DESPARDES — Coal’s role has accelerated since 2000, with global consumption increasing by almost two-thirds, driven by its rising use in China and India. The global coal trade doubled to 1.5 billion tons a year over the same period. … At the same time, coal was emerging as a leading contributor to climate change and air pollution, says a report published in October 2018 titled ‘What is the future of coal?”
Climate Change deniers downplay the correlation though. And, industry experts say advanced technology now mitigate the effects of burning coal.
But a new report shows conclusively that the coal industry, like the oil industry, was aware of the climate impacts of burning fossil fuels as far back as 1966—and, like other sectors of the fossil fuel industry with knowledge of the consequences of their business model, did next to nothing about it.
The revelation was published in an article by Élan Young at HuffPost Friday.
“It wasn’t just big oil that knew about climate change decades ago,” tweeted HuffPost editor Kate Sheppard.
The story is pegged on a 1966 copy of the Mining Congress Journal.
In the journal, James R. Garvey, president of now-defunct research firm Bituminous Coal Research Inc., describes the future consequences of coal.
“There is evidence that the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere is increasing rapidly as a result of the combustion of fossil fuels,” Garvey wrote. “If the future rate of increase continues as it is at the present, it has been predicted that, because the CO2 envelope reduces radiation, the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere will increase and that vast changes in the climates of the earth will result.”
Garvey added that the result of the changes in climate could include melting icecaps and rising seas.
