WTF?

Fester states: " My point is that you don't know whether a fifty year prediction is true when you make it. Just because Exxon Mobil funded a forecast fifty years ago is no reason to assume that it was given any more credence than any other forecast it might have funded."

In fact there is a very good reason and it has been mentioned before but here we go again.

ExxonMobil gave it so much credence that "ExxonMobil worked to deny it—including overemphasizing uncertainties, denigrating climate models, mythologizing global cooling, feigning ignorance about the discernibility of human-caused warming, and staying silent about the possibility of stranded fossil fuel assets in a carbon-constrained world."

If you can show me other predictions that ExxonMobile scientists made that fell short of the mark and were given at least the same level of credence then I'll spend my time looking over it.

"In 2015, investigative journalists uncovered internal company documents showing that Exxon scientists have been warning their executives"

OK, that's a possibility, but how can we ascertain that these journalists were neutral or that these documents were not forged and recently planted there for them to find?

«the American Petroleum Institute—has been aware of potential human-caused global warming...»

Possibly also, but were these the only documents they were aware of?
Yes, potential is also there, they were also speaking of a potential renewed ice-age. Why believe this and not the other?

«...with the peer reviewed scientific analysis of many scientists worldword is just trite.»

I am no stranger to the academic world. Scientists are busy like anyone else, wanting to devote their time to what they currently do rather than turn away to unrelated projects of strangers, ambitious like others, have families to feed and mortgage to pay like others, dishonest like others...

«It is not up to you to decide when scientific reseach ends.»

Science ends when politics enter, when coercion and fraud begin.

By "inadmissible" I'm not even speaking of empirical correctness: there comes a point when scientific findings must be discarded, correct or otherwise, and not acted upon, like court evidence comprising of confessions obtained under torture, like medical knowledge obtained by Nazi doctors studying the operation of the human digestive system by filming the intestines of Jews with X-rays.

When politicians incentivise scientists to obtain particular results, financially rewarding those who find what they wanted, de-funding or even firing those who find otherwise, and making the signatures of renowned scientists appear on papers they never wrote, without their knowledge, despite their protests or both, there science ends.

Margaret Thatcher (by no means a "Lefty") needed scientists to "discover" global-warming so she could break the coal-miners unions (and introduce nuclear-power instead). That ball kept rolling ever since, even if it was since taken by different interests. By now it has turned into a full-scale hysterical witch-hunt. Even if the "science" was correct, even if disobeying it would make the planet boil, we still must never act on it.

WTF?
Yuyutsu states: "OK, that's a possibility, but how can we ascertain that these journalists were neutral or that these documents were not forged and recently planted there for them to find."

ExxonMobile, a powerful worldwide energy provider does not despute the claims. Show us your eveidence that the documents were forged.

When politicians incentivise scientists to obtain particular results, financially rewarding those who find what they wanted, de-funding or even firing those who find otherwise, and making the signatures of renowned scientists appear on papers they never wrote, without their knowledge, despite their protests or both, there science end.

Show us the evidence to support your claim.

Margaret Thatcher (by no means a "Lefty") needed scientists to "discover" global-warming so she could break the coal-miners unions (and introduce nuclear-power instead).

Show us the evidence to support your claims.

I am always prepared to allow people a degree of latitude when making claims.

I have sourced the statements that I have made here.

If anyone wants to go and check this they can.

Not one person on this thread has challenged the science to be found in the source provided.

They have, however, made all sorts of claims most of which have little or nothing to do with the topic.

Show me the evidence and I'll take a look at it.

I've shown you my evidence now you show me yours.

When all this 'ExxonKnew' rubbish was first touted, various US states saw some easy money to be made by suing Exxon for knowingly causing environmental damage even though they were aware their product would cause AGW.

Suffice to saw all those law suits failed dramatically. Why? Well when you get past the hype upon which this thread's article is based, you find that Exxon didn't know. All the quotes that the hype is based on weren't Exxon saying these things would happen, just that these things (ie warming) were one of several possibilities.

They didn't make these supposedly suppressed predictions. They covered all angles as any good analysis should. But the alarmists have no understanding of covering all possibilities, since the 'settled science' permits only one viewpoint.

Dear WTF,

Wow. Thanks for that. They were impressively close weren't they.

Dear Fester,

CO2 is a significant greenhouse gas. The Exxon scientists knew the physical properties of CO2 would mean an increase in its concentration would lead to an increase in temperatures. That is basic climate modelling. The only way this would not come about was some major extenuating factor. None have arisen so Ocham's Razor has CO2 the prime cause of temperature increases.
http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063

Nothing controversial about pretty simple science.

WTF?
mhaze states: "They didn't make these supposedly suppressed predictions. "

This of course is a nonsense :

analysis shows that, in private and academic circles since the late 1970s and early 1980s, ExxonMobil scientists

(i) accurately projected and skillfully modeled global warming due to fossil fuel burning;

(ii) correctly dismissed the possibility of a coming ice age;

(iii) accurately predicted when human-caused global warming would first be detected; and

(iv) reasonably estimated how much CO2 would lead to dangerous warming. Yet, whereas academic and government scientists worked to communicate what they knew to the public, ExxonMobil worked to deny it.

Exxon scientists did make the predictions and that information is now out in the public for all to see.

It is up to you now mhaze (as you have made the claim) to indicate which Exxon evaluated documentation shows otherwise.