The trouble with getting going again is that I am like the Energizer Bunny – wind me up and I don’t stop.
Following on my point yesterday about ExxonMobil ‘spiking’, ie killing, its research teams’ work on hydrocarbon production and consumption in the late 1970’s, it has been revealed that ‘who know what when’ has been pushed back by 25 years! It seems that a group of car manufacturers and oil companies, strangely enough, provided some funding for work done in the mid 1950’s by eminent scientist Charles Keeling who developed a data tool (Keeling curve) that marked the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere caused by the burning of coal and petroleum products.
The issue at that time was not ‘greenhouse gases’, as the term had not yet been coined, but air pollution. A policy statement at the time suggested that data gathering followed by ‘wise and effective action’ would mitigate this issue. Certainly the latter never took place. My object in such discourse is to provide folks with some basic information to allow them to decide for themselves where they stand on these issues. Just to reveal how difficult this task is, there is a position at the University of Miami in the States dubbed specialist in ‘historic climate disinformation’. Who knew?
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I want to thank everyone for their kind comments on my return to the journalistic fray. I will endeavour to avoid falling down for the foreseeable future if that is possible.
