ProPublica: BP influenced Princeton's landmark 'Wedges' climate study
The famous "Wedges" paper was used repeatedly to shut us up when we argued against the continued use of fossil fuels, and, esp, against carbon capture and storage and the mass use of bioenergy. "But these eminent scientists say ..." Now we learn BP co-authored it. www.propublica.org/article/wedg...
George Monbiot207How many years lost, how many 00s of billions squandered through the blatant scientific corruption here, in the writing of a paper that became the backbone of government policies around the world? It still informs UK govt policy, as @thecccuk.bsky.social leans heavily on its unproven CCS claims.
Mial Pagan39BP... John Browne was a piece of work - he cut safety practices at BP resulting in the Deep Water Horizon environmental catastrophe. Other BP execs equally guilty - none got jail time. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwat...
Frances Taylor24It’s like smoking and leaded petrol all over again, but on a terrifying scale
J Kirkpatrick13Saw a documentary about few years ago. In it it was said that the petroleum companies knew about climate change and buried their scientific reasearc proving this in the 1960s. This alone should be enough to nationalise these companies so they can be shut down in an orderly fashion
step111.bsky.social9Looks similar to the path to net zero touted by the aviation industry. Their strategy depends heavily on SAF (impossible to produce at the required scale), carbon capture (!) and imaginary undefined new technologies. Not making progress is blamed on lack of subsidies... www.sustainableaviation.co.uk
John Topham9And yet Exxon knew, their internal modelling on global warming as a result of fossil fuel use was surprisingly accurate for the 1970s Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections | Science share.google/OWn5DEKmhrdh...
George Monbiot346An accidental thread here, on an issue of enormous importance, as this paper became fundamental to government climate policy (and non-policy) around the world.
LiLBaz86One of the first things Starmer did as PM was pledge eye watering sums to this obv chicanery, an early indication of his enthusiasm for funneling public cash to some of the world's most destructive & rapacious capitalists
Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism23OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT Pacala & Socolow was an immense reference in the early days, still influential. Academia is so complicit in fossil-fuel caused death & destruction - where is our reckoning? Immense reporting by @themadstone.bsky.social @amywestervelt.bsky.social @katieworth.bsky.social
marc konijn13Puik journalistiek werk dat onthult hoe oliegigant BP wetenschap kocht en gebruikt voor een publicatie (Wedges) met oplossingen (opslag co2 in de grond), zgn om klimaat te redden, maar bedoeld om door te gaan met boren en hoe die publicatie enorme invloed kreeg op de politiek, Gekmakend 😡 1/
Klägget13Det här är en skandal. Oljebolaget BP finansierade och påverkade en berömd klimatstudie som sade det de ville att politikerna skulle höra. Vanliga lobbyister talar med politiker direkt. Riktigt rika storföretag köper forskning och låtsas att det är fakta.
Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA11Commercial Determinants of Health, as some would say
Nate Holdren7This sucks but at least we can take comfort in knowing nothing of the sort is happening related to how prestigious actors talks about data centers
RadReduction (Larry Edwards)5Right! @kevinclimate.bsky.social nailed it in 2011: "Socolow's wedges…they're the wrong way around. ...He has us starting with small reductions from the pointy ends of the wedges & progressing to…the big end. …but because we're so late…we need to get the big reductions almost immediately." 1/2
Claudia Cornelsen4"Merchants of doubts" Die üblen Strategien der fossilen Profiteure und wie sie die menschen betrügen. Das ist nicht dumm oder naiv, das ist zu tiefst böse.
Raven Onthill4Oh. Shit. Now carbon capture and storage is nowhere and global heat records are constantly broken. And yet we do need CCS.
This is the most jaw-dropping part of Princeton/BP/Wedges paper scandal: that the scientists funded by BP said outright that their job "was to invent a future where the fossil fuel industries have not disappeared yet climate change is being forcefully addressed, and this is still our job." 1/3
Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they)34Whew—that word "invent" conveys, like, Freudian amounts of confession. That said, I think these scientists really did believe that fossil fuel companies were not lying or lobbying against action but "confronting" climate change—and that we COULD address climate change & keep using fossil fuels. 2/
Adam Welz4Why this isn't widely viewed as academic malpractice of the highest order and hasn't led to the harshest-possible sanctions against the profs concerned amazes me. What to the top dogs at Princeton have to say about it all?
Håkon Nordhagen3Notice how Equinor, the norwegian state owned oil company, just announced they will jump start world’s most northern oil field, Wisting. Too far from shore (400km) for power from shore, they claim they will use post-combustion CCS on the gas turbines to capture 200ktCO2/yr. Same story, over and over
Marcello Graziano 🇺🇦1these biases are also common in EU and Norwegian grants, I found. The “user partner” curse, I guess. Another thing I would not import from the EU/EAA.
Andrew Bear1They seem to have put a lot of less emphasis on the "climate change is being forcefully addressed" part of the "job."
