It's not 63x more than estimated, or thought, or calculated. It's not an error somewhere in the process to calculate it. It is 63x worse than reported by an industry that has routinely lied about their impact on the climate. It is very, very possible.
It's possible, but not plausible, to me.
You can talk about those "evil oil companies", but this is 2024. It's hard to imagine them under-reporting so drastically, again, to me. What is there to gain? If this is real, it's going to be the end of them.
> "evil oil companies", but this is 2024
Same companies, and often same people. They can keep the climate change denial going as long as they're making money from it.
Fighting against stupid climate change policies isn't "denying climate change". Policies like, I don't know, clamping down on our oil extraction and pipelines locally, and instead buying the resources from adversarial countries.
Yeah, it feels strange!
But the numbers are just too drastically different that it's impossible for me to reconcile.
Only because the people profiting from fossil fuels completely lie and deny facts to make it "politicized".
No different than when young Earth creationists claimed that evolution or astronomy were "politicized" and demanded that schools "teach the controversy" or put warning stickers on biology textbooks to say that the science doesn't align to Biblical creation stories.
The rhetoric to deny climate change constantly moves the goal posts. First it's not real, then it's real but not human caused, then it's human caused but too late to change, then it's not too late to change but the proposed solutions are too expensive, then the solutions are reasonable but involve too much government intervention, etc.
The discourse isn't poisoned and the research isn't politicized. It's a fact, and pretending it's "politicized" is just the latest angle the fossil fuel profiteers are using in their propaganda campaign.
But the climate change discourse is so poisoned, and scientific research so politicized, I find this hard to believe. 63 times? It's a headline meant to grab attention. It's simply not possible this is the case without anyone ever noticing prior, or massive liability issues. Blame the companies, of course. But how could the government be so inept to allow it? It's extraordinary. To the point I can't even be bothered to look at the paper, since I have to assume they are measuring something completely different.