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> scientists who were either outside their discipline or among the outliers who were unconcerned with the anthropogenic portion of CO2 buildup, advising those e

> scientists who were either outside their discipline or among the outliers who were unconcerned with the anthropogenic portion of CO2 buildup, advising those executives that no action was currently warranted. They were wrong, make no mistake; but that's what they were saying, and that's the information the oil companies were acting upon, at least through the end of the 20th century. Except that's way too convenient to be a coincidence. You mean to tell me that for decades all of the top scientists at all the major oil companies just so happened to be heterodox or hold highly conservative opinions about climate change? And all important decision-making executives just so happened to take them at their word, and never heard a contrary opinion? And if only they weren't so incredibly unlucky as to get consistently bad advice all consistently and conveniently giving them the answer they wanted to hear, they'd have acted on climate change sooner? That's an utterly absurd hypothesis, particularly coming from a "skeptical" source. It ignores the obvious incentive for oil executives to deliberately and exclusively seek out such scientists. This article is far far too accepting and apologetic, beyond the point of credible gullibility.

revelio 3y ago
[flagged]
- Epa095 3y ago
  Are you sure you are linking to the right place? Cause I can't see any proof of scientists lying in the one post from "Morgenstern".
  - revelio 3y ago
    [flagged]
- nerdponx 3y ago
  > conservative I meant it in the general sense, not the political one. Beyond that, you're not really making any new point here. Yes, there was controversy and uncertainty and scientists in general were not prepared to give strong recommendations. But if you were hired by an oil company to research this topic, realistically, what would you tell the CEO? Maybe you'd be candid off the record, but certainly there is a huge incentive to ensure that any official/public communication remains equivocal and scientifically conservative. Rational corporations do not willingly expose their own existential threats.
- rubyn00bie 3y ago
  > Secondly, you're assuming that those oil company scientists were wrong and academics were right. But that's a product of media-driven loyalty to academia. Dig into the details and you'll see that those oil scientists were saying true things like "the models aren't reliable, we can't predict the impact" and in fact academics agreed There’s a lot to unpack, first is an implicit assumption “media driven loyalty to academics” even exists as a thing to discuss. I’d go as far to say the words are meaningless in this context. I can say the moon is a collection of ghost farts. Just because I can say something does not make it true, or worthy of debate. What you’re saying here is akin to a moon made of ghost farts, it’s just dressed to look and sound less absurd. Next you state that the models were unreliable and that only the “oil scientists” stood up to the grizzly academics. This too is weird. As like, you know, science progresses. Just because they were wrong with a specific model doesn’t mean they were wrong about the overall outcome. I don’t understand how that refutes anything. It feels very black and white, and the world isn’t just shades of gray but color, beeb. > Thirdly, you assert that oil companies must have been selecting such scientists deliberately, but ignore that academia also selects its scientists. You aren't going to get anywhere in academic climatology if you think industrial activity doesn't have much impact on the climate. Not only will you struggle to get funding but you'll also be attacked and driven out by other academics. Any argument that a consistency of views must be driven by selection bias has to be applied fairly. I don’t have much to say here other than, like the obvious difference is one group is paid extremely well and the other group isn’t. The group paid extremely well, oil scientists, are incentivized to fall in line with the needs of whoever writes their paychecks. Finally, you talk about empirical observations but provide a single link to a popular science type article. I’d expect at least a literature review or something meaningful. The mention of Covid also kind of shows your hand, your interest and expression seems to be based on “sides,” breaking it up as an us versus them. Combining issues you find to be related because of your world view. I’d really encourage you to take a step back, and really look at the world. You might just find that color, instead of black and white, makes for a more descriptive and accurate existence.
- godelski 3y ago
  > Thirdly...You aren't going to get anywhere in academic climatology if you think industrial activity doesn't have much impact on the climate. We're discussing the 1980's, not 2023
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Yeah, reminds me of the scene in the previous Spiderman film where he tries to intentionally flunk out of a class and the teacher points out that the only likely way to get 0 out of 100 on a multiple choice quiz is to know the right answers and intentionally avoid them. And this is the same oil majors that put lead in gasoline because ethanol was a competing fuel, blatantly lying about the safety of this and poisoning several generations.

revelio 3y ago

[flagged]

Epa095 3y ago
Are you sure you are linking to the right place? Cause I can't see any proof of scientists lying in the one post from "Morgenstern".
- revelio 3y ago
  [flagged]
nerdponx 3y ago
> conservative I meant it in the general sense, not the political one. Beyond that, you're not really making any new point here. Yes, there was controversy and uncertainty and scientists in general were not prepared to give strong recommendations. But if you were hired by an oil company to research this topic, realistically, what would you tell the CEO? Maybe you'd be candid off the record, but certainly there is a huge incentive to ensure that any official/public communication remains equivocal and scientifically conservative. Rational corporations do not willingly expose their own existential threats.
rubyn00bie 3y ago
> Secondly, you're assuming that those oil company scientists were wrong and academics were right. But that's a product of media-driven loyalty to academia. Dig into the details and you'll see that those oil scientists were saying true things like "the models aren't reliable, we can't predict the impact" and in fact academics agreed There’s a lot to unpack, first is an implicit assumption “media driven loyalty to academics” even exists as a thing to discuss. I’d go as far to say the words are meaningless in this context. I can say the moon is a collection of ghost farts. Just because I can say something does not make it true, or worthy of debate. What you’re saying here is akin to a moon made of ghost farts, it’s just dressed to look and sound less absurd. Next you state that the models were unreliable and that only the “oil scientists” stood up to the grizzly academics. This too is weird. As like, you know, science progresses. Just because they were wrong with a specific model doesn’t mean they were wrong about the overall outcome. I don’t understand how that refutes anything. It feels very black and white, and the world isn’t just shades of gray but color, beeb. > Thirdly, you assert that oil companies must have been selecting such scientists deliberately, but ignore that academia also selects its scientists. You aren't going to get anywhere in academic climatology if you think industrial activity doesn't have much impact on the climate. Not only will you struggle to get funding but you'll also be attacked and driven out by other academics. Any argument that a consistency of views must be driven by selection bias has to be applied fairly. I don’t have much to say here other than, like the obvious difference is one group is paid extremely well and the other group isn’t. The group paid extremely well, oil scientists, are incentivized to fall in line with the needs of whoever writes their paychecks. Finally, you talk about empirical observations but provide a single link to a popular science type article. I’d expect at least a literature review or something meaningful. The mention of Covid also kind of shows your hand, your interest and expression seems to be based on “sides,” breaking it up as an us versus them. Combining issues you find to be related because of your world view. I’d really encourage you to take a step back, and really look at the world. You might just find that color, instead of black and white, makes for a more descriptive and accurate existence.
godelski 3y ago
> Thirdly...You aren't going to get anywhere in academic climatology if you think industrial activity doesn't have much impact on the climate. We're discussing the 1980's, not 2023

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

Yeah, reminds me of the scene in the previous Spiderman film where he tries to intentionally flunk out of a class and the teacher points out that the only likely way to get 0 out of 100 on a multiple choice quiz is to know the right answers and intentionally avoid them. And this is the same oil majors that put lead in gasoline because ethanol was a competing fuel, blatantly lying about the safety of this and poisoning several generations.