(UPDATED FROM 6/6/2020)
The news that Ford and General Motors knew about climate change in the 1960s raises a number of big questions. For example, might this revelation open both automakers to lawsuits similar to those that were successfully waged against tobacco companies?
An investigative report by the energy policy journal E&E News also has the potential to upend the auto history field. Climate change has been rarely addressed by auto history media outlets or books. Even scholarly histories have tended to steer clear of the topic. This was a plausible strategy under the assumption the auto industry had no reason to be concerned about climate change until decades later.
That assumption has been debunked by E&E News reporter Maxine Joselow (2020). She documented how scientists at both Ford and GM began to accumulate evidence in the early-60s that auto emissions contributed to climate change.
For example, at GM Syukuro “Suki” Manabe was among the first scientists to develop climate models. And at Ford, Gilbert Plass predicted in 1961 that carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere could result in global temperature increases of 1.1 Celsius per century. “Today, that prediction looks remarkably prescient,” Joselow noted (2020).
Ford and GM publicly attacked climate science
This pioneering research did not lead U.S. automakers to sound the alarm about climate change — and shift to less-polluting vehicles. Quite the contrary.
Joselow (2020) pointed to how Ford and GM “engaged in a concerted campaign to block climate action while casting doubt on the emerging consensus on global warming.”
As a case in point, in 1989 Ford and GM joined the Global Climate Coalition. This group was successful in stopping President George Bush from establishing greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets at the 1992 Earth Summit. The coalition also played a role in blocking the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol during the presidency of Bill Clinton.
The coalition was only one of the groups that the Big Two helped fund. Each automaker donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a handful of think tanks that attacked climate science. Ford and GM also lobbied against stricter fuel-economy standards.
Big Two made only token efforts to ‘green’ their fleet
Meanwhile, Joselow (2020) discussed how Ford and GM offered electric vehicles in the late-90s. They were given little attention — and quietly died. The Big Two instead focused on “larger vehicles that used more gas, such as SUVs and pickups,” Joselow noted. As a result:
“The average fuel economy of Ford’s vehicles stayed remarkably flat for 25 years, going from 20 miles per gallon in 1985 to 20.4 mpg in 2010, the data shows. GM saw a similar trend, going from 20.5 mpg in 1985 to 20.6 in 2009.” (Joselow, 2020)
The auto industry has made remarkably little progress in reducing greenhouse gases over the last 40 years. As discussed further here, between 1975 and 2017 average carbon dioxide emissions for new vehicles sold in the U.S. declined by less than 13 percent. This was despite significant improvements in drivetrain technology (EPA, 2019).
Part of the problem is that in recent decades both domestic and foreign automakers have heavily invested in larger SUVs and trucks. In addition, the production of passenger cars and light trucks has substantially increased since the mid-70s.
How should auto historians treat climate change?
The first step should be to reject the idea that this topic is not relevant to our field. This is as absurd as arguing that auto histories should not address the industry’s troubled labor relations in the 1930s.
The website Autoevolution hints at the road that needs to be traveled. This was among the few auto media outlets that published a full write up of the E&E News story. Elena Gorgan (2020) noted that the “findings are unsettling, though probably hardly surprising: both carmakers knew that their cars contributed to climate change and that the issue would become even more serious as production increased. Still, they chose to ignore facts and flat-out deny independently conducted studies.”
Also see ‘Auto media largely ignore ‘code red’ IPCC climate change report’
The cause and effect of the Big Two’s foot dragging is that they — like the rest of the industry — are now being pressed to phase out internal-combustion engines at a remarkably rapid pace. Of course, this has generated complaints from automotive journalists such as Keith Crain and Matt Posky. In doing so they have conveniently ignored Brock Yates’ critique of U.S. automakers in the 1960s:
“All of the government interference could have been avoided if the industry had demonstrated some social responsibility during the 1960s. . . . Bad automobiles came before bad laws. To be sure, federal bureaucrats have since swung the regulation pendulum too far, but that too was an inevitable response to Detroit’s witless excesses.” (1983, p. 254)
Automotive historians — particularly in academia — do not face nearly as much pressure as their journalistic counterparts to stick close to industry talking points about climate change. This a key reason why it is past time for them to show leadership in researching this topic.
NOTES:
Estimated CO2 emissions from vehicles with gas-powered engines were calculated by dividing 8,887 grams per gallon by the vehicle’s average real-world fuel economy. Diesel emissions were calculated by dividing 10,180 g/gal by a vehicle’s average real-world mpg (EPA, 2019).
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RE:SOURCES
- Gorgan, Elena; 2020. “GM and Ford Knew of the Impact Cars Had on Climate Change Back in the ‘60s.” Autoevolution. Posted Oc. 28.
- EPA; 2019. The 2018 EPA Automotive Trends Report: Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Fuel Economy, and Technology since 1975. Environmental Protection Agency. Posted March 28.
- Joselow, Maxine; 2020. “Exclusive: GM, Ford knew about climate change 50 years ago.” E&E News (subscription required). Posted Oct. 26.
- Yates, Brock; 1983. The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry. Empire Books, New York, NY.
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