Star Wars fans rejoiced last night with the debut of the final trailer for the newest Star Wars movie.
It's been 38 years since George Lucas debuted the Star Wars movies and gave birth to one of the world's most recognizable franchises.
And just two months after Star Wars was released 38 years ago - the Exxon Corporation was poised to become a leader in climate change research.
Yes, you heard that right - according to Inside Climate News - in July of 1977 a scientist working for Exxon told powerful oil executives at Exxon's headquarters that the planet was warming - and that it was caused by burning fossil fuels.
James F. Black told the audience "In the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels."
A year later - he put a fine point to his conclusions when he wrote "Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical."
That was a decade before Congress heard James Hansen - as Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies - testify about man-made climate change.
Exxon knew about how their entire business model threatened humanity a full decade before Congress - and what did Exxon do about it?
Well - believe it or not - they took serious action - Exxon launched new research into carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and how it impacts the earth.
They worked with university scientists and the Department of Energy - and they were the early leaders in the field of climate and energy research.
Based on that - you'd think that by 1988 when James Hansen gave his congressional testimony - scientists from Exxon would be next in line to testify about the realities and dangers of global warming.
But that's not what happened.
Instead - in the late 1980s - Exxon made an about-face.
Thom Hartmann Radio Program
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