Ryan Barrett

The Climate Movement Isn’t in Retreat, It’s Under Attack…and It’s Time to Fight Back | Newsletter

In 2020, a source shared a presentation with me from an internal branding workshop they’d been asked to attend for bp. It was fascinating for a number of reasons, not least because it indicated that the oil major felt genuinely threatened by a surprising new enemy: young people. There have always been ebbs and flows […]

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The climate crisis is happening all around us. As tech workers, we can use our skills to take and accelerate climate action.

A silent majority of the world’s people wants stronger climate action. It’s time to wake up | Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope

About 89% of the public want their governments to do more to tackle the climate crisis – but don’t know they’re the majority

Social Influence and Action — Jen Christiansen

I’m wary of climate solutions that are hyper focused on the action of individuals as opposed to systems and corporations. Do you experience carbon footprint guilt every time you board a plane to visit family too? Well, that whole schema was a product of the PR firm Ogilvy & Mather for British Petroleum. It was an effort to shift focus away from oil companies and onto individual responsibility to lower greenhouse gas emissions. For more, read “The carbon footprint sham” by Mark Kaufman for Mashable in 2021, and “Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook” by Rebecca Solnit for The Guardian.    

Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer

Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure

What comes next with the energy shock?

The disruption to oil supply, oil prices and the world economy has been surprisingly manageable so far

Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections

Climate projections by the fossil fuel industry have never been assessed. On the basis of company records, we quantitatively evaluated all available global warming projections documented by—and in many cases modeled by—Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp scientists between 1977 and 2003. We find that most of their projections accurately forecast warming that is consistent with subsequent observations. Their projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government models. Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp also correctly rejected the prospect of a coming ice age, accurately predicted when human-caused global warming would first be detected, and reasonably estimated the “carbon budget” for holding warming below 2°C. On each of these points, however, the company’s public statements about climate science contradicted its own scientific data. , Insider knowledge For decades, some members of the fossil fuel industry tried to convince the public that a causative link between fossil fuel use and climate warming could not be made because the models used to project warming were too uncertain. Supran et al . show that one of those fossil fuel companies, ExxonMobil, had their own internal models that projected warming trajectories consistent with those forecast by the independent academic and government models. What they understood about climate models thus contradicted what they led the public to believe. —HJS , ExxonMobil’s own climate models showed that fossil fuel use would cause climate warming. , BACKGROUND In 2015, investigative journalists discovered internal company memos indicating that Exxon oil company has known since the late 1970s that its fossil fuel products could lead to global warming with “dramatic environmental effects before the year 2050.” Additional documents then emerged showing that the US oil and gas industry’s largest trade association had likewise known since at least the 1950s, as had the coal industry since at least the 1960s, and electric utilities, Total oil company, and GM and Ford motor companies since at least the 1970s. Scholars and journalists have analyzed the texts contained in these documents, providing qualitative accounts of fossil fuel interests’ knowledge of climate science and its implications. In 2017, for instance, we demonstrated that Exxon’s internal documents, as well as peer-reviewed studies published by Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp scientists, overwhelmingly acknowledged that climate change is real and human-caused. By contrast, the majority of Mobil and ExxonMobil Corp’s public communications promoted doubt on the matter. ADVANCES Many of the uncovered fossil fuel industry documents include explicit projections of the amount of warming expected to occur over time in response to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Yet, these numerical and graphical data have received little attention. Indeed, no one has systematically reviewed climate modeling projections by any fossil fuel interest. What exactly did oil and gas companies know, and how accurate did their knowledge prove to be? Here, we address these questions by reporting and analyzing all known global warming projections documented by—and in many cases modeled by—Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp scientists between 1977 and 2003. Our results show that in private and academic circles since the late 1970s and early 1980s, ExxonMobil predicted global warming correctly and skillfully. Using established statistical techniques, we find that 63 to 83% of the climate projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists were accurate in predicting subsequent global warming. ExxonMobil’s average projected warming was 0.20° ± 0.04°C per decade, which is, within uncertainty, the same as that of independent academic and government projections published between 1970 and 2007. The average “skill score” and level of uncertainty of ExxonMobil’s climate models (67 to 75% and ±21%, respectively) were also similar to those of the independent models. Moreover, we show that ExxonMobil scientists correctly dismissed the possibility of a coming ice age in favor of a “carbon dioxide induced ‘super-interglacial’”; accurately predicted that human-caused global warming would first be detectable in the year 2000 ± 5; and reasonably estimated how much CO 2 would lead to dangerous warming. OUTLOOK Today, dozens of cities, counties, and states are suing oil and gas companies for their “longstanding internal scientific knowledge of the causes and consequences of climate change and public deception campaigns.” The European Parliament and the US Congress have held hearings, US President Joe Biden has committed to holding fossil fuel companies accountable, and a grassroots social movement has arisen under the moniker #ExxonKnew. Our findings demonstrate that ExxonMobil didn’t just know “something” about global warming decades ago—they knew as much as academic and government scientists knew. But whereas those scientists worked to communicate what they knew, ExxonMobil worked to deny it—including overemphasizing uncertainties, denigrating climate models, mythologizing global cooling, feigning ignorance about the discernibility of human-caused warming, and staying silent about the possibility of stranded fossil fuel assets in a carbon-constrained world. Historically observed temperature change (red) and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (blue) over time, compared against global warming projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists. ( A ) “Proprietary” 1982 Exxon-modeled projections. ( B ) Summary of projections in seven internal company memos and five peer-reviewed publications between 1977 and 2003 (gray lines). ( C ) A 1977 internally reported graph of the global warming “effect of CO 2 on an interglacial scale.” (A) and (B) display averaged historical temperature observations, whereas the historical temperature record in (C) is a smoothed Earth system model simulation of the last 150,000 years.

‘The damage is done’: global oil crisis has changed fossil fuel industry for ever, IEA chief says

Exclusive: International Energy Agency’s Fatih Birol, the world’s leading energy economist, also says UK should largely forgo North Sea expansion

Majority of US voters link extreme weather to climate crisis, study finds

Top Democrat says findings show public ‘way ahead of the politicians’ as Trump dismisses global heating as ‘hoax’

Mapping out the tribes of climate

Climate is a gravity well for talent, but why don’t other, equally impactful topics attract talent in the same way? Why isn’t everyone dropping everything to work on homelessness, or global poverty, or curing cancer? With many peers in tech now working on climate issues, I tried to understand why this topic holds such purchase for so many people – and its incredible staying power over the decades.

Best of times, worst of times: record fossil-fuel profits, inflation and inequality

The 2022 oil and gas crisis resulted in record fossil-fuel profits globally that rehabilitated the oil and gas industry, obstructed the energy transition and contributed to inflation, but their magnitude and beneficiaries have been insufficiently understood. Here we show the size of profits across countries and their distribution across socio-economic groups within the United States, using company income statements, comprehensive ownership data and a network model for propagating profits via shareholdings. We estimate that globally, net income in publicly listed oil and gas companies alone reached US$916 billion in 2022, with the United States the biggest beneficiary with claims on US$301 billion, more than U.S. investments of US$267 billion in the low carbon economy that year. In a network of U.S. shareholdings with 252,433 nodes including privately held U.S. companies, 50 % of profits went to the wealthiest 1 % of individuals, predominantly through direct shareholdings and private company ownership. In contrast the bottom 50 % only received 1 %. The incremental U.S. fossil-fuel profits in 2022 relative to 2021 were enough to increase the disposable income of the wealthiest Americans by several percent and compensate a substantial part of their purchasing power loss from inflation that year, thereby exacerbating inflation inequality. These profits also reinforced existing racial and ethnic inequalities and inequalities between groups with different educational attainments. We discuss how an excess profit tax could be used to both lower inequality and accelerate the energy transition as increasing geopolitical tensions and climate impacts threaten continued volatility in oil and gas markets.

Trump promotes ‘Freedom Fuel’ stations that sell cheap gas. How they’re able to do so is unclear | CNN Business

President Donald Trump is heralding a new chain of gas stations that are selling gas for $3.479 a gallon, well below both market prices and wholesale costs.

Political Scenarios for Climate Disaster - Dissent Magazine

In the Global North we often act as if our future will be a warmer version of today: liberal capitalism, plus flood insurance, minus coral reefs. That future is a fantasy.