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Paul Hormick's avatar

This is both absolutely shocking and absolutely unsurprising.

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Kimberly Brown's avatar

They lied to look better. Nobody should be surprised.

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Cedders's avatar

They lied so they could continue to exist and to look better to investors.

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Sheila Rekdal's avatar

Of Course they knew...but choose to ignore the long term consequences of dumping waste into the waterways of other countries and killin their way of life. Their single minded directive of Profits has put the whole world at risk of devastating diseases and Larger Destructive Climate Events. Business Majors have to be scheduled to take Science Classes that the Curriculum is not written by agents of the Petroleum Industry.

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Molly B. Moon's avatar

Emily, do you have an opinion about the carbon coin as presented in Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson's sci-fi exploration of the climate crisis? He used the ideas developed by Delton Chen called a 'global carbon reward' which is a way to pay nations and companies for leaving fossil fuels in the ground, un-mined and unburned. It is simultaneously a way to thwart the capitalist climate crisis ignorers, as it loosens their death grip on the world economy. My degree is in English Literature and my career was as a high school teacher, but I know a good idea when I read one.

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Cedders's avatar

Interesting question, so I hope it's OK to comment. I thought the first chapter was convincing, but found the solutions in the novel (carbon coin, stratospheric aerosol injection, stabilising the West Antarctic ice sheet by pumping up water, sabotaging infrastructure) less so. I'm no expert so can't say for sure these are not feasible, but what I read suggests other ways to 'loosen the death grip' are needed. As you say global carbon reward is the real world equivalent, but we've had carbon trading for decades without significant impact. A simple fee at point of extraction might align the economy closer to making polluters pay, but would need to be several hundred dollars per tonne at least to be effective. See 'the mortality cost of carbon' and 'the ultimate cost of carbon' and Robert Pollin.

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natoma764's avatar

☠️☠️👺the US GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZES FOSSIL FUELS!!

#EndFossilFuelSubsidies

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Sep 14, 2023
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Cedders's avatar

Sadly I got to the end of your sentence, and 'making no sense anymore' summed it up much better than 'It's clear'. What do the 'growing number of scientists' support?

One thing it's important to understand is that until net carbon emissions reach zero, the world continues to warm further. Exxon under Lee Raymond deliberately obfuscated the science to confuse people - what's new is how far that continued under Tlllerson.

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