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Open in TheBrain

fork decision choice pt

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each has own node 921

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C_ZddskMG0AqIhwI1pZfGp-KNDD0kcjwn4am4KVJ_HY/edit

48 pp

23 pp text doc early? threeforks  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uBWN97_yVmEmvegHengOHFbIgsP7mH70jjKTRsb6Fdc/edit

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trump ~ Paris = 4?

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FORK ZERO

an 4 22 hartmann

...Within minutes they’ll be croaking about that time back in 2008 when Maxine Waters — a Black woman with power and therefore the most terrifying thing Republicans can imagine — threatened oil industry CEOs who were giving Congress deliberately deceptive and incomplete answers with “socializing… taking over and the government running all your companies.”

Immediately, Fox “News” was all over it, as were dozens of rightwing sites.

In that, they’ve completely ignored (or never knew) the long American history of taking over industries during a time of national crisis.

And, as we re-enter a cold war with Russia and face unprecedented human death and property damage from climate change, it’s hard to claim we’re not in the midst of a national crisis that has fossil fuels at its foundation.

We’re at least 40 years behind where we should be in dealing with the fossil fuel/global warming crisis because giant oil companies have run massive disinformation campaigns while funding the political careers of hacks in Congress willing to lie to the public for them.

President Jimmy Carter, for example, declared a national crisis in 1979 and proposed legislation to create “this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.”

FDR had sold bonds to the public to fund a government corporation that would develop synthetic rubber for fighter jet tires back in the day, and Carter wanted to do the same to end our dependence on fossil fuels:

'Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II,' Carter said, 'so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war.'

In that same July 15, 1979 speech, he proposed the government issue bonds that would fund:

[T]he creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, andI especially want them to be in small denominations so that average Americans can invest directly in America’s energy security.

It all came crashing down 42 years ago this coming January when the fossil fuel industry’s candidate, Ronald Reagan, replaced Carter, killed the solar bank and the bond program, and even took Carter’s solar panels off the roof of the White House.

If ever there was an industry that merited nationalization, the fossil fuel industry is it. They manipulate prices to both enhance profits and swing elections, bribe their way through the halls of Congress, and pump out a steady stream of lies about climate change. All while pouring hundreds of billions into the money bins of their morbidly rich CEOs, shareholders, and senior executives.

America has a long and proud history of taking on companies that put profits over the public good during a time of crisis. And we could acquire controlling interest of the nation’s three largest fossil fuel players — ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips — for, according to Robert Pollin writing atThe American Prospect, fewer than a half-trillion dollars.

For less than a quarter of the cost of Trump’s billionaire tax cuts we could rapidly move a long way toward saving our nation and the world from climate destruction. But is it even possible? Turns out that history says an emphatic, “Yes!”

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As with the upcoming Jan 6 hearings, the FF CEO’s will need a simple but compelling narrative.  One approach would be: We had three major decision points that put us where we are, and fossil fuel-funded conservativethink tanks were deeply involved in all of them, especially and progressivelyExxon andAPI. API and the Chamber of Commerce became increasingly important as Exxon tried to hide its denial efforts, since as a trade group customers could not boycott it, and it was also useful in allowing fossil fuel corporations to launder money to denial groups.  A secondary but related and important narrative is Exxon repeatedly being busted for funding denial,promising to stop, then persisting (which in turn synchs nicely with Exxon Knew story).

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Fork 11989 Bush 41:

HW Bush runs as the environmental president (after Hansen testimony, on the stump boasted of the "White House Effect") and building on US leadership on Montreal Protocol.  Then his Chief of Staff John Sununugets spooked by a Margaret Mead talk that alludes to global environmental cooperation and engineers a policy 180, sabotaging climate talks.  He uses Cato's hack scientist Pat Michaelsfor corroboration.

Fork 2Raymond / Exxon Knew: 

Exxon made a rational business decision to diversify into an energy company and did cutting-edge R&D, producing the Prius prototype and the lithium ion battery, as well as CO2 research from its tanker fleet (they raised their rigs to deal with sea level rise but did not tell shareholder of risks).  Lee Raymondshuts all that down.  Exxon becomes the major funder of denial, gives $100K to Bush 43 inaugural and gets US head ofIPCC Robert Watson fired.  Raymond is also president API and presumably the major funder.

Fork 32001 Kyoto: 

Bush 43 also runs on pledge to combat greenhouse gases (his dad got beat by "Ozone Man" Gore), but API and George Marshall Institute thinktank fund a bogus studyby Baliunas and Soon.  This study is presumably routed through CEQ (really aCheney shop, shadow EPA) run by Connaughton (lobbyist for coal, oil and  helps chemical corporations avoid Superfund) and his #2 Phil Cooney.  Cooney was API point man on climate denial, an architect of 1998 "smoking gun" action plan to reboot tobacco corporations’ sow doubt playbook.  Bush sees the  Baliunas and Soon study, which Cooney also inserts into an EPA report.  Eventually busted for altering scientific reports, Cooney flees to Exxon.  However, Bush uses the Baliunas and Soon report for political cover to bail from Kyoto  (Dobriansky credits GCC, backed by API and Exxon).

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/0H3vp2oz1tV3svXi2suaaZ

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/howtosaveaplanet/episodes

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OCTOBER 1, 2020

Making Republicans Environmentalists Again

HOW TO SAVE A PLANET

The Republican Party has been almost uniformly opposed to climate action for years – nobody more so than President Donald Trump. But it wasn’t always like this. On today’s episode, we look back at how conservatives came to see the denial of climate science as a kind of badge of honor – and we talk to two conservative activists who are trying to change that. rachael waldholtz (sp) 3 forks: #1 1980 RR ~ epa/ regs  #2 1988 hansen 1989 GCC, 1992 Rio supposed to do binding targets bush "pariah" 1998 smoking gun memo

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read the full memo we mentioned in the episode - the Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan (get ready to be mad)

#3 afp bus tour gas, heat house tired of al gore hypocrisy, "cap and Tax" --> policy fight to threat to your way of life;  kochs take advantage of crisis --> culture war /part of identity 2008 high tide of gov't distrust, so small am't of money (goes over sea wall and flooded agw action machinery metaphor Inglis;  [RepublicEN inglis talk to crazy uncle]

am conservation coalition  ACC10yo gop activist noted at cpacs nothing on envir except to trash/denial;  testimony w/ greta so press but he called out both side i call BS dems have not tried to work w/ gop [b/c preserve as an issue to beat up?] benjy backer

see refs

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bk  What explains the dramatic change in the Republican Party's approach to environmental protection? One recent effort to answer this question is The Republican Reversal: Conservatives and the Environment from Nixon to Trump by James Morton Turner and Andrew C. Isenberg.  https://www.amazon.com/Republican-Reversal-Conservatives-Environment-Nixon-ebook/dp/B07DGC3VX8

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rev https://reason.com/volokh/2020/07/07/what-explains-the-republican-reversal-on-environmental-protection/

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BS  ... offer a more nuanced explanation of the Republican Party's change on environmental policy, grounded in a shift in the party's ideology. They point to three factors operating in concert: "rise of conservative ideology, the mobilization of interest groups and activists, and the changes in the environment and the regulatory state." "Republican legislators were not simply bought off by corporate interests," they argue. Rather, the alignment of particular economic interest groups with the Republican Party occurred in concert with changes within the conservative movement and the lived experience of those regulated by federal environmental laws. They write, "Big money alone does not fully explain the Republican embrace of the gospel of more." While business groups—resource extractive industries in particular—certainly played a role by supporting candidates and organizations that opposed regulations restricting resource development, there is also a strong grass-root opposition [koch asp hot air astroturf]to federal environmental regulation. . . ....goes on to blame left for politicizing issue]

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aha: 

it's story 1 am exceptionalism vs story 2

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820 aha-let

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new fork?  RR ~ JC CEQ study

API doh mofo, evil pending 820, poster boy 9/20 on 1968 SRI, 1998 smoking gun , soon and baliunas paper jrnl 2003 --> 3rd fork B2 180

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2001 IPCC Third ends debate.  Luntz memo, US bails on Kyoto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Third_Assessment_Report

Statements of the IPCC or information from the TAR are often used as a reference showing a scientific consensus on the subject of global warming, although a small minority of scientists take issue with the UN assessments (see also Global warming controversy and Politics of global warming).  models strong, much of variability in projection/prediction has to do with what scenario we choose.

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https://slate.com/technology/2019/09/jimmy-carter-climate-change-malaise-speech-1980-backlash.html

"Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns,”the president said. “But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.” No, this is not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2032 inaugural address. It’s President Jimmy Carter speaking in 1980.

Carter used the same speech to announce “an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I’m asking you, for your good and for your nation’s security, to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can … and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense, I tell you it is an act of patriotism.”

This address, which became known as the “Malaise” speech, was cited by 1980s champions of hyperconsumption as a key reason for Carter’s political demise. But it was well-received at the time—Carter’s approval ratings went up by 12 percentage points, with 61 percent of the public saying the speech inspired confidence.

The speech reflected the president’s broader approach. Carter had been committed to alternative energy (at least, alternatives to oil and gas; he supported nuclear and coal) right from the start. At his inauguration in 1977, the reviewing stand was heated by approximately 1,000 square meters of solar thermal panels. Later, he became the first president to install solar panels on the White House (these first ones provided hot water for the cafeteria, the laundry, and the family quarters).

His administration vastly increased the budget for energy technology research and development to levels not equaled for another 30 years, until Barack Obama’s stimulus bill. He instituted the first tax credits for installing wind turbines and solar power, and set the goal of deriving 20 percent of U.S. energy needs from renewables by the millennium (so far we’ve made it to 9.4 percent).

Carter was not striking off in a bold new direction with any of these initiatives. He was reflecting the political mainstreaming of a movement that had been gathering momentum throughout the ’70s. The early part of the decade saw a raft of environmental legislation enacted during the Nixon administration: There was 1969’s National Environmental Policy Act, the Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970, and the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts all passed over the next few years. Several states introduced container deposit bills to encourage recycling. All of this was relatively uncontroversial: There was still such a thing as moderate Republicans, and conservatism encompassed conservation.

The idea that the clock was ticking on the chance to avert a climate emergency was already part of the scientific consensus. Carter’s speech was greatly influenced by a 1972 report from the Club of Rome, a transnational think tank (members have included Al Gore, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and, er, Marianne Williamson) called “The Limits to Growth.” It warned of “exponential” population growth and the potential collapse of civilization as we know it around 2100 due to resource exhaustion.The CoR has gone on to publish more than 40 subsequent reports on environmental issues, many of them climate-focused.

Just as scorching heat waves and unprecedented wildfires have made global warming more urgent in the wider public’s mind today, so two events in the ’70s moved the needle by illustrating the effects of resource scarcity on people’s actual lives. Between 1970 and 1973, U.S. oil imports more than doubled thanks to decreasing domestic production and increasing consumer demand. Then, in 1973, the oil-producing Arab nations imposed an oil embargo on the United States in retaliation for U.S. support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Gas prices soared and new phenomena appeared: long lines at gas stations (and, needless to say, fights), gas tank cover locks to prevent siphoning, consumers deserting their giant American cars in favor of the recently introducedless thirsty Japanese imports. As a conservation measure, Congress instituted a 55 mph speed limit on federal highways, prompting widespread protests including a Sammy Hagar song that declared, “Take my license, all that jive/ I can’t drive 55!” Stories surfaced of drivers of Japanese models being run off the road in oil-producing states like Texas.

The other pivotal event was the California drought of 1976–77, the state’s most severe water shortage of the 20th century, which prompted the public service message to “save water, shower with a friend.” (Newly elected Gov. Jerry Brown was even more committed to renewables than Carter: His tightening up of refrigerator regulations increased energy efficiency by a factor of one nuclear power plant, and he also offered 55 percent tax credits on wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass.)

The response to these events was increased awareness of environmental limitation. Greenpeace’s long campaign of direct action had just started—the organization was founded in 1971. There was also a social movement. California was the epicenter of the “back to the land” wing of the zeitgeist, an aspect of the hippie counterculture that channeled suspicion of the System into adopting a self-sufficient lifestyle (like survivalists, without the guns and paranoia). Some adventurous souls moved to communes to pool resources and share consumer durables like washing machines and cars. Their numbers were never large, but making your own clothes, wearing vintage, or recycling Goodwill finds were in fashion. Frances Moore Lappé’s bestselling 1971 Diet for a Small Planet popularized a diet based on vegetables, grains, and legumes, so the world’s grain supply would go toward relieving food poverty over feeding cattle.

A backlash was inevitable. Americans don’t like limits, speed or otherwise.Ronald Reagan promised them they didn’t have to have any. His “morning in America” framing assured the public that nothing needed to change and was presented as an alternative to Carter’s gloomy warnings. And, sure enough, under Reagan it was back to living as though resources were infinite. The research and development budgets for renewable energy at the recently established Department of Energy was gutted by nearly 90 percent, and tax breaks for wind and solar technologies were eliminated. A study underway at Carter’s Solar Energy Research Institute, later the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, to provide a blueprint for a renewables-powered energy future was defunded, and the institute closed down.In a symbolic gesture, Reagan dismantled and junked the solar water heater Carter had installed on the roof of the White House.

Fossil fuels, steak dinners, and conspicuous consumption were once again unquestioned norms. Instead of “living lightly on the earth,” the decade’s guiding principle was, as a popular bumper sticker declared, “Whoever Dies with the Most Toys Wins.” Despite numerous attempts to veer back toward Carter’s vision, we’ve never really returned. One thing is certain: Whatever road we’re on, we’re running out of it.

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https://time.com/5894179/jimmy-carter-climate-change/

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Exxon prius cut early 80's but big pivot 88-91 // Bush 41?!  Hansen 1988 testimony

at what point did we know AGW for sure? beyond reasonable doubt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/:{Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change (talk kinda lively]}:

There is currently a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that this warming is mainly caused by human activities. This consensus is supported by various studies of scientists' opinions and by position statements of scientific organizations, many of which explicitly agree with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) synthesis reports.

Nearly all actively publishing climate scientists (97–98%[1]) support the consensus on anthropogenic climate change,[2][3] and the remaining 2% of contrarian studies either cannot be replicated or contain errors.[4]

Consensus points

The current scientific consensus is that:

Several studies of the consensus have been undertaken.[6] Among the most cited is a 2013 study of nearly 12,000 abstracts of peer-reviewed papers on climate science published since 1990, of which just over 4,000 papers expressed an opinion on the cause of recent global warming. Of these, 97% agree, explicitly or implicitly, that global warming is happening and is human-caused.[7][8] It is "extremely likely"[9] that this warming arises from "human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases"[9] in the atmosphere.[10] Natural change alone would have had a slight cooling effect rather than a warming effect.[11][12][13][14]

This scientific opinion is expressed in synthesis reports, by scientific bodies of national or international standing, and by surveys of opinion among climate scientists. Individual scientists, universities, and laboratories contribute to the overall scientific opinion via their peer-reviewed publications, and the areas of collective agreement and relative certainty are summarised in these respected reports and surveys.[15] The IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) was completed in 2014.[16] Its conclusions are summarized below:

[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Annual_greenhouse_gas_index_%281980-2017%29.png)

The warming influence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased substantially over the last several decades. In 2017, the AGGI was 1.42, which represents an increase of more than 40% since 1990.

National and internationalscience academies and scientific societies have assessed current scientific opinion on global warming. These assessments are generally consistent with the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Some scientific bodies have recommended specific policies to governments, and science can play a role in informing an effective response to climate change. Policy decisions, however, may require value judgements and so are not included in the scientific opinion.[26][27]

No scientific body of national or international standing maintains a formal opinion dissenting from any of these main points. The last national or international scientific body to drop dissent was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists,[28] which in 2007[29] updated its statement to its current non-committal position.[30] Some other organizations, primarily those focusing on geology, also hold non-committal positions.

Synthesis reports

Synthesis reports are assessments of scientific literature that compile the results of a range of stand-alone studies in order to achieve a broad level of understanding, or to describe the state of knowledge of a given subject.[31]

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2014

Main articles: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and IPCC Fifth Assessment Report

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report followed the same general format as the Fourth Assessment Report, with three Working Group reports and a Synthesis report.[16] The Working Group I report (WG1) was published in September 2013.[16] The report's Summary for Policymakers stated that warming of the climate system is 'unequivocal' with changes unprecedented over decades to millennia, including warming of the atmosphere and oceans, loss of snow and ice, and sea level rise. Greenhouse gas emissions, driven largely by economic and population growth, have led to greenhouse gas concentrations that are unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. These, together with other anthropogenic drivers, are "extremely likely" (where that means more than 95% probability) to have been the dominant cause of the observed global warming since the mid-20th century.[32]

It said that

Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems. Limiting climate change would require substantial and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which, together with adaptation, can limit climate change risks.[32]

Reporting on the publication of the report, The Guardian said that

In the end it all boils down to risk management. The stronger our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the lower the risk of extreme climate impacts. The higher our emissions, the larger climate changes we'll face, which also means more expensive adaptation, more species extinctions, more food and water insecurities, more income losses, more conflicts, and so forth.[33]

The New York Times reported that

In Washington, President Obama's science adviser, John P. Holdren, cited increased scientific confidence "that the kinds of harm already being experienced from climate change will continue to worsen unless and until comprehensive and vigorous action to reduce emissions is undertaken worldwide."[34]

It went on to say that Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, had declared his intention to call a meeting of heads of state in 2014 to develop such a treaty. The last such meeting, in Copenhagen in 2009, the NY Times reported, had ended in disarray.[34]

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007

In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report. According to this summary, the Fourth Assessment Report found that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability. Global warming in this case was indicated by an increase of 0.75 degrees in average global temperatures over the last 100 years.[35]

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report stated that:

The New York Times reported that "the leading international network of climate scientists has concluded for the first time that global warming is 'unequivocal' and that human activity is the main driver, 'very likely' causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950".[41]

A retired journalist for The New York Times, William K. Stevens wrote: "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the likelihood was 90 percent to 99 percent that emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, spewed from tailpipes and smokestacks, were the dominant cause of the observed warming of the last 50 years. In the panel's parlance, this level of certainty is labeled 'very likely'. Only rarely does scientific odds-making provide a more definite answer than that, at least in this branch of science, and it describes the endpoint, so far, of a progression.".[42]

The Associated Press summarized the position on sea level rise:

On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century. An additional 3.9 to 7.8 inches are possible if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.[43]

U.S. Global Change Research Program

Main article: United States Global Change Research Program

[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2017_Global_warming_attribution_-based_on_NCA4_Fig_3.3_-single-panel_version.png)

TheFourth National Climate Assessment ("NCA4", USGCRP, 2017) includes charts[44] illustrating how human factors, especially accumulation in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, are the predominant cause of observed global warming.

Thirteen federal agencies, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), worked together under the auspices of the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) to prepare the country's Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in two volumes as described below.

The Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I (October 2017) provided the following summary:

This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.

Background

Formerly: Climate Change Science Program

The U.S. Global Change Research Program reported in June 2009[45] that:

Observations show that warming of the climate is unequivocal. The global warming observed over the past 50 years isdue primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases.These emissions come mainly from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), with important contributions from the clearing of forests, agricultural practices, and other activities.

The 2009 report, which is about the effects that climate change is having in the United States, also said:

Climate-related changes have already been observed globally and in the United States. These include increases in air and water temperatures, reduced frost days, increased frequency and intensity of heavy downpours, a rise in sea level, and reduced snow cover, glaciers, permafrost, and sea ice. A longer ice-free period on lakes and rivers, lengthening of the growing season, and increased water vapor in the atmosphere have also been observed. Over the past 30 years, temperatures have risen faster in winter than in any other season, with average winter temperatures in the Midwest and northern Great Plains increasing more than 7 °F (3.9 °C). Some of the changes have been faster than previous assessments had suggested.

Arctic Climate Impact Assessment

In 2004, the intergovernmental Arctic Council and the non-governmental International Arctic Science Committee released the synthesis report of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment:[46]

Climate conditions in the past provide evidence that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are associated with rising global temperatures. Human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), and secondarily the clearing of land, have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide, methane, and other heat-trapping ("greenhouse") gases in the atmosphere...There is international scientific consensus that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.[47]

Policy

See also: Avoiding dangerous climate change

There is an extensive discussion in the scientific literature on what policies might be effective in responding to climate change.[48] Some scientific bodies have recommended specific policies to governments (refer to the later sections of the article).[49] The natural and social sciences can play a role in informing an effective response to climate change.[26] However, policy decisions may require value judgements.[26] For example, the US National Research Council has commented:[27]

The question of whether there exists a "safe" level of concentration of greenhouse gases cannot be answered directly because it would require a value judgment of what constitutes an acceptable risk to human welfare and ecosystems in various parts of the world, as well as a more quantitative assessment of the risks and costs associated with the various impacts of global warming. In general, however, risk increases with increases in both the rate and the magnitude of climate change.

This article mostly focuses on the views of natural scientists. However, social scientists,[48] medical experts,[50] engineers[48] and philosophers[51] have also commented on climate change science and policies. Climate change policy is discussed in several articles: climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, climate engineering, politics of global warming, climate ethics, and economics of global warming.

Statements by scientific organizations of national or international standing

See also: Global warming controversy § Mainstream scientific position, and challenges to it

...

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revelle daughter said PO'd he did not get to talk to Sununu 1990, died 1992

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gcc node says: api, exxon and BP knew on ghg and took wrong road: gcc pivot for api:  shell knew?

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losing earth , sununu eg see wm reilly

Sununu had suspected that the greenhouse effect belonged to this nefarious cabal since 1975, when the anthropologistMargaret Meadconvened a symposium on the subject at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “Unless the peoples of the world can begin to understand the immense and long-term consequences of what appear to be small immediate choices,” Mead wrote, “the whole planet may become endangered.” Her conclusions were stark, immediate and absent the caveats that hobbled the scientific literature. Or as Sununu saw it, she showed her hand: “Never before have the governing bodies of the world been faced with decisions so far-reaching,” Mead wrote. “It is inevitable that there will be a clash between those concerned with immediate problems and those who concern themselves with long-term consequences.” When Mead talked about “far-reaching” decisions and “long-term consequences,” Sununu heard the marching of jackboots.

In April, the director of theO.M.B., Richard Darman, a close ally of Sununu’s, mentioned that the NASA scientist James Hansen, who had forced the issue of global warming onto the national agenda the previous summer, was going to testify again — this time at a hearing called by Al Gore. Darman had the testimony and described it. Sununu was appalled: Hansen’s language seemed extreme, based on scientific arguments that he considered, as he later put it, like “technical garbage.”

While Sununu and Darman reviewed Hansen’s statements, the E.P.A. administrator, William K. Reilly, took a new proposal to the White House. The next meeting of the I.P.C.C.’s working group was scheduled for Geneva the following month, in May; it was the perfect occasion, Reilly argued, to take a stronger stand on climate change. Bush should demand a global treaty to reduce carbon emissions.

Sununu disagreed.It would be foolish, he said, to let the nation stumble into a binding agreement on questionable scientific merits, especially as it would compel some unknown quantity of economic pain.They went back and forth. Reilly didn’t want to cede leadership on the issue to the European powers; after all, the first high-level diplomatic meeting on climate change, to which Reilly was invited, would take place just a few months later in the Netherlands. Statements of caution would make the “environmental president” look like a hypocrite and hurt the United States’ leverage in a negotiation. But Sununu wouldn’t budge. He ordered the American delegates not to make any commitment in Geneva. Very soon after that, someone leaked the exchange to the press.

Sununu, blaming Reilly, was furious. When accounts of his argument with Reilly appeared in The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post ahead of the Geneva I.P.C.C. meeting, they made the White House look as if it didn’t know what it was doing.

A deputy of Jim Baker pulled Reilly aside. He said he had a message from Baker, who had observed Reilly’s infighting with Sununu. “In the long run,” the deputy warned Reilly, “you never beat the White House.”...

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Bush 41 (note: this does not say that sununu was directly infl by michaels)

This is when the GOP turned away from climate policy

Scott Waldman and Benjamin Hulac, E&E News reportersPublished: Wednesday, December 5, 2018

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060108785/

 the start of theGeorge H.W. Bush presidency, the Republican Party fretted about the dangers of climate change. By the end, it was focused on doubt and inaction.

Since then, the party has drifted further away from the conclusion of scientists and from policies to address global warming.

Bush embraced climate science in the 1980s and campaigned on protecting Americans from its dangers.

"Those who think we are powerless to do anything about the greenhouse effect forget about the 'White House effect,'" Bush said in a 1988 campaign speech. "As president, I intend to do something about it."

But as soon as Bush got into office, the administration started to work against meaningful policy on climate change, observers say, even as it crafted strong positions on air pollution to defeat the threat of acid rain.

After his decision on the Clean Air Act amendments, Bush had to be "dragged kicking and screaming" to international climate talks and ceded a chance to make meaningful policy at a time when the world had not yet politicized climate science, said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University geosciences professor who attended some of the early climate talks as an observer.

"I wish we had gotten more leadership out of him, the kind of leadership that he showed on acid rain," he said. "If he had exerted the same kind of leadership on climate change, we would be further along today."

The Bush presidency was a "debate over denialism in microcosm," saidJerry Taylor, president of the Niskanen Center and a former climate skeptic who now works to convince conservatives about the dangers of climate change.

Conservatives around the world, including former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, were worried about climate change and looking for policy solutions. Instead, skeptical forces grew stronger, pushed by Washington-based think tanks such as the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. While Bush ignored those groups on acid rain, he acquiesced on climate change.

"The GOP during the Bush presidency pivoted from a position of being torn on how to respond to climate change," Taylor said. "This issue could have gone either way, but we know which way it went. The party could have been on climate change where the party is on acid rain, which is accepting it as a real thing and with some responsibility for a government response and total peace with the decision."

Bush aides wanted to establish the administration as having strong environmental credentials, topping the leaders of England, Canada and France in advance of an economic summit held in July 1989. In a State Department memo that has been declassified, the agency recommended that the United States focus on policies that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions,including supporting nuclear power.

"The theme which runs through these proposals, and which I recommend the President stress, is that of wise, active stewardship over the resources of our planet," a State Department official wrote. "This is a responsibility we have to ourselves and as our legacy to future generations. Every man, woman and child can make a meaningful contribution to carrying out this responsibility. This approach links individual responsibility with national and international responsibility."

Bush used his presidency to foster stewardship in minor ways.

He continued work already underway at the Council on Environmental Quality and the White House science and technology office. And he created the Environment and Conservation Challenge Awards — a program to highlight environmental protection and generate "environmental awareness" — and a recycling network for federal agencies, which hadn't existed before.

While Richard Schmalensee, an economic adviser to Bush, described climate change in a 1990 memo as a theory, the president had already warned of its dangers.

Before reaching the White House, he stumped before a crowd on the banks of Lake Erie in southeast Michigan, where he said he would make climate change a centerpiece of his administration.

"In my first year in office, I will convene a global conference on the environment at the White House," Bush said at the Lake Erie Metropark in 1988, adding that he would invite the Chinese, the Soviets and officials from emerging economies.

"The agenda will be clear," Bush said. "We will talk about global warming. We will talk about saving our oceans and preventing the loss of tropical forests. And we will act."

Months earlier, James Hansen, a NASA scientist, had testified before a Senate committee that the Earth was warming and that humans were the reason.

In his remarks in Michigan, Bush appeared to reference that testimony.

"1988 is the year the Earth spoke back," Bush said. "Our land, water and soil support a remarkable range of human activities. But they can only take so much. We must remember to treat them not as a given, but as a gift."

As then-President Obama argued on a 2015 trip to the Everglades, Bush came from a period when addressing environmental threats — climate change included — was bipartisan in America.

"George H.W. Bush was the first president, globally, to acknowledge the impacts of climate change and that we needed to do something about it," Obama said. "This is not something that historically should be a partisan issue."

In the spring of 1990, Bush did hold a White House summit on the science and economics of "global change" — climate change — a fact he highlighted in a letter the next year to Congress.

The White House wrote in the letter that scientists at the time warned that temperatures could rise "10 to 50 times faster than anything in recorded history" if humans continued to burn fossil fuels.

Still, the administration underscored uncertainties in the science, specifically over sources of greenhouse gases, sea-level rise, and connections between power plants and carbon emissions.

"Significant scientific uncertainty still attends global climate change," the White House said.

Despite Bush's endorsement of Hansen's work on the campaign trail, his administration would later interfere in the public presentation of that research. In 1989, Hansen complained that the Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget toned down the severity of his conclusions before they were delivered to a Senate committee headed by then-Sen. Al Gore (D-Tenn.). That move would foretell later efforts by the administration of President George W. Bush to water down conclusions by climate scientists before they were publicized.

Hansen blames the elder Bush's chief of staff, John Sununu, for misleading the president on climate science.

Sununu was more interested in those who rejected the emerging climate science, including a number of researchers who have continued to battle against consensus science today. Some of them, includingPat Michaels of the Cato Institute, continue to have influence in the Trump administration and have encouraged the rollback of climate protections.Sununu ran his own rudimentary climate models and said that scientists were wrong.

Still, Hansen said Bush pushed forward with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was a meaningful step forward at the time, and one that President Clinton and the younger Bush neglected to push ahead on.

"The Framework Convention on Climate Change, the product of Rio in 1992, was exactly the right response to all that was revealed in the 1980s," Hansen said in an interview yesterday. "The elder Bush deserves much credit for that. He was being pushed in a very bad direction by the elder Sununu, a real jackass from my perspective as a scientist."

Bush showed hints of taking climate action again near the end of his presidency. But he punted.

Bush was immersed in a tough campaign, which he would ultimately lose, when he bucked members of his party and spoke at the Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. Bush said he had come with a climate plan in hand. It would focus on energy efficiency, forestry, new technologies and clean air.

He signed an agreement to create a "framework convention on climate change" — the U.N. body that would go on to become the UNFCCC.

"I invite my colleagues from the industrialized world to join in a prompt start on the convention's implementation," Bush said. "Let us join in translating the words spoken here into concrete action to protect the planet."

Bush pledged environmental funding to poorer nations."We come to Rio recognizing that the developing countries must play a role in protecting the global environment but will need assistance in pursuing these cleaner growth," he said.

But then, his administration did little to follow through with those pledges or to fight for something more concrete than a framework. In the end, Bush balked at the most meaningful part of the Rio gathering — setting specific emissions reduction targets.

It turns out Bush was correct. The models showing warming have been borne out, and the problem has worsened, as Hansen predicted. According to the most recent version of the National Climate Assessment, the models may have underpredicted the worst effects. This year and the past three have been the warmest in recorded human history.

So, for all his talk, Bush's climate legacy is that he walked away from pushing a policy that would restrict greenhouse gases at the very moment that the top scientists in the world were saying it posed a crisis for humanity, said Oppenheimer, the Princeton professor.

The resulting void was filled with political fights that have worsened under the Trump administration.

"The real shame is that we saw this coming and we had a chance to get ahead of the impacts of climate change before they manifest themselves, and we just didn't do it," Oppenheimer said.

=

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https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25112015/exxon-deep-cuts-climate-change-research-budget-1980s-global-warming

Internal Exxon Corporation budget documents from the 1980s show that the oil giant sharply curtailed its ambitious program of innovative climate research in those years, chopping well over half from its annual budget for internal investigations into how carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels would affect the planet.

Facing a budget crunch and sensing that any government efforts to clamp down on carbon pollution were a long way off, Exxon terminated two especially innovative experiments. One involved oceanic observations during voyages of the Esso Atlantic, a supertanker. The other proposed to test vintage French wines for tell-tale traces of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels or other sources.

And then, in the late 1980s, Exxon ramped up a decades-long public relations campaign to sow uncertainty about the increasing scientific evidence for urgent action on climate change.

Exxon's pivoting from the cutting edge of early climate change science to the forefront of climate denial was described in a six-part series published by InsideClimate News beginning in September, based largely on primary sources including Exxon's own internal documents. Similar findings were reached independently by a team based at the Columbia Journalism School in partnership with the Los Angeles Times.

Exxon spokesman Ken Cohen has questioned ICN's reporting that the company "curtailed" its research program after a few years of unusually advanced experiments and modeling work in the 1980s.

But several documents uncovered by ICN show that the budget cuts during the 1980s were steep and sudden. The cuts reversed the course that the company followed in the late 1970s, when top company scientists warned Exxon's management for the first time of the risks of climate change, and launched internal research programs unparalleled among its oil industry peers.

ICN provided an Exxon spokesman copies of the documents being published today and requested any additional information about climate research spending during the 1980s, the period closely examined in ICN's series, "Exxon: The Road Not Taken." The spokesman, Alan Jeffers, declined to provide any additional budget numbers.

One of the documents, a June 18, 1982 memo to Harold Weinberg, a top research official, informed him that the year's budget for research into the looming CO2 problem was to be cut from  $900,000 to $385,000 immediately, and to just $150,000 the following year, an 83 percent cut....[docs]

...much left out]

The increasing level of atmospheric CO2 is causing considerable concern due to potential climate effects," the document said. Exxon Research & Engineering, it noted, "has been actively conducting research on certain aspects of the issue for approximately two years. This report addresses the question of whether a comprehensive research plan with greater breadth for ER&E than the current plan should be developed."

The answer to that question was, in short, no. The work "if successful, will likely provide recognition for Exxon for making important technical contributions to this global environmental issue," according to the document.

However, "an expanded R&D program does not appear to offer significantly increased benefits," the document went on. "It would require skills which are in limited supply, and would require additional funds on the part of Exxon since Government funding appears unlikely."

In the mid-1980s the company wrapped up publication of a burst of modeling efforts undertaken during the heyday of its early research–including three important peer-reviewed studies, all described in the ICN series. Those studies by Exxon scientists and consultants, one of them published by the federal government and two by academic journals, confirmed the emerging consensus regarding the planet's sensitivity to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Then Exxon's published research hit a five-year hiatus, as shown in Exxon's own list of more than 50 peer-reviewed climate studies its employees have worked on.

From 1986 to 1990, Exxon went without publishing any peer-reviewed scientific research into the problem, just as it was becoming a hot topic of political debate.

In 1988, 1989 and 1990, Exxon sharply escalated its well-documented efforts to emphasize the scientific uncertainty surrounding climate change, a campaign of misinformation that would last for decades.

Exxon asserts that it has been doing important scientific research continuously since the 1970s. It frequently mentions its financial support for work done by programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Exxon's support for work at Stanford University, more costly and more geared to developing technologies as opposed to understanding climate change itself, began much later.)

Announced in 1993, Exxon's first grant of $1 million to the MIT program was expressly designed to produce assessments "based on realistic representations of the uncertainties of climate science." That phrase occurred both in the press release announcing the grant and, a year later, in the program's first report, entitled "Uncertainty in Climate Change Policy Analysis."

In the light of 20 years of hindsight, that 1994 MIT report's conclusions seem vague and equivocal, providing "no guidance for greenhouse policy."

It said "neither of the extreme positions, to take urgent action now or do nothing awaiting firm evidence, is a constructive response to the climate threat."

"Uncertainty is the essence of the issue," it declared.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04102016/exxon-climate-change-hybrid-cars-technology-another-road-not-taken-electric-vehicle-toyota-prius

no lnx pix may pix

For Exxon, Hybrid Car Technology Was Another Road Not Taken

Exxon’s ambitious work on powering clean vehicles 40 years ago parallels its cutting-edge research on climate change during the same era.

By Neela Banerjee

OCT 5, 2016

Reeling from oil crises of the 1970s, the American auto industry grappled with tough new mileage standards they feared could make their gas guzzlers obsolete. In 1978, Exxon presented manufacturers with a novel solution from its own labs: a device to help power the electric motors of hybrid vehicles.

"The future of the full-sized car was questionable—until now," according to a glossy brochure Exxon printed for the pitch. Exxon said its technology "is not in developmental stages; it is ready now. The prototype has been engineered, tested, driven, proven."

Exxon by then was at least four years into pioneering research to find alternatives to gasoline-powered cars, driven by worries that petroleum would soon run out. The company had already unveiled the first rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which it thought could be a precursor of batteries for electric vehicles. Now, Exxon hoped its new electric drive technology could make mass production of hybrids feasible.

Exxon's ambitious work on powering clean vehicles 40 years ago parallels its early, cutting-edge research on climate change, chronicled by InsideClimate News in its series Exxon: The Road Not Taken.As with the emerging carbon dioxide problem, the possibility of devising alternative power sources for hybrid and electric cars spurred research at a handful of oil companies. But none committed the same resources and manpower to these efforts as Exxon, the world's largest oil company.

Exxon delivers hybrid car to Toyota

The Exxon automotive team (L-R John Corcoran, David McCalvin, Luciano Forte and Bernard Dennison) stands in front of the Toyota Cressida that was delivered to Japan. (Courtesy: Keith Dennison)]

The American carmakers were not interested in Exxon's technology, but Toyota entered into a collaboration. In 1981 Exxon's engineers delivered a hybrid gas-electric Toyota Cressida to Japan. It was outfitted with Exxon's technology that enabled use of an AC (alternating current) motor in a hybrid—cheaper, smaller and more reliable than DC (direct current) motors.

Despite that triumph, Exxon soon scaled back its investments in alternative energy, largely held by its venture capital unit, Exxon Enterprises Inc. (EEI). A drop in oil prices cut into budgets that financed EEI. And a rising generation of top management wanted Exxon to return to its core oil and gas business, rather than fashion itself into a comprehensive energy company. Exxon sold its licenses for the battery division's work and dismantled the electric drive team that built the hybrid Cressida.

Sixteen years later, when Toyota launched the world's first mass-produced hybrid car, the Prius, it was equipped with an advanced AC motor.

The CO2 and alternative energy research efforts were independent of one another, but they're artifacts of an era from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, when Exxon considered evolving beyond oil and gas. Based on interviews with former Exxon researchers, internal documents and legal depositions, the story of Exxon's work on low-emissions vehicles points to another road not taken.

"If I'd been smarter, I would have understood that Exxon was an oil business and probably was always going to stay in the oil business," said Robert Hamlen, former general manager of Exxon Enterprises' battery division. "It was a company made of oil people."

Exxon did not respond to requests for comment. But after ICN contacted the company about this story, it published an article on its own website entitled, "Pioneers of innovation: The battery that changed the world." In it, Exxon says it hired its chief battery researcher "in the early '70s as part of an initiative to expand the energy company's reach."

Since Exxon curtailed its in-house clean vehicles research, greenhouse gases from cars and trucks have turned into an urgent problem. Auto emissions account for nearly a quarter of heat-trapping gases. For the world to rein in emissions so that average global temperatures do not rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius, at least 20 percent of vehicles worldwide, or 100 million cars, need to be electric by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. There are only about 1 million on the roads today.

Exxon had grown skeptical of fully electric vehicles, or EVs, over the course of its 10-year research. Its position has not changed in 40 years. In its 2016 energy outlook, Exxon estimated that 40 percent of new car sales by 2040 would be hybrids, while EVs would account for only 10 percent.

"While a lot of improvements have been made, the fundamental challenges of how you do have a battery with performance that the consumer will require has not been [overcome]," said ExxonMobil  chief executive Rex Tillerson in a 2015 speech, according to Bloomberg News. "We look at the science and we think it's a very, very daunting challenge."

Exxon Greenlights Idea That 'Could Revolutionize Batteries'

EVs were not a new idea in the 1970s. Popular at the turn of the 20th century, they began to fall from favor in the 1910s, because they lacked the range to drive longer distances on the nation's networks of new roads. They all but vanished in the 1930s with the discovery of large oil reserves around the world and advances in internal combustion engine technology.

In the 1960s, rising air pollution from tailpipes renewed government and corporate interest in clean energy vehicles. By 1970, the oil industry saw opportunities in innovating beyond oil. U.S. petroleum production had peaked and oil-producing countries of the Middle East dominated global markets. That year, Victor Wouk, an independent scientist who would go on to make an early hybrid car, presented a paper at an oil industry conference about the challenges and rewards of electric vehicles.

The electric car could be "a treat that can be introduced via the bridge of the heat engine/battery hybrid vehicle over the next several decades. Everyone should be encouraged to promote the development of electric vehicles," he concluded.

It was around that time that Exxon was taking steps to become a broader energy company. Interested in EVs, the company ended up tackling two main barriers: rechargeable batteries and efficient electric motors.

"Exxon was supposed to sell oil and gas, and here we were developing something that would be using less oil and gas," said David BenDaniel, a vice president at Exxon Enterprises and now a professor of management at Cornell University. "We recognized the amusing aspect of it."

EEI, the company's venture capital arm in New Jersey, invested in solar and nuclear power projects, among about three dozen non-oil ventures, from fax machines to lasers. Exxon hired the stars from other corporate labs and academia to work on them.

Among those was M. Stanley Whittingham, a chemist the company wooed from Stanford University. Hired in 1972, Whittingham said he was given free rein "to work on anything energy-related, provided it was not petroleum or chemicals." His new boss worked on superconductivity, the property of materials to conduct electricity with zero resistance.

Exxon's Rechargeable Battery

Whittingham's rechargeable battery. (Courtesy: Kevin White)

A breakthrough came quickly. Six months after Exxon hired him, Whittingham showed for the first time that lithium ions could be inserted between atomic layers of the compound titanium disulfide (TiS2), and then removed without changing the nature of the compound. The process, known as intercalation, created chemical bonds that held a tremendous amount of energy. And it led Whittingham to make a prototype rechargeable battery.

Further, his battery functioned at room temperature. For years, corporate and government labs had researched ways to make rechargeable batteries, but the compounds they used could only generate electricity at high heat. That made them potentially explosive.

Around 1973, Whittingham pitched the idea of rechargeable battery research to members of Exxon's board of directors.

"I told them we have an idea here that basically could revolutionize batteries," said Whittingham, now distinguished professor of chemistry, materials science and engineering at the State University of New York at Binghamton. "Within a week, they said, 'Let's invest money there.' In those days, they were extremely enlightened, I would say."

Whittingham led the research team, called the Advanced Battery Project, at Exxon Research & Engineering labs in Linden, N.J. Hamlen, the lead manager of electrochemistry at General Electric and a battery expert, was hired to head the engineering group that would make and test the battery.

In 1976, Whittingham published a groundbreaking paper in Science that announced the "electrochemical reaction of layered titanium disulfide with lithium...is the basis of a new battery system."

About a year later, Exxon entered into discussions with Swiss watchmaker Ebauches to use Exxon's rechargeable battery, the first viable product based on Whittingham's research. The watch battery could be fully discharged up to 10 times. (Today's electric car batteries must be able to charge and discharge 500 to 1,000 times.) To recharge, the watch had a tiny solar panel.

Ebauches, later part of the Swatch group, tested the battery by placing it in a hot oven daily for six months, Hamlen said. Exxon prepared to commercialize its new rechargeable batteries, which the EEI team thought could grow into a multi-million dollar business.

"The work by Stan Whittingham, who had been a postdoc in my lab before joining Exxon, was very important," said Robert A. Huggins, professor emeritus of materials science at Stanford. "A number of changes have occurred in the development of batteries in the 40 or so years since that time, and lithium-ion batteries are now critical components in many important technologies."

Exxon Delivers a Hybrid Car to Toyota, Years Before the Prius

About a year after the Exxon board of directors greenlighted Whittingham's battery project, a young engineer named Ron Ricci was tasked with pulling together a team to improve the performance of electric motors. Other scientists and engineers had built prototype hybrid vehicles by then. That included Wouk, whose 1974 hybrid Buick Skylark got 30 miles per gallon—double its regular mileage—and emitted 9 percent of the emissions a typical model did.

Ricci plucked a promising engineer, Kevin White, from a recently failed startup that Exxon was invested in, called Electromotion, which made electric vans.

Kevin White (right), Ron Ricci (center) and John Corcoran (left). (Courtesy: Kevin White)

Ricci, White and a secretary launched Electric Vehicle Control Systems (ELVECS), housed in a maintenance building on the edge of Exxon Research & Engineering's large Florham Park, N.J. campus. ELVECS had the heady, experimental feel of a start-up, with the vast resources of Exxon behind it. "It was the best job of my career," White said. "We were young and naïve for the most part. We sort of didn't know what we didn't know."

In November 1976, ELVECS hired a full-time consultant, Richard H. Baker, a former MIT electronics researcher who had developed an alternating current synthesizer, or ACS, which converted direct current (DC) power to alternating current (AC). Baker's synthesizer was also able to vary the frequency and voltage of electricity to change the speed of the electric motor, crucial to controlling the speed of the vehicle. Other labs had built similar devices, called variable speed drives. But they were too large, inefficient and expensive to be practical, Baker, who is deceased, said in a 1980 document. Baker's was small—compact enough to fit in a car's trunk.

At first, Ricci's group explored the possibility of a pure electric vehicle. Jeep had made 375 electric postal vans as part of a pilot program, but the batteries' high cost was prohibitive, Ricci said. The Exxon team bought one "just to get electric vehicle experience," he said. For experimentation, it also bought a low-riding sports car chassis that could be assembled from a kit. The team outfitted it with lead-acid car batteries, Exxon's electric drive technology and a DC motor.

By the late 1970s, Exxon Enterprises understood that despite the advances of Exxon's battery group, the type of rechargeable battery needed to power a commercially viable electric vehicle was many years away. So Exxon focused instead on deploying its ACS technology in a hybrid vehicle with lead-acid batteries.

The EEI automotive team created a brochure that showed off to automakers the hybrid prototype Exxon had built: a Chrysler Cordoba, which got 27 miles per gallon. That was the mileage target that the Environmental Protection Agency required of vehicles by 1985.

"Detroit, your future can be both as big and as small as America wants it to be," the brochure's cover read.

Exxon's Cordoba

From the Cordoba brochure

Exxon engineers drove the Cordoba around Florham Park and elsewhere while running errands to test its performance. Bystanders never guessed it was anything other than a regular Cordoba, they said.

Exxon approached major automakers with its ACS technology, including General Motors, Chrysler, Ford and Peugeot, said John Corcoran, a mechanical engineer Exxon had hired from Ford.  The company most interested turned out to be Toyota.

"We discussed back and forth with Toyota what they wanted to do," Corcoran said. Toyota was after driveability, he said. "We kept talking about fuel economy but Toyota wasn't interested in that yet. They felt that problem would get resolved. They were more interested in whether it would drive the same as a regular car."

In autumn 1979, Toyota and Exxon signed a joint technology agreement. A small group of engineers from Toyota's research facility in Susono, Japan visited the Exxon Enterprises automotive group in New Jersey to see the Cordoba. It had 10 Sears Die-Hard car batteries to provide electricity, and Baker's ACS device in the trunk. The four-cylinder, 50 horsepower diesel engine came from a Volkswagen and the 100 horsepower AC motor was the type normally used in a small aircraft. Their hybrid was among the earliest to use an AC motor.

Toyota decided it wanted Exxon to outfit its largest sedan with the new technology. In early 1980, it sent a white Cressida to New Jersey where the Exxon automotive team installed, tested and refined its hybrid technology over more than 18 months.

Exxon delivers a car to Toyota in Japan

Exxon engineer John Corcoran in Japan with engineers from Toyota. (Courtesy: Kevin White)

Around September 1981, Corcoran and his colleagues delivered the gas-electric hybrid to the Toyota research facility in Susono, near Mt. Fuji. The Exxon team spent two weeks installing and testing the Cressida's gas-electric hybrid drive system, and their Toyota counterparts seemed pleased, the Exxon team recalled.

The project the two companies had embarked on nearly three years earlier produced the roomy, driveable hybrid that Toyota had sought.

Toyota would begin selling its Prius hybrid 16 years later, in 1997. It was developed in part by a team in Susono and equipped with a gasoline engine and a 40 horsepower AC motor.

"We shouldn't overstate Exxon's role in hybrid vehicles in the long term," said Corcoran, himself a Prius owner. "But if we planted any seed at all with anyone, it was that the electric motor in a hybrid could be an AC motor."

Why Exxon's Hybrid Car Technology Program Was Dismantled

Soon after Exxon's automotive team successfully delivered the Cressida to Japan, Exxon informed the team its work on hybrid vehicles would end.

The reasons were several. Exxon by then was demanding a bigger, more immediate pay-off from its alternative energy projects. As part of that effort, the company bought Reliance Electric in 1979 to commercialize its ACS technology.

The acquisition quickly became a fiasco. The Federal Trade Commission sued Exxon to stop the purchase, arguing the merger would make the electric drive market anti-competitive. The agency dropped the case after Exxon agreed to restructure its electric drive work and hand the auto team to Reliance. But the managers at Reliance had little faith in the cost-saving promise of Baker's ACS device and in Exxon's team, according to former Exxon staff. They limited their interaction with Exxon Enterprises and ER&E, complicating the auto work and restricting progress.

Traffic in New York City, 1980. (Photo: Getty Images/Keystone/Stringer)

The price of oil had also peaked in 1980 and began to fall throughout much of the decade, leading to cost-cutting at Exxon. In 1981, Lee Raymond became executive vice president of Exxon Enterprises. He was part of a group of managers who rose in the 1980s that curtailed work unrelated to oil and gas, including alternative energy. Raymond recommended closing many of EEI's ventures and selling others, eventually shuttering the subsidiary by the mid-1980s. At the same time, Exxon scaled back nearly a decade of leading-edge climate research, which had shown that combustion of fossil fuels had increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, threatening a warming of the planet and potentially "catastrophic" results.

Exxon delivered its ACS materials and the hybrid Cordoba to Reliance Electric. It remains unclear what happened to the car. Exxon sold Reliance to an investment group in 1986.

The Exxon auto team members interviewed for this story don't know whether the work with Susono seeped into the vast project that Toyota launched in 1993 that ultimately yielded the Prius.

A Toyota spokeswoman said the company could not locate any employees who could "provide any additional information on this program."

Likewise, the watches with Exxon's batteries were never made.

"They said to us with some rationality, 'We're a multi-billion dollar company. Why do we need this?'" Hamlen said. "If I were to characterize Exxon's new ventures in two words, it would be 'unrealistic expectations.' They thought that because they were good at oil, they could handle these new ventures in other areas, too."

The new web article by Exxon touts Whittingham's battery as the technology that today "powers laptops, tablets, cellphones and most electric cars." It doesn't explain why it shuttered the program.

Hamlen and Whittingham kept a few of the button-sized watch batteries they made at Exxon. Recently, they tested them for a peer-reviewed paper to see if they would work after 35 years. They found that the batteries had retained more than 50 percent of their original capacity.

"If you make the battery right," Whittingham said, "it will last for a very long time."

ICN reporter David Hasemyer contributed reporting to this story.

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third pivot

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RS june 07

To direct the White House's spin on global warming, Connaughton appointed Philip Cooney as his top deputy. Cooney had the right

experience for the job: He worked as "climate team leader" for the

American Petroleum Institute. In 1998, the API took part in an

industry coalition that created the "Global Climate Science

Communications Action Plan." The plan, recently entered into evidence by the House Oversight Committee, 

maps out an elaborate disinformation campaign to prevent "precipitous action on climate

change." The strategy was to sow doubt about global warming,

disseminating industry-funded research to challenge "the science

underpinning the global climate change theory."

Now, with Cooney in the White House, the industry had its own anti-

climate man running the disinformation campaign.As the "action plan"

directed, Cooney set out to censor the EPA's science on global

warming and inject the industry's denialist positions into government

documents."They decided they didn't need to win the debate on

climate," says Piltz, the former official who exposed Cooney's

tactics. "They just had to leave an atmosphere of uncertainty about

it and dissipate the will for political action."

But for all his credentials as a master of spin, Cooney got off to a

rough start. In May 2002, the administration released its Climate

Action Report, a dispatch to the U.N. that documents progress on

climate-treaty obligations. The report was developed by the EPA, but

internal documents reveal thatCooney edited it to reflect positions

advocated by the API and Ford. On the opening page of the chapter on climate impacts,

Cooney inserted a litany of language in bold

intended to cast doubt on the science: "the weakest links in our

knowledge . . . a lack of understanding . . . uncertainties . . .

considerable uncertainty . . . perhaps even greater uncertainty . . .

regarded as tentative."

But the clumsy caveats weren't enough to obscure the report's real

science. With the help of an EPA source, The New York Times filtered

out Cooney's waffling and filed a front-page story that called the

report "a stark shift for the Bush administration. " The report, the

Times observed, detailed "far-reaching effects that global warming

will inflict" and "for the first time mostly blames human actions for

recent global warming."

Cooney was horrified: An obscure government report he had tried to

whitewash now threatened to undermine his former employers in the

energy industry. Panicked, he called on an old friend for help. Myron

Ebell had been a key member of the coalition that crafted the

disinformation "action plan." In fact, casting doubt on global

warming is Ebell's full-time job: He heads the climate-denial

campaign at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that

was underwritten in part by ExxonMobil.

Ebell recalls that Cooney was frantic over the story in the

Times. "We tried to put some qualifiers on that chapter in the report," Cooney told him.

"We'd take the text from EPA, and then we'd

add a sentence like, 'We don't really know if this is really

happening.' So we tried to do it, but I can see now that we made a

total mess of it."

Ebell's advice to Cooney is contained in a e-mail dated June 3rd,

  1. "Thanks for asking for our help," he wrote. "I know you're in crisis mode. . . . I want to help you cool things down, but after

consulting with the team, I think that what we can do is limited until there is an official statement from the administration

repudiating the report."

That repudiation came the very next day. President Bush himself dismissed the report, saying it had been "put out by the

bureaucracy. " Forget the headlines, he said - there was no shift in the administration' s policy.

What happened next, according to internal e-mails obtained by Rolling Stone, reveals just how seriously the White House took its

intelligence fixing on global warming. Cooney was put in charge of damage control and was apparently instructed to craft a letter to the

Times denying that the president had changed course on climate

change.But this time, Cooney's editor was not just Connaughton, but

Bush's chief political adviser,Karl Rove. The collaboration with

Rove raises questions about Cooney's congressional testimony last

March, in which he insisted, under oath, that he had not discussed

with Rove his work at the CEQ.

The letter drafted by Cooney - and vetted by Rove - insists that the

Climate Action Report"reinforces" the "significant scientific uncertainties" emphasized in the president's climate policy. Edits to

the rough drafts of the letter were blacked out by White House

censors, but Rove's pithy endorsement of the final draft

survived. "Great," he wrote in praise of Cooney's spin. "Defends the

report rather than staying focused on the policy." In other words, Cooney had succeeded in emphasizing the report's overhyped

uncertainties, thus shifting attention away from the White House's do- nothing approach to global warming.

Page 6

At the same time, Cooney got a pat on the back from Bill O'Keefe, his

old boss at API. In a letter to Bush's chief of staff, O'Keefe - by

that point a registered lobbyist for ExxonMobil - urged the president

to tighten up the White House spin machine and make sure all

communications were "on the same page, with the same message."

O'Keefe also faxed a copy to Cooney with a handwritten note

reading, "P.S. You are doing a great job."

From then on, Cooney wielded a heavier pen when editing official

reports on global warming. Not content to obscure science with

uncertainty, he began to rewrite the science itself. Draft documents

made public by the House Oversight Committee reveal that Cooney now had veto power over federal scientists, including Richard Moss,

coordinator of the Climate Change Science Program Office, and even

James Mahoney, the assistant commerce secretary nominally in charge

of America's climate science.

In one document, Moss and Mahoney attempted to push back on several

of Cooney's more than 100 edits to an EPA document called "Our

Changing Planet" - each of which served to amplify uncertainty and

downplay the threat posed by global warming. Cooney repeatedly

overruled Moss and Mahoney with an aggressive "no" scrawled in the

margins. On another document Cooney marked up, he commanded

EPA officials that "these changes must be made." Beside one strike-

through marked with a star, Cooney wrote, "Red Flag: Do not cite

National Assessment" - dismissing the landmark report commissioned by Bush's father.

Although some of Cooney's edits were revealed in a New York Times

story in June 2005 that led to his departure, the full extent of his

interference has never been reported. His commissarial coup came in

April 2003, with his revisions to the EPA's Draft Report on the

Environment. He began by deleting the sentence "climate change has

global consequences for human health and the environment. "He then

deleted the top-line assessment by the National Research Council,

which establishes an unequivocal cause-and-effect link - "Greenhouse

gases are accumulating in the atmosphere as the result of human

activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean

temperatures to rise." In its place, Cooney wrote the following

mishmash of his own creation: "Some activities emit greenhouse gases

and other substances that directly or indirectly may affect the

balance of incoming and outgoing radiation, thereby potentially

affecting climate on regional and global scales."

The changes sparked a rebellion by the EPA's senior scientists. In an

internal memo uncovered by Congressional investigators, they wrote

that Cooney's edited text "no longer accurately represents scientific

consensus on climate change" and "may leave an impression that

cooling is as much an issue as warming." Whitman was also

furious. "The language that CEQ found acceptable was such pablum,"

she says now. "It was so much below the level of sophistication of

the report that I felt it would have denigrated it all." But her

solution to this problem was to simply delete the section on climate

change - handing Cooney a carte-blanche victory.

Whitman says she killed the section hoping that scientific documents

included with the report would speak for themselves.But the

capitulation helped drive her to the breaking point. Four days after

bowing to Cooney, she resigned as head of the EPA.

Internal documents uncovered by Rolling Stone reveal that Cooney did

far more than edit scientific reports to suit the administration' s

point of view. Just as neoconservative hawk Douglas Feith funneled

false intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs to the vice president,

Cooney steered industry-sponsored junk science on global warming to Cheney.

"What disturbed me most," Whitman says, "was the administration' s record of taking the most extreme of the science -

what I call the 'political science' - and giving it the same weight as the real science."

The most egregious example of cooked intelligence was a study

underwritten in part by the API, Cooney's former employer. The study,

which purported to show that the twentieth century was not unusually

warm, was authored by two astrophysicists, [gotta be Soon and Baliunas:

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}:

Baliunas has co-published numerous scientific papers with fellow climate change skeptic Willie Soon including a controversial paper in 2003 that suggested the climate hasn't changed in the last 2000 years. Several members of the Climate Research journal resigned in protest to the flawed peer-review process allowing Baliunas's paper to be published. desmog ] 

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both of whom were on the payroll of the George C. Marshall Institute, a climate-denial group

funded by ExxonMobil and now headed by Bill O'Keefe, Cooney's former

boss. The paper's publication in a minor German journal in January

2003quickly created a scandal, with the editor in chief and three

other editors resigning in shame after acknowledging that the paper

was fundamentally flawed and should never have been published.

"It was sham science," says McCarthy, the Harvard scientist. "It's

almost laughable, except that this study was held up by the

administration as a definitive refutation of the temperature record."

But even as the paper was being discredited, it was causing great

excitement in the White House. When Kathie Olsen of the Office of

Science and Technology Policy forwarded the study to Cooney, he

responded with an enthusiastic, "Thanks, Kathie!" Six minutes later,

according to internal e-mails, the study was in the hands of Kevin

O'Donovan, who served as Cheney's point man on climate. The study

also grabbed President Bush's attention, as revealed in an e-mail

sent two days later to a high-ranking White House official: "Bob - if

you din't [sic] already have, this is the study the President was

talking about."

The study gave Cheney's office the quasi-plausible refutation of

climate science it was waiting for. According to a memo reviewed by

congressional investigators, but which the CEQ refused to make

public, Cooney was eager to promote the sham science.The study, he e-

mailed O'Donovan, "represents an opening to potentially reinvigorate

debate on the actual climate history of the past 1,000 years." The

paper, he added, "contradicts the dogmatic view held by many in the

climate science community that the past century was the warmest in

the past millennium. . . .We plan to begin to refer to this study in

administration communications on the science of global climate

change."

One e-mail exchange about the study underscores just how many

industry foxes were guarding the climate henhouse.

When Matthew Koch (a White House energy adviser who today lobbies for API) saw the

study, he wrote to Cooney (the former API lobbyist who is

now "corporate issues manager" for ExxonMobil) and CC'd O'Donovan

(who now works for Shell Oil).

"What??!!" Koch wrote in mock disbelief at the study's claim that the

planet isn't really heating up. "I want to grow oranges in the

Arctic!"

Such joking aside, the administration continues to hold up the

discredited study as a counterweight to the IPCC's scientific, peer-

reviewed findings on global warming. Testifying before the House

Oversight Committee in March, Connaughton lauded the study as a "new

and major piece of science." His only regret, he said, is that "I'm

not a scientist, so I can't find it conclusive."

Although Cooney resigned in 2005, the campaign of disinformation he

implemented had the desired effect. Two months after Cooney returned

to work for ExxonMobil, the Cheney energy plan was passed into law.

A massive giveaway for the fossil-fuel industry, the Energy Policy Act [2005]

authorized $6 billion in subsidies for oil and gas production and

another $9 billion for coal producers. Worst of all, thebill fast-

tracked the construction of coal-fired power plants that would hasten

global warming.

Nor did Cooney's return to the oil industry spell an end to the

administration' s meddling in climate science. Less than a month

later, before the G8 summit on climate change, the administration

killed the opening line of the eight-country report - "Our world is

warming" - and quashed a section that cited "increasingly compelling

evidence of climate change." Last month, in negotiations leading up

to the newest round of G8 talks, the administration blocked another

motion that "resolute action is urgently needed in order to reduce

global greenhouse gas emissions."

"It's the ideological bent of the current administration, " says

McCarthy. "They seem absolutely resistant to any call to action, no

matter what the science says."

Indeed, the campaign to sow doubts about climate change has grown

more aggressive in recent years. No longer is the administration

simply censoring scientific reports - it has moved to silence the

scientists themselves. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the

administration refused to allow a top federal scientist whose

research links increased hurricane intensity to global warming to

speak to the press. It sent out a gag order to top government polar

scientists, demanding that anyone attending international scientific

conventions agree not to speak to reporters about "climate change,

polar bears and sea ice." And it ordered a former intern from the

Bush-Cheney campaign in the NASA press office to prevent Dr. James Hansen, 

the godfather of global-warming science, from talking to the

media.

"Interference with communication of science to the public has been

greater during the current administration than at any time in my

career," Hansen testified before Congress in March, suggesting that

NASA's press office had become an "office of propaganda." This month,

when news leaked that the Pentagon plans to kill a satellite program

critical to monitoring the Earth's climate, NASA's scientists issued

a confidential memo warning that the move "places the overall climate

program in serious jeopardy."

In many ways, the administration' s refusal to budge on global warming

mirrors its intransigence on Iraq....?

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