3 ms·

Where researchers only finding warming results back then? or also cooling results? how would they know which were most reliable?

• jandrese 6y ago
  Back then it was called global warming. The fundamental force being CO2 acting as a greenhouse gas. This was well understood. In school in the early 90s it was pretty common to see greenhouse gas demonstrations at science fairs. The question wasn't if it was warming/cooling, but simply how much impact humans were having on the atmosphere. There's a whole lot of atmosphere and humans are very small so it wasn't as clear how big of an impact we were having. Even for people who knew the math there was uncertainty in the inputs. Oil companies were best prepared to know how much CO2 were were releasing because they knew exactly how many barrels a day they were extracting from the ground. Everybody else has to go on public figures that may or may not be accurate.
  • yters 6y ago
    I remember growing up adults just mentioned global cooling. No mention of global warming. Which gives me the impression cooling seemed the bigger concern back then. If so, that would explain this reaction by companies that either didn't think it the most likely scenario, or maybe thought it could be beneficial to fight the cooling effect.
    • p_l 6y ago
      Absent human influence, Earth would be entering a cooler period now, yes. But that has nothing on corporate decisions, which were driven more by "environmental concerns impact our profits" rather than anything else.