Energy is ubiquitous to modern industrial life. It is the fourth factor of production in addition to the textbook triad of land, labor, and capital. Julian Simon coined the term master resource to describe the resource of resources, energy.

Energy as been recognized as a unique driver of economic activity and human betterment for almost two centuries–about as long as carbon-based energies came to be recognized as a sea change from the inherently dilute, unreliable renewable energies of before. The Industrial Revolution was enabled by coal, the energy required by the new machinery, as W. S. Jevons so brilliantly saw in his day.

The quotations below, some classic, resonate as well or better today than ever before. They are as ‘right” as the peak-oil quotations (compiled here and here) have been wrong.…

“Today the evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin. We are still reluctant to believe that our worst nightmares of a global ecological collapse could come true; much depends on how quickly we can recognize the danger. [- Al Gore, Earth in the Balance (1992)]

“Every night on the TV news is like taking a nature hike through the Book of Revelation,” Al Gore told the New York Times last year. The Times reporter noted: “The past few weeks have him even more worried than usual.” Really?

Gore’s rhetoric today is toned toward hope that new technology will save the day. “We know how to fix this,” Gore told the Times:

We can stop the temperatures going up worldwide with as little as a three-year time lag by reaching net zero.

“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.

“As for using proxy data to detect a man-made greenhouse effect, I don’t think we’re ever going to get to the point where we’re going to be totally convincing.” – Thomas Wigley, National Center for Atmospheric Research, (April 28, 1998)

When did the “greenhouse signal” become recognized and “settled science”? Despite the 35th anniversary of James Hansen’s June 1988 testimony to a Senate subcommittee, the historical record should be clear that detection was not in 1988. Or 1991. Or 1995. Or 1998.

And “Exxon Knew“?

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Here is some history from the used-to-be newspaper of record, the New York Times, and its global warming scribe, William K. Stevens.

In early 1991, Stevens reported that scientists were not ready to pronounce evidence of man-made global warming: 

most scientists are far from ready to announce that greenhouse warming has arrived, since the warming recorded over the last decade could also be part of a natural climatic change.