Re:The scientists hired by big oil who predicted the climate...
by tzs on Friday July 02, 2021 @01:42PM
(#27714485)
> That some scientists accurately predicted climate change long ago is obvious. Some of them also predicted an ice age. Now, with hindsight, we know who was right.
That's not a very accurate representation of what was going on. The ones predicting cooling agreed with the ones predicting warming on the effect increasing greenhouse gases would have (warming).
The difference was that the ones predicting cooling assumed that the growth in particulate matter pollution would continue to outpace the growth in greenhouse gases, and so the cooling effect from particulates would be stronger than the warming effect from the greenhouse gases.
Starting around the '70s much of the world made a major effort to get particulates under control and the particulates levels went way down.
As the article points out, at that time, they missed data that we now have. So how certain they were about their predictions, and how did alternative scenarios compare? If we are only talking about science, it does not really matter. The important thing is that we know better today.
However, the context here is that people want to hold "big oil" accountable. This is not science anymore, it is a trial. And personally, I don't really like the idea. I mean, oil companies followed the law, and they didn't hide their activities. They only downplayed the research results that they paid for, but what do you expect? They don't pay researchers to destroy their business. No need to bring out the past, tax them for what they are doing now.