From 1960s On, US Utilities Knew About Warming & Climate Risks, Then Chose To Lie
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The new report resurfaces many detailed documents, some of them previously mentioned by InsideClimate in its Exxon reporting, others not widely circulated in recent years.
The 1960's, the earliest years of significant federal government interest of the looming carbon dioxide problem, especially during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, utilities were among the industries contributing to extensive government studies that raised the issue of climate change as an important consideration. Mostly, they recommended diligent research, since there was not yet quantitative evidence or sophisticated models of how continuing use of fossil fuels would impact the climate.
By 1977, the Electric Power Research Institute, funded by the industry, was testifying in Congress that the global warming consequences of greenhouse gases could force a shift away from fossil fuels, especially coal, a message that the group repeated in its house publication that year. (At about that time, the National Academy of Sciences was first warning that climate change, not resource scarcity, was likely to limit the use of fossil fuel in the decades ahead.)
By 1988, the EPRI Journal would run an editorial declaring outright: "There is a growing consensus in the scientific community that the greenhouse effect is real." It described potentially grave impacts, but added that "shifting away from fossil fuel use is a prospect that seems impractical."
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25072017/utilities-electricity-industry-knew-climate-change-risks-decades-ago-exxon