The company continued its involvement with climate research, but its reputation for objectivity began to erode as it campaigned internationally to cast doubt on the science.īy 1981, Exxon scientists were no longer questioning whether the buildup of CO 2 would cause the world to heat up. Even as the models grew more powerful and reliable, Exxon publicly derided the type of work its own scientists had done. They repeatedly argued that the uncertainty inherent in computer models makes them useless for important policy decisions. Yet starting in 1989, Exxon leaders went down a different road. Their work confirmed the emerging scientific consensus on global warming’s risks. Through much of the 1980s, Exxon researchers worked alongside university and government scientists to generate objective climate models that yielded papers published in peer-reviewed journals. ![]() Knisely projected that unless fossil fuel use was constrained, there would be “noticeable temperature changes” and 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide (CO 2) in the air by 2010, up from about 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution. “I think this guy was looking for validation that the greenhouse effect should spur some investment in alternative energy that’s not bad for the environment,” Knisely, now 58 and a partner in a management consulting company, recalled in a recent interview. Steve Knisely was an intern at Exxon Research and Engineering in the summer of 1979 when a vice president asked him to analyze how global warming might affect fuel use. Lisa Song, Neela Banerjee, David Hasemyer The company chairman would later mock climate models as unreliable while he campaigned to stop global action to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Exxon Confirmed Global Warming Consensus in 1982 with In-House Climate Models
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