How Fossil Fuels Won (and Lost) a Thirty Years’ War
Big Oil is just starting to pay a steep political cost for its short-term victories.
NASA scientist and climatologist James Hansen takes part in a mock funeral parade during a Climate Change Campaign Action Day on March 19, 2009 in Coventry, England.
Photographer: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images EuropeThirty years ago this summer, James Hansen, then at NASA, provided landmark testimony to Congress about the links between fossil fuels and climate change. The U.S. was suffering one of its worst droughts ever and Yellowstone National Park was burning. Spurred to action, oil majors offered to help shepherd the world through a long, difficult energy transition. As the foremost repositories of energy expertise, and armed with big balance sheets and deep government contacts, they were natural partners in challenging an existential threat.
Everything after “burning” is fiction, of course. Despite studies linking fossil fuels to potential atmospheric changes stretching back at least six decades, the fossil-fuel industry spent a good deal of the past 30 years pushing back on efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions or in some cases muddying understanding of the threat. Some have shifted tack in the past decade; even Exxon Mobil Corp. publicly acknowledged its products contribute to climate change after the era of arch-opponent Lee Raymond passed in 2005.