Shell Knew? No (outlier climate prediction exaggerated)

“Shell, ExxonMobil, and other companies should defeat these frivolous lawsuits against fossil fuels, which are more a complaint against high-energy civilization than the defendants. The plaintiffs should be ordered to pay all court costs, as well as the opportunity cost for the company having to litigate rather than find energy for the masses.”

A DeSmog piece by Matthew Green, “Lost Decade: How Shell Downplayed Early Warnings Over Climate Change,” reports on a smoking gun that is more like a broken, discarded water pistol.

“Newly discovered documents from the 1970s and early ’80s show that Shell knew more about the ‘greenhouse effect’ than it let on in public,” reads the subtitle. The article continues:

A confidential October 1989 Shell publication titled “SCENARIOS 1989 – 2010” outlines a high-emissions “global mercantilism” scenario in which average global temperatures rise by “considerably more” than 1.5 degrees Celsius. The report warned that “many species of trees, plants, animals and insects would not be able to move and adapt.”

Forecast: 1989–2020

That was for 2050; the shorter term forecast (per the study’s title) was for 30 years, ending in 2020. And the results are in, diminishing DeSmog’s narrative and reinforcing the “skeptic’ point about global lukewarming versus ‘too hot’ climate models.

Shell’s environmental report began by stating that the “new” theory introduced “the possibility that global temperatures could increase because of increasing concentrations of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly, CO2.” Alarming? No. Complete? Hardly. The study did not consider CO2 fertilization and the benefits of warming, anthropogenic or otherwise. It was CO2 alarmism before the world knew of such a thing.

“The conventional and probably conservative wisdom,” Shell’s half-century-old study stated, “is that global temperature will rise between 0.5 and 1.5C in the next 30 years from CO2 concentration increases that have already occurred.” Thus any atmospheric increases for the forecast period (which turned out to be 17 percent) would add to the temperature range.

Assuming the mid-point, the 2010 temperature rise (assumed to be all anthropogenic, not natural) was at the bottom of the range, 0.5C (0.7F), less than half of the prediction midpoint of 1.0C (1.7F). {Note: The global temperature increase since 1880 is estimated at 2F.}

Shell’s temperature prediction was significantly overstated, not unlike the temperature prediction pertaining to James Hansen’s historic climate testimony in mid-1988.

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Forecast: 1980–2050

That was for 2020, the half way point of the second prediction. Going out to year 2050, the Shell study authors (not the company!) went on the wild side. As summarized by DeSmog:

But its starkest language was reserved for the implications for people. “The changes would, however, most impact on humans [sic]. In earlier times, man was able to respond with his feet. Today, there is no place to go because people already stand there. Perhaps those in industrial countries could cope with a rise in sea level (the Dutch example) but for poor countries such defences are not possible. The potential refugee problem in GLOBAL MERCANTILISM could be unprecedented. Africans would push into Europe, Chinese into the Soviet Union, Latins into the United States, Indonesians into Australia. Boundaries would count for little – overwhelmed by the numbers. Conflicts would abound.

Civilisation could prove a fragile thing.

Conclusion

Impartial observers will see right through DeSmog’s attempt to pull an “ExxonKnew” with Shell. (The Exxon story is itself easily countered on multiple grounds.) Shell, ExxonMobil, and other companies should defeat these frivolous lawsuits against fossil fuels, which are more a complaint against high-energy civilization than the defendants. The plaintiffs should be ordered to pay all court costs, as well as the opportunity cost for the company having to litigate rather than find energy for the masses.

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