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DRAFT NOT READY FOR COMMENT BY OTHERS: The New Doomsday Book of Global Climate Change
This is a work in progress, subject to revision or deletion by the editor, not intended for publication or comment by others: brainstorming.
How did we get to global climate change? Who is responsible? Who profited from decisions and actions taken historically that brought us to this point?
One of the major shortcomings in our discussions about climate change is the lack of any mechanism of accountability for those who brought us here, and are still arguing against science. We are constantly told that individuals must be socially responsible to the community, and we must expect to be held accountable for our actions. Yet when have we heard of any individuals being held accountable for inflicting climate change on the world?
Almost never. Discussions quickly turn to the shorthand of corporate names and ignore the individuals who are making and have made destructive decisions leading to climate change. We need to correct this situation if we expect anything positive to be done before it is too late.
The New Doomsday Book Project
In this project, the aim is to compile the names of individuals and their employers who share responsibility for stimulating global climate change since 1945, when the greatest impacts began to be felt (a future project might go back even further). The purpose is to illuminate how we got here, who profited by it, and to encourage individual responsibility for ones actions. The intention is to write statements of historical fact, not to make accusations.
Hypothetical example: "John Smith was Director of Safety and Environmental Compliance for Exxon-Mobil in 2010 when the Macondo Oil Platform blew up in the Gulf of Mexico."
Each named entry will include a brief paragraph describing the role of the individual in stimulating global climate change. This will include individuals managing major energy production industries, such as coal mining and oil production, and major energy utilization industries, such as low miles-per-gallon automobile manufacturers and electric utilities. It will also include top government officials who promoted use of fossil fuels that generate major carbon emissions. Most of the information given will be based on the office held by the individual and the role of the employer in the industry.
Hypothetical example: John Jones, Vice President for Production, 1995-2005, Consolidation Coal Company, during a period when Consol produced over 400 million tons per year of coal burned mostly in the U.S., contributing an estimated ______ tons per year of carbon to the atmosphere.
All information used will be referenced to credible published sources per WP policies. No rumors, conspiracy theories, or unverifiable allegations.
Individuals will be identified by examining government documents and annual reports of major corporations involved in the energy industries of the United States. Members of the governing boards, chief executive officers and vice presidents or their governmental counterparts will be listed in The New Doomsday Book. Names of current corporate officers and government officials will be identified first, then previous officers year by year moving backwards to 1945. They will be arranged in the book in alphabetical order, and indexed by company.
Contributing energy industries will be identified by examination of IPCC reports to determine which sectors of the economy have been most responsible for global climate change. The U.S. Census of Business will be examined to identify individual firms in each economic sector, and their annual reports obtained to identify individual corporate officers. These may be supplemented by SEC filings as necessary. Government officials will be identified during administrations that promoted use of fossil fuels in preference to other energy sources, with mitigating statements included for those administrations that seriously encouraged energy efficiency, conservation measures, and research and development of non-fossil fuels and technologies.
It will be a large, labor intensive task to compile all these names, as it was to compile the original Doomsday Book, and it will not be completed rapidly. It may take years. A topical university research seminar will be created to begin research on IPCC reports, identify relevant sectors of the economy and sources of information about individuals who should be included in The New Doomsday Book. This seminar will draw more specific parameters around the project and identify shortcomings in available data.
Why the Name?
The original Domesday Book was commissioned in December 1085 by William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066. The first draft was completed in August 1086 and contained records for 13,418 settlements in the English counties south of the rivers Ribble and Tees (the border with Scotland at the time). It was the first great land survey commissioned to determine the extent of taxes that could be raised, by assessing the extent of land and resources owned in England at the time. It became the principal accounting mechanism for levying taxes to support the new government.
It was written by an observer of the survey that "there was no single hide nor a yard of land, nor indeed one ox nor one cow nor one pig which was left out" of the first Domesday Book. The grand and comprehensive scale on which the Domesday survey took place, and the irreversible nature of the information collected led people to compare it to the Last Judgement, or the “Doomsday” described in the Bible, when the deeds of Christians written in the Book of Life were to be placed before God for judgement. Thus, the name was a reference to the ultimate accountability mechanism.
The Domesday Book provides extensive records of landholders, their tenants, the amount of land they owned, how many people occupied the land, the amounts of woodland, meadow, animals, fish and ploughs on the land (if any) and other resources, any buildings present. The whole purpose of the survey was to estimate the value of the land and its assets, before the Norman Conquest, after it, and at the time of Domesday. Some entries also chronicle disputes over who held land, some mention customary dues that had to be paid to the king, and entries for major towns include records of traders and number of houses.
The original Domesday Book has survived over 900 years of English history and is currently housed in a specially made chest at London's Public Record Office in Kew, London.
Source: The Domesday Book Online, http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/faqs.html#1, accessed April 14, 2007.
The New Doomsday Book of Global Climate Change will attempt to be the most comprehensive mechanism of individual accountability yet prepared on the issue of global climate change.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 13:52, 5 November 2018 (UTC)