Sagan
<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see cooling</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">franta</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://redgreenandblue.org/2021/01/14/american-petroleum-institute-denying-climate-science-since-1980/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">http://redgreenandblue.org/2021/01/14/american-petroleum-institute-denying-climate-science-since-1980/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.4em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">while many in the Trump administration are concerned about their next job — “member of a violently seditious racist’s government” doesn’t look great on a resume, after all — apparently the American Petroleum Institute has no qualms with hiring terrorist-adjacent staff, and has <a href="https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2021/01/08/stories/1063722081?utm_campaign=edition&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eenews%3Aenergywire" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box;">hired</u></a> Energy Dept press secretary Jessica Szymanski. Despite a tweet from an API executive condemning the violence (<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/01/washington-violence-and-lawmakers-condemned-by-gop-donors/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box;">less than even other pro-polluter groups</u></a> who issued full statements) given that <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">API bankrolls Republicans (including <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-big-oil-money-behind-the-members-of-congress-who-fu-1846020442" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box;">insurrectionists</u></a></span>) it’s not exactly a surprise to see they’ve rescued Szymanski from unemployment.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.4em; box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Climate Denier Roundup </font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.4em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Because as a new study shows, API has been embracing denial for decades now. Dr. Ben Franta’s latest, <a title="" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09644016.2020.1863703" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box;">in </u><u style="box-sizing: border-box;">Environmental Politics</u></a> examines an archival report published by API in 1980 that shows how “commercial fossil fuel interests played a more obstructive role in climate change discourse and policy throughout the 1980s than previously understood.”</font></p><div id="intro" class="intro-text " style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.4em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In </span><a href="https://twitter.com/BenFranta/status/1347283598521430017" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box;">a twitter thread</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> last week, Dr. Franta explained how the “Two Energy Futures” policy report lays bare three key aspects of the oil industry’s long-term denial campaign. It ignored conclusions of its own internal reports showing an impending climate crisis, and instead deliberately downplayed the climate science’s certainty of negative impacts by invoking a false balance claiming that “scientists were more or less split” on the CO2-climate change link and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">misrepresenting Carl Sagan’s views on the issue...</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.4em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.4em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09644016.2020.1863703" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09644016.2020.1863703</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>early oil industry disinformation on global warming</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Benjamin Franta ORCID </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pages 663-668 | Published online: 05<b> Jan 2021</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Download citation https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2020.1863703 </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Full Article Figures & data References Citations Metrics Licensing Reprints & Permissions PDF EPUB</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ABSTRACT</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Determining the onset of organized disinformation about global warming is critical for understanding its political history and evaluating the responsibilities of fossil fuel producers and other relevant parties today.<b> A newly discovered archival document shows the American Petroleum Institute was promulgating false and misleading information about climate change in 1980, nearly a decade earlier than previously known</b>, in order to promote public policies favorable to the fossil fuel industry. This finding demonstrates early use of public-facing disinformation about global warming by the petroleum industry and suggests commercial fossil fuel interests played a more obstructive role in climate change discourse and policy throughout the 1980s than previously understood.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">KEYWORDS: Climate change global warming American Petroleum Institute fossil fuel industry disinformation denial</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the historiography of climate change politics, organized disinformation (false or misleading information promulgated by an organization) about global warming is <b>often understood to commence in 1989 with publications from the George C. Marshall Institute</b> (Brulle 2020a) and the founding of the Global Climate Coalition (Brulle 2020b). Some writers (Rich 2018), as well as fossil fuel industry representatives (Walrath 2018), have argued that this apparent lack of organized disinformation prior to 1989 proves that commercial interests bear no or little responsibility for the lack of proactive climate policy throughout the 1980s.<b> A document not yet noticed by historians, however, shows that the American Petroleum Institute (API) was publicly downplaying the threat of climate change as early as 1980.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">In August 1980, the API published Two Energy Futures: A National Choice for the 80s (American Petroleum Institute 1980). The policy booklet acknowledged that carbon dioxide was a ‘pollutant’ and that fossil fuels could cause global warming, stating (American Petroleum Institute 1980, p. 80):</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When coal (or any other fossil fuel) is burned, carbon dioxide emissions occur. In itself, carbon dioxide is harmless – nature itself is a major source. However, some scientists believe that large concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can, in time, cause climatic changes – specifically, higher temperatures worldwide (the ‘greenhouse’ effect).</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>After this acknowledgment, however, the API proceeded to cast doubt upon the danger of global warming, invoking the popular astronomer Carl Sagan:</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Other scientists are more sanguine about the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. S</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">ome scientists, including Dr. Carl Sagan, Cornell University astronomer, see a cooling phenomenon as counteracting the greenhouse effect.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To support this message of reassurance, the API cited an article in the magazine The Wilson Quarterly (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 1980), <b>which itself was a summary of an article by Sagan</b>, physicist Owen Toon, and astrophysicist James Pollack in the journal Science (Sagan et al. 1979). </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">But the article by Sagan and colleagues did not state that global warming from fossil fuels was not a threat, as suggested by the API. Rather, the scientists proposed that human societies had over thousands of years caused desertification and deforestation of large areas of Earth, gradually increasing the planet’s albedo and lowering globally averaged temperatures by about 1 degree Celsius</span>. Continued desertification and deforestation might reduce the planet’s temperature by another 1 degree Celsius by the end of the twenty-first century, the scientists estimated. </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But such cooling, they noted, would require that nearly all of Earth’s surface be deforested, transformed into desert, and/or salinized into salt flats, and even then, global warming from fossil fuels would be only partly counteracte</b>d. ‘The surface albedo of the earth will reach an asymptotic limit long before the carbon dioxide abundance will,’ the scientists observed, warning, ‘Global temperature changes of this magnitude [1–2 degrees Celsius] have profound consequences for human populations.’ The API’s public reassurance that Sagan was ‘sanguine’ (i.e. optimistic) about the buildup of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels was false.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sagan also discussed global warming in his widely read 1980 book Cosmos, where he issued a stark admonition (Sagan 1980):</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The surface environment of Venus is a warning: something disastrous can happen to a planet rather like our own. … the carbon dioxide content of the Earth’s atmosphere is increasing dramatically. The possibility of a runaway greenhouse effect suggests that we have to be careful: <b>Even a one- or two-degree rise in the global temperature can have catastrophic consequences.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Again, Sagan’s words were far from the posture of reassurance falsely attributed to him by the API.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Having created the false impression that scientists did not view global warming from fossil fuels as a significant threat, the API suggested that expanded fossil fuel use – specifically expanded coal and synthetic fuel production – would be safe</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (American Petroleum Institute 1980, p. 80):</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Members of the World Coal Study concluded that present knowledge of carbon dioxide effects on climate ‘does not justify delaying the expansion of coal use.</b>’ The WOCOL [World Coal Study] report added, ‘It may happen that some effects of CO2 (carbon dioxide) will become detectable on a regional and global scale before the end of the century.’ This finding, WOCOL pointed out, is consistent with the authoritative statement on the carbon dioxide question issued by the World Climate Conference in 1979....</font></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">grinspoon family hung out with Sagan, he wrote fun books:</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?427244-2/earth-human-hands" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.c-span.org/video/?427244-2/earth-human-hands</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>Earth in Human Hands David Grinspoon talked about his book Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet’s Future, in which he reports on the “anthropocene” phase of Earth’s history and describes the impact humans have had and will have on the planet.</div><div>
</div><div>points out that sagan found out about possibility of nuclear winter from atomic bomb from studying mars; a curious scientist studying venus atmosphere made them wonder aboit earth, acidentally/serendipitously found hole in ozone hole by chlorine (CFC), so we got international deal to fix, so is healing (half the cost and twice the speed predicted); Hansen jim also started studing atmos on other plnaets, became climate champion.</div><div>
</div><div>https://www.amazon.com/Earth-Human-Hands-Shaping-Planets/dp/1455589128</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">===</font></div>