Reacción a "Reactions to the accuracy of Exxon's climate change predictions since the 1970s"

ExxonMobil, an oil company, already knew in the 1970s that carbon dioxide emissions from its business caused global warming and climate change, which was proven in 2015 when confidential documents were discovered. Despite this, ExxonMobil launched a large-scale disinformation campaign that continues today (albeit with a different focus), casting doubt on the predictions of academic research. Now, Supran, Rahmstorf and Oreskes have analysed ExxonMobil's internal climate models and compared them with models published in scientific journals at the time.  

Not only did ExxonMobil know that their operations created higher temperatures and a longer interglacial period, but their predictions and uncertainties were as accurate as those published in academia, they knew when significant human-caused warming would be detected and the amount of carbon dioxide that could be released before reaching 2 degrees of global warming.  

The relevance of this study lies in its accountability to the law and to the general public, who also deserve the truth. Knowing that something is happening is not the same as knowing with certainty. Dr Naomi Oreskes is a historian of science and an expert on the role of oil companies in climate change and in delaying the implementation of solutions. ExxonMobil chose to lie, to spread uncertainty as a marketing strategy, and this has to have legal consequences. Although we know that science cannot be completely objective, as it is shaped by our culture, knowledge, biases and systemically dominated by Western thinking and colonialism, scientists in general follow a code of ethics that was ignored in this case.  

This article also reminds us that science does not live in isolation in a parallel world, but participates in and informs decisions that can change the course of our future, so perhaps the history of science should be a compulsory subject in all science degrees.