Revealed: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

The oil giant Exxon privately “predicted global warming correctly and skilfully” only to then spend decades publicly rubbishing such science in order to protect its core business, new research has found.

The Guardian, Today.

Can you imagine that meeting at Exxon’s headquarters in the seventies: “Fuck it, let the world burn down; it will only hurt our grandchildren, so why would we care. Make sure that this gets buried. Next point on the agenda, pay raises for us…”

Nietzsche was worried about the future because he saw the first signs of Nihilism in his time. Nihilism was also described in books written by Dostoyevsky at the end of the nineteen hundreds, around the same time that Nietzsche started writing about it. In short, you could say that Nihilism means the belief that there is no meaning to be found in life, and thus, everything is aloud. The scientific revolution had already eroded the belief in a God with its fatherly control by his time. Nietzsche, an atheist, realized that humanity was not ready to live without parental supervision. World war I and especially 2 have proven this suspicion, but a newspaper article like the one above also shows that we are still not capable of thinking for all of us but mainly for ourselves. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly religiosity of some people these days. They are also under the spell of Nihilism, their religion is tailored to fit their personal needs, and there is no fear in these people of a disagreeing God.

It is not easy to find meaning in a meaningless world. In a few million or billion years, the son will swallow the world, and we will all be forgotten by the universe. We have to give meaning to it ourselves, and as a grownup, we should be capable of finding pleasure in the idea that our children and their children and our neighbors and their neighbors will thank us one day, when we are long gone, for the world we left them.  

“Nihilism appears at that point, not that the displeasure at existence has become greater than before but because one has come to mistrust any “meaning” in suffering, indeed in existence. One interpretation has collapsed; but because it was considered the interpretation it now seems as if there were no meaning at all in existence, as if everything were in vain.” Fredrich Nietzsche                                            

“There is no other world. Nor even this one. What, then, is there? The inner smile provoked in us by the patent nonexistence of both.” Emile M. Cioran

“The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from Nihilism.” Albert Camus