Since the 1960s, we elected officials have known about climate change » Yale's climate links

While conducting other research, Harvard University professor and scientific historian Naomi Ore stumbled upon a surprising discovery: As early as the 1950s, scientists had warned about the dangers of climate change created by humans. Yet despite this early evidence, a long campaign of well-planned disinformation in the fossil fuel industry has obscured public understanding of climate science.

In a conversation with Yale’s climate links, the Ore area explores the roots of today’s climate debate and provides misunderstandings drawn from past struggles, including the fight against tobacco. She also highlighted the importance of recognizing the settled nature of climate science and the momentum of legal action against the fossil fuel industry, which could be key to reversing the harmful narrative surrounding climate change.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Yale Climate Connection: What prompted you to investigate scientists and politicians’ understanding of the link between burning fossil fuels in the mid-20th century and global warming?

Naomi Oreskes: Well, I really won't say I was inspired. I would say it's more like I tripped over something I realized was important.

When I first started doing this work about 25 years ago, my goal was to study the relationship between scientific knowledge and funding. I specialized in the impact of U.S. military funding on oceanography, because oceanography has changed from a very funding science in the early 20th century to a very rich science when the U.S. Navy realized that better oceanography information could help them get the job done better.

While doing this research, I stumbled upon a group of oceanographers talking about the threat of humans burning fossil fuels. I understand that these scientists have a good understanding of this issue. Even in 1958, they had learned that when we burn fossil fuels, we put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which heats the atmosphere, and it is likely that over time, burning fossil fuels will lead to global climate change.

YCC: Why is this scientific knowledge from a long time ago?

ore: If we ask people to support policy actions, or ask people to change their lives, then I think they have the right to demand that their foundation should be very solid in the exchange. We should not ask people to make major changes or spend money on solar panels, or to fully understand if we are not sure what is happening.

So, I think it is very important for the American people to understand that this is indeed a solution to science. We know that due to human activities, we know that there is gravity and we know that DNA carries genetic information, so the earth is warming. This is very complete science.

[Another reason concerns] Our legal background when fighting for policy actions. We are seeing EPA hazard discoveries on the verge of extinction and since we have to fight for action on this issue, one of the questions raised is: “What is the legal basis for action on climate change?” My group has done some work in the history of the Clean Air Act. There are debates in Congress and in the courts about whether the Clean Air Act applies to carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.

Editor's Note: The EPA issued a dangerous discovery in 2009 in response to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA. The findings point to six greenhouse gases in the atmosphere threaten public health and welfare for current and future generations. EPA administrators determined that these risks were important enough to address the issue through the Clean Air Act. Executive order signed by President Donald Trump on his first day of office requires the EPA to reconsider the legality and ongoing applicability of dangerous discoveries in 2009.

In the Massachusetts v. EPA’s ruling — a landmark decision that the court ruled, yes, the EPA does need to regulate carbon dioxide — one of the questions raised is whether the Clean Air Act applies to carbon dioxide. Some judges, including some liberal judges, expressed skepticism, which could have been part of Congress’ intentions because no one really understood the climate science of the 1960s. Well, this is totally wrong, so we set out to correct this record.

In the 1960s, we found more than 100 congressional hearings where man-made climate change, greenhouse effects and carbon dioxide are being discussed – sometimes in situations like nuclear power, sometimes especially in the context of the Clean Air Act. This very extensive discussion was conducted, and the members of Congress wrote and passed the Clean Air Act, which was clear about carbon dioxide, and they knew it was a pollutant, which is why the terms “weather” and “climate” in the statute were. From a legal perspective, this is important because we are trying to use these regulations to apply it to this issue.

YCC: If there was a scientific consensus 50 to 60 years ago that artificial climate change was real, what would the debate at that time have impacted politicians and policy areas?

ore: If we look back at what happened in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, scientists actually did a good job of communicating with Congress and other policymakers and the White House. We literally reveal many reports, articles and testimony from Congress, in which scientists work very hard to explain their knowledge of the issue to the White House, Congress and other international leaders, and it is not exaggerated and exaggerated threats.

This finally reached its climax at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This is another history that some young people may not know, and older people may have forgotten, but the United States, together with 192 other countries, signed an international treaty – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – committed to preventing the world from dangerous human interference in the climate system. We promised to do so in 1992. The U.S. President signs Republican President George HW Bush.

Just like the whole history – there was enough science, and enough political will and momentum to lead to the treaty in 1992 – which had been gone. We talked about it more than 30 years ago. Then the question becomes: “What the hell is going on?”

[Well,] That was not the way the media showed it at the time. Media at the time, including mainstream traditional media such as the New York Times or the Washington Post, had two equal and opposite aspects of climate change as a large debate.

So we have to ask a question: “Why do many of us think this is not a good understanding? Why are we confused about this question?” The answer is because we have been victims of the thirty years of false propaganda campaign that has now driven the fossil fuel industry organised and well-planned, leading us to believe that science is not yet resolved. Because the industry understands that if science is not solved yet, then that would be a reasonable reason: “Let's do more research. Let's wait and see. I don't want to spend a lot of money on something that might not even be a problem.”

This is a very clever strategy based on market research from the tobacco industry decades ago: If people think science is uneasy, they often don't motivate to solve this problem. That is rational. This makes sense. I won't be motivated to do a question that I'm not sure is real.

But if people know that this has been solved, if people know that science is clear, they do feel the motivation to act. The tobacco industry learned about smoking these decades ago: If smokers understand the real dangers of smoking, many smokers will be motivated to try to quit. The tobacco industry deliberately hides science, confusing people about scientific evidence. Climate change deniers have adopted strategies developed by the tobacco industry and applied them to climate change.

YCC: Decades ago, can we learn anything from the spread of smoke about how to overcome where we are now in climate disinformation?

ore: As many people began to listen to scientific evidence, things changed and people started fighting back together. Reports from surgeons in the 1960s were very important, but many grassroots organizations began lobbying for banning smoking in public places. There are many public health organizations involved in education to explain to American people and people around the world the dangers of tobacco use. Therefore, even if it is difficult to quit, many people have quit.

Things have changed due to the use of the court. Individual and state prosecutors, and then eventually the U.S. federal government brought lawsuits to the tobacco industry. At first, many of these lawsuits were unsuccessful, but as we learn more about legal victory, legal victory led to more disclosure of information, and thus became a virtuous or synergistic cycle: the more we know, the more we can fight back the industry.

Personally, this has always been a very important moral lesson. Part of what motivated me to do the work I did was that I think when people understand what was going on, they felt motivated to fight back and they were motivated to think about which strategy might work.

Currently, we have seen in the United States and around the world that many legal cases have been filed against the fossil fuel industry in various places, including the International Court of Justice. There have been some early losses, but some huge victories have also been achieved. So I think we are starting to see the motivation to take legal action against these companies (the industry) because I think there is clear evidence that they have caused harm and people have been hurt.

I think we also have clear evidence that at least some of these companies engage in misleading advertising and other practices that depend on a particular jurisdiction, and there is good reason to believe that in fact May actually violates the law.

Editor's Note: Ole I was the co-author of “The Great Myth”, which is a 100-year history of the commercial opposition. She wrote the new book with Erik Conway, “A few steps back from the details of climate change and looks at the story of larger business opposition to safety and environmental regulation. … We next try to put the whole story in a larger historical environment so that we can understand where these parameters come from, how these parameters come from, how these actors become real politics, and in these arguments, politics like this, and a huge management, a huge influence, a huge influence, and a huge impact.

More resources:

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:

Statement on the signing of the ratification tool for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Status of ratification of the Convention

Hazard Discovery:

What is EPA's “hazard discovery”?

Discovery of hazards and causes or causes of greenhouse gases under Article 202(a) of the Clean Air Act

Current EPA position on hazard detection:

Religious Orders Find a Pager

President Trump's executive order for energy

Massachusetts v. EPA:

U.S. Supreme Court ruling

Sabin Climate Change Law Center

Clean air method:

Clean Air Act of 1970

The Great Myth:

The book “The Great Myth” by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway