBCSD
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnership/?p=9856

JJW
April 11, 2018 12:24 pm

Huff ‘n’ Puff published a piece consisting of falsehoods, deception an distortion? Not surprising. That’s what they traffic in.

Science or Fiction
April 11, 2018 3:01 pm

The “Report of the second session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 28 June 1989”
Gives a pretty good idea about the scaremongering that was already going on at that time. Obviously, the authors of internal documents must have been influenced by what was published at that time:
ref: https://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session02/second-session-report.pdf
“In welcoming the delegates to the UNEP Headquarters … The Executive Director of UNEP, hailed the fruitful alliance between WMO and UNEP. The firm commitment of prof. Obasi, the Secretary-General of WMO, coupled with the determination of UNEP leadership, has resulted in a partnership which is helping to unify the scientific and policy-making communities of the world to lay the foundation for effective, realistic and equitable action on climate change.”
“The Executive director stated that the impacts of climate change and global warming would have serious consequences for humanity. In Egypt alone, global warming could flood much of the Nile Delta and Drown 70 centuries of civilization in less than one, and could inundate one fifth of the nations arable land.”
“It would be desirable for the Panel´s report to be ready by august 1990 for presentation to the Second World Climate Conference and to the United Nations General Assembly. It should be born in mind that both the governing council of UNEP and the executive Council of WMO expected the first report of IPCC to form the basis for international negotiations on a global convention on climate change. The report can also play a valuable guiding role for the large number of conferences, meetings and symposia on climate change being held all over the world. For all of these reasons, the report should be completed in good time.”
«The issuance of the report would only be the beginning of a far more arduous task. To tackle the problem of climate warming effectively, radical changes would be necessary in international relations, trade, technology transfer, and bilateral and multilateral strategies. The panel´s continued work would be the only guarantee of the concerted response to the global threat of climate change”
«In his opening remarks , Prof. Bolin said that the primary objective of IPCC, in making its first assessment, is to produce a document which could provide guidelines for the formulation of global policy and which would enable the nations of the world to contribute to this task»

kristi silber
April 11, 2018 7:12 pm

I don’t know about Shell, but the thing with Exxon is their own scientists reported to management in the late 1970s that FF emissions were likely to result in global warming, sea level rise, melting glaciers, etc. OK, nothing wrong with that, but there is something wrong when Exxon got together with other members of the American Petroleum Institute to convince the >>>conservative<<< public that the science was full of uncertainty, the scientists were subject to bias, and global warming might not be such a bad thing – in other words, they launched a decades-long series of propaganda campaigns to spread misinformation. They "trained" (their word) select scientists (Patrick Michaels is mentioned in their memos) to be their "experts." (Exxon also lobbied Bush 2 to place scientists of their own selection in particular high-ranking IPCC spots.) Because the propaganda was so successful, we are at a national impasse today in which half the country apparently doesn't trust the world's scientific community enough to believe they are rational, capable and scientific. Or rather, the climate scientist community and any scientist who studies anything related to climate change – except those who don't think it's a problem. In other words, the conservative public has selected those scientists they think are trustworthy based on their stance rather than their ability, experience or expertise. Maybe you think this is right, but I don't.
Something David does not quote:
" Shell spokesman Ray Fischer said: 'The Shell Group’s position on climate change has been a matter of public record for decades. We strongly support the Paris Agreement and the need for society to transition to a lower carbon future, while also extending the economic and social benefits of energy to everyone. Successfully navigating this dual challenge requires sound government policy and cultural change to drive low-carbon choices for businesses and consumers. It requires cooperation between all segments of society.'”
Also interesting is the fact that Shell drew a link by 2010 between public reaction to the FF industry and tobacco. Not surprising when some of the same players (e.g. S. Fred Singer) were big names in both controversies, working on behalf of industry to manipulate public opinion.

Tom Halla
Reply to  kristi silber
April 11, 2018 7:23 pm

Ms Silber, the minor little problem with your argument is the “misinformation” was true. CAGW was always oversold, and always political.
The model was plausible in 1979, but the demonstrations of it relied on cherry picking, and with the Mann hockey stick in the 2000 IPCC report, went off the deep end into self deception. Climategate just shoveled a few more dirt onto an intellectually indefensible enterprize.

Warren Blair
Reply to  kristi silber
April 11, 2018 7:55 pm

Hey Kristi do you:
Drive a FF car?
Heat your house with FF?
Light your house with FF electricity?
Use plastics made from FF?
Travel on public transport powered by FF?
Eat food processed using FF?
Attend schools or hospitals powered by FF?
How is your computer powered?
Will you reject an ambulance running on FF?
If you currently use FF powered mod-cons you’re a raving hypocrite and a virtue-signalling irrelevance to the real World with far more pressing issues such as:
Road accidents.
Corruption.
Health.
Education.
Money going to your green mates is an immoral disgusting perversion that robs real people of real needs.
I know what your going to say; you’ll claim you and your green mates are preventing an impending catastrophe.
The con-artists stock in trade . . . if you don’t believe in THIS something will happen to you!
.

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  kristi silber
April 11, 2018 9:59 pm

How many government self-selected so-called “scientists” can you buy for 30 years of government ten billion-dollar budgets?

paqyfelyc
Reply to  kristi silber
April 12, 2018 5:55 am

ye Kristi, we already know you are creationist flat-earther. You didn’t tell if you are also organic eater, anti-GMO, anti-vaxer, cellphone radiation-afraid, conspiracy theorist about JFK and 9/11, but let me guess: you are.
Makes sense
Now, the truth is, “only paranoid will survive”, so you ARE right to be afraid of big oil. Some of these guys paid D. Nuccitelli, a guy running a blog spreading dirt on carbon, hurting concurrent coal business more than theirs. We know that these guys were not afraid to push war for a lucrative oil-field, or to pay ISIS or other terrorists to continue operation. They do deserve all the contempt you have for them.
You are just not paranoid enough. You should just be as afraid of “big green”. Actually, much more afraid. Fossil fuel is the energy running the ~100 slave-worth of work you benefit, and allowing you to post here instead of scraping the Earth for your daily food. Big green don’t do that. They plan to reduce your energy allowance by no less than 4, and your standard of living by no less than half (some fairy somehow doubling of the standard of living/energy ratio). Well, just try that, and come back spreading your big green propaganda…

Chuck in Houston
Reply to  paqyfelyc
April 12, 2018 6:51 pm

paqyfelyc, wtf are you talking about here? Are you really this nuts? Man, I know that everyone is a dog on the internet, but between you and Mr Kristi, this is just crazy. Or did I miss a /sarc somewhere. Good f’n grief.

paqyfelyc
Reply to  paqyfelyc
April 13, 2018 4:12 am

Chuck, are you really this naive and uninformed? No need to check conspiracy site, all I talked about is official history, so you will have no problem finding that, and more (bribes, “strange” death, etc.).
Doesn’t mean that oil companies are evil. It just means that they are cynical, government tied entities, not afraid to do what it takes (including immoral or illegal) for business, profit, and national interest (continued oil supply).

April 11, 2018 8:57 pm

Of course Kristi does all those things but his hypocrisy is forgiven because his virtue signaling covers all his sins. He after all is a true believer and all grace is given to him because of his faith.

Herbert
April 11, 2018 9:06 pm

On 7 December 2009, the EPA issued its notorious “endangerment “ finding.
As an Australian, I am curious to see why the federal government here has a National Pollution Inventory on which neither Carbon nor CO2 appear.Some 93 éléments and substances are listed.
The NPI is for industrial and commercial users and, while we read daily that CO2 is a “ pollutant”, there does not appear to be any direct official finding that such is the case.
My research indicates that in 1995/96 when a government appointed committee looked into this and drew up the NPI, the greenhouse effect was even then controversial and a finding that C and CO2 were pollutants (or not) was deferred to a later date.
I am aware that since late 2016 it has been announced by the relevant Federal Government Department that the NPI is to be reviewed.
This may open the way for an “ adverse” finding on C and CO2.
Does anyone have any more recent information on this as I fear an Australian “ endangerment” equivalent is in the wind.

Warren Blair
April 11, 2018 9:07 pm

Who cares if #ShellKnew . . .
If California wants to avoid paying for Nuisance loss or damage (Cal. Civ. Code § 3479) occasioned by FF combustion, Cal must ban combustion or impose a levy on it.
Judge Alsup will subvert the law if he allows the case to continue for an ‘hour’ past commencement IMHO.
No liability exists under Nuisance for the big-5 oils (unless a well evidenced Nuisance event occurred within the past three years).
Judge Alsup has a duty to ask Cal (on commencement) if they have evidence of a specific Nuisance event (in the past three years). If they cannot show they have detailed evidence (and expert witnesses to testify) Alsup must dismiss the case and award costs to the defendants.
In any event, FF burning is not a matter for the courts, it’s a political matter (Alsup well knows this as well).

Patrick MJD
April 12, 2018 12:32 am

Just on the news here in Australia, plans to turn brown coal from the Latrobe Valley in to hydrogen! How much energy would that consume? I think this is another example of Australian subsidy farming.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  David Middleton
April 12, 2018 3:40 am

Certainly a lot of acting going on there.

goldminor
April 12, 2018 1:54 am

O/T …but interesting. Earlier today when I was on FB a comment about earthquake caught my attention. The comment showed a USGS graph depicting which months had the highest rate of 6.0+ mag quakes. April was the month with the highest historical count of 6.0+ quakes. The reason why I am mentioning this is that the daily quake map caught my attention over the last 4 days as the rate of quakes per 24 hour period is currently running higher than average, imo, for what it should be in conjunction with the Moon. I have been watching the dailies almost every day since March of 2011.
Monday will be the New Moon which would typically be a time of a higher rate of quakes per 24 hour period, as is the Full Moon and to a lesser extent the mid Moons. So if the current 24 hour rate is already elevated, and April is the prime month for large quakes is this a signal of an approaching larger quake somewhere between Sunday and Tuesday?

michael hart
April 12, 2018 3:28 am

I know I probably shouldn’t be giving Elon Musk or Uber any extra brilliant ideas (not for free, anyway), but I recall one of the super-hero series also had a super car which was effectively driven backwards. That is, the driver was seated facing backwards and drove while looking forwards through mirrors. It was for some very good reason that temporarily escapes me. Perhaps to make extreme braking more comfortable?
Anyway, how do I get a job writing internal science fiction stories for wealthy oil companies?

michael hart
Reply to  David Middleton
April 12, 2018 5:32 am

Yes, Captain Scarlet was the dog’s bollocks. Not least because Captain Black was the Darth Vader of the day.

Russ R.
April 12, 2018 9:01 am

Hans Christian Andersen knew 180 years ago that human “thinking” is an emotion driven system, and that it is possible for people to bypass logic and common sense, under public pressure to conform to the consensus. And many so called “educated” people would ignore reality, in order to hide their own insecurities about their ability to “think for themselves” and be exposed as “not worthy” to be a member of the consensus group.
“Isn’t it a beautiful piece of goods?” the swindlers asked him, as they displayed and described their imaginary pattern.
“I know I’m not stupid,” the man thought, “so it must be that I’m unworthy of my good office. That’s strange. I mustn’t let anyone find it out, though.” So he praised the material he did not see. He declared he was delighted with the beautiful colors and the exquisite pattern. To the Emperor he said, “It held me spellbound.”
All the town was talking of this splendid cloth, and the Emperor wanted to see it for himself while it was still in the looms. Attended by a band of chosen men, among whom were his two old trusted officials-the ones who had been to the weavers-he set out to see the two swindlers. He found them weaving with might and main, but without a thread in their looms.
“Magnificent,” said the two officials already duped. “Just look, Your Majesty, what colors! What a design!” They pointed to the empty looms, each supposing that the others could see the stuff.
“What’s this?” thought the Emperor. “I can’t see anything. This is terrible!
Am I a fool? Am I unfit to be the Emperor? What a thing to happen to me of all people! – Oh! It’s very pretty,” he said. “It has my highest approval.” And he nodded approbation at the empty loom. Nothing could make him say that he couldn’t see anything.