It is hard to say whether it will be 2 degrees Fahrenheit or only one or 5.īut when the temperature does rise by a few degrees over the whole globe, there is a possibility that the icecaps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise. By that time, there will be a serious additional impediment for the radiation leaving the earth. By 1970, it will be perhaps 4 per cent, by 1980, 8 per cent, by 1990, 16 per cent, if we keep on with our exponential rise in the use of purely conventional fuels. After his talk, Teller was asked to “summarize briefly the danger from increased carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere in this century.” The physicist, as if considering a numerical estimation problem, responded:Īt present the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 2 per cent over normal. Dunlop and the rest of the audience reacted is unknown, but it’s hard to imagine this being welcome news. All the coastal cities would be covered, and since a considerable percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe. Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect It has been calculated that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. It transmits visible light but it absorbs the infrared radiation which is emitted from the earth. The carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you can’t smell it, it is not dangerous to health, so why should one worry about it?Ĭarbon dioxide has a strange property. Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon dioxide. And this, strangely, is the question of contaminating the atmosphere. But I would like to mention another reason why we probably have to look for additional fuel supplies. First of all, these energy resources will run short as we use more and more of the fossil fuels. I will start by telling you why I believe that the energy resources of the past must be supplemented. Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. Teller’s task that November fourth was to address the crowd on “energy patterns of the future,” and his words carried an unexpected warning: Robert Oppenheimer, but he retained the embrace of industry and government. The nuclear weapons physicist Edward Teller had, by 1959, become ostracized by the scientific community for betraying his colleague J. As President of the Sun Oil Company, he knew the business well, and as al director of the American Petroleum Institute – the industry’s largest and oldest trade association in the land of Uncle Sam – he was responsible for representing the interests of all those many oilmen gathered around him.įour others joined Dunlop at the podium that day, one of whom had made the journey from California – and Hungary before that. Over 300 government officials, economists, historians, scientists, and industry executives were present for the Energy and Man symposium – organized by the American Petroleum Institute and the Columbia Graduate School of Business – and Dunlop was to address the entire congregation on the “prime mover” of the last century – energy – and its major source: oil. He was a guest of honor for a grand occasion: the centennial of the American oil industry. Robert Dunlop, 50 years old and photographed later as clean-shaven, hair carefully parted, his earnest face donning horn-rimmed glasses, passed under the Ionian columns of Columbia University’s iconic Low Library. It was a typical November day in New York City.
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