"It Wasn’t Just Oil Companies Spreading Climate Denial"

"The electricity industry knew about the dangers of climate change 40 years ago. It denied them anyway."

"The MIT professor was unequivocal.

“If we had to stop producing CO₂, no coal, oil, or gas could be burned,” Carroll Wilson declared. The world would have to adopt nuclear energy en masse and perhaps even turn to “electric motor vehicles.”

It was June 9, 1971. Wilson, a management professor, wasn’t speaking at an environmental rally or a scientific meeting. He was talking to a room full of engineers and businessmen who had gathered in Cleveland, Ohio, for the electricity industry’s annual conference."

Robinson Meyer reports for The Atlantic September 7, 2022.