Terry Sarten: Dire warnings in film they tried to hide

Evidence points to the impact of fossil fuels such as oil on climate.

FOR many years now, climate change has been the elephant in the room.

In 1991, the Shell oil company filmed it and then hid the elephant away where nobody could see it.

The Shell film showed a series of dire predictions, forecasting what could happen to the environment in the future if high fossil fuel energy consumption was to continue beyond its level at the time. It noted that climate change was accelerating at such a pace that life would struggle to adapt - "change too fast perhaps for life to adapt, without severe dislocation".

And what did they do about this? Nothing. Despite knowing full-well the scientific evidence, the company kept quiet and continued plundering the world's resources to fuel its profits.

A Dutch news organisation called The Correspondent managed to get a copy of the film and were astonished by the clear message it carried about the threat climate change posed to life on the planet at a time when this was still relatively unknown beyond scientific circles.

Called Climate of Concern, many of the predictions in the film made 25 years ago are now making an impact - radical changes in long-established weather patterns with more storms; low-lying islands disappearing under rising seas; temperatures increasing causing crop failures; and the potential for growing numbers of climate refugees leaving uninhabitable landscapes.

Watching some segments of the film is like going back to the future as it illustrates possible scenarios, supported by scientific research, which right now are playing out across the planet.

The Correspondent's article noted that Shell was aware of the future effects of climate change having mentioned it in confidential company report written in 1986.

Shell notes in the film that the computer projections made for effects of climate change at the time were only predictive but "each prompted the same serious warning, a warning endorsed by a uniquely broad consensus of scientists in their report to the United Nations at the end of 1990".

It seems that Shell made the film intending it for public showing and to be used as resource for teaching.

Included in the film are interviews with scientists describing data that illustrated how the continued rise in carbon from fossil fuels would create changes to the world's climates.

It is amazing to watch a major oil producer acknowledging the scientific evidence of climate change produced by human activity in 1991 when we still seem to be tangled in political wrangling over whether it is a "real" thing or not.

The film concludes with a warning that the "problems and dilemmas" of climate change would affect everyone.

The film was never shown in public and Shell went on to be one of the world's great contributors to climate change using their corporate power to lobby and expand the use of fossil fuels.

The chairman of Shell between 1998 and 2002 felt the oil industry should not be the only ones being blamed, saying that "governments have some responsibility as well". This quote should be counted as a fossil-fuelled carbon emission.

■Terry Sarten (aka Tel) is a writer, musician, social worker and advocate for climate not just weather _ feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz