21 Fig. 3. In light of the dangers posed by this contamination, Hubbert noted, Professor Hutchinson urged conference participants to seriously consider making the maximum use of solar energy. Neither Hubbert himself nor, presumably, Shell Oil, were persuaded by these warnings. But the passage demonstrates that Shell and the broader oil industry were receiving increasingly explicit warnings of climate risks from outside scientists by the beginning of the 1960s. Before the end of that decade, the same warnings were being presented, and in far greater detail, by scientists working for the oil industry itself. 1968-1969—API receives express, detailed and serious warnings from its own consulting scientists that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion could lead to dramatic changes in climate leading to widespread and potentially grave damage to society and the environment In 1968, the Stanford Research Institute delivered to API its final report on a multi-year investigation into the Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Pollutants. (Submitted for the record as a document annex to slides 29-31 of my testimony of May 23rd). The report, written by SRI scientists Elmer Robinson and R.C. Robbins, explicitly addressed the state of the science with respect to carbon dioxide and its potential impacts on the global climate. While the researchers could not yet confirm a scientific consensus on climate questions, the report: • Observed that CO2 emissions were “the only air pollutant which has been proven to be of global importance of man’s environment on the basis of a long period of scientific investigation.” • Recognized that “Past and present studies of CO2 are detailed and seem to explain adequately the present state of CO2 in the atmosphere.”

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents