Shell's 1991 warning: climate changing ‘faster than at any time since ice age’ | Hacker News Reader

Shell's 1991 warning: climate changing ‘faster than at any time since ice age’

theguardian.com

110 pointsjonathansizz26 comments

There's a concept called 'first mover disadvantage'. None of these companies are idiots, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that they all knew of climate change decades prior to 1991. However the way our system prices externalities (very ineffectively) and focuses on rewarding quarterly earnings rather than a longer term approach creates a total and utter disincentive for any forward thinking CEO to make a big step away from the company's core markets.

We can hold Shell's feet to the fire on this sure, but that achieves nothing apart from disincentivizing self awareness within these large companies. What we need is a way to push the entire industry towards more environmentally sustainable practices not penalize them for talking about it.

Take away subsidies for them and use that money to incentivize development of renewables and nuclear.

I'm sure it's already happening in places. Normally I am against intervention in the markets, but in this case I don't see how a major shift is going to take place without it when we've got decades more of cheap combustibles we can coast on.

Yes. And not just eliminate subsidies. The fossil fuel industries need to be taxed heavily, with proceeds going to renewables. But not nuclear, unless it's passively safe, and doesn't create long-lived waste.

The reason this issue is so hotly contested is because there is no way (probably) for the fossil fuel industry to solve this problem, other than to cease existing, or completely convert themselves to another business. Yes I am aware of geo-engineering ideas and sequestering ideas, but nobody has a practical plan that can really work. If it was as simple as using a new refrigerant or putting catalytic converters on cars, the industry would have done that, as they did with carbon monoxide and ozone layer issues. This problem's solution is much much much more painful. I think our only hope is for solar/wind/nuclear to get so good nobody wants fossil fuels any more. That isn't easy either, but it could happen, and we should be trying really really hard.

"I think our only hope is for solar/wind/nuclear to get so good nobody wants fossil fuels any more."

We are at this stage now or approaching it:

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/12/19/solar-now-produces-a-...

The oil companies ought to have been pushing for solar/wind/nuclear to get that good more quickly. If they knew there was a problem and knew that the solution required making their business obsolete, then the proper choice is to make themselves obsolete rather than waiting for others to do it for them.

But, nope, let's screw over future generations because that's too hard.

This is exactly the kind of haughty idealism that leads to nothing ever getting done on contentious issues

How is "figure out a way to transform your business so you don't wreck the planet" haughty idealism, and how does suggesting that as the correct approach result in nothing ever getting done?

> How is "figure out a way to transform your business so you don't wreck the planet" haughty idealism

Because it's like asking a tree to figure out how to become a meadow of flowers. Sure, the meadow could just as easily exist in the same place, but the mechanisms by which the tree became a tree can't be used to turn it into a field of flowers.

Certain kinds of change can only come by displacing what's there with something new.

> and how does suggesting that as the correct approach result in nothing ever getting done?

Because the people you're assigning to do it have no natural motivation to do it, and are completely psychically cut off from the information signals that could guide someone through the successful foundation of a clean energy company.

You've got the right approach, you're just looking to the wrong people to get it done.

Some companies manage to disrupt themselves rather than waiting for upstarts to do it for them. It's not impossible. It may well be quite difficult, but I don't see why we can't criticize companies for failing to do difficult things.

We can criticize them for failing to do/failing to attempt to do, but we should not expect them to do it. Companies will naturally be opposed to developing something that threatens their main revenue stream. Expecting them to do it results in nothing getting done.

I don't get that last sentence. How do my expectations influence what they do?

This is exactly the kind of defeatist attitude that leads to nothing ever getting done on contentious issues

Well, here we have a great historical example of someone in the real world not deciding to work against their own interests, despite our impotent insistence that they do so. Since countless other examples of that happening are a few seconds' google away, maybe it doesn't work?

My point is that disrupting yourself before others can disrupt you is working towards your own interests. Most companies don't have what it takes to pull it off, but that doesn't change the fact that they should be doing it.

For example, the premier piston engine maker Pratt & Whitney started developing jet engines, with a late start compared to the Brits and the Germans, or even the steam turbine maker General Electric, but they nevertheless became very successful in it.

I think what was needed for the drastic change was, first, the threat of competition, and second, applicability of at least some portion of current skills and assets.

Could oil companies or coal power plant operators work outside fossil fuels? I guess oil companies could still do solar or wind projects because they have project management, engineering and offshore knowhow etc, often in challenging countries. They could also develop alternative fuel refining and distribution. They also have good investor relations. I think BP at least attempted something like this.

Coal plant operators could operate many other kind of power plants too.

It's not too hard hard, it's just not profitable. Everything comes down to money in the end.

That would only be rational (profit maximising) behaviour on the company's part if they had an expectation that the negative externalities associated with climate change would eventually be priced in. The speed they decide to transition would then be in line with that expectation.

Funnily enough those externalities have generally still not been priced in, and it looks like these companies correctly believed that would be the case.

I'm struck by the analogy to the tobacco industry. One justification for public intervention was evidence that they knew about health impacts, but then spread misinformation to protect their business.

>What we need is a way to push the entire industry towards more environmentally sustainable practices

Who's going to do that? In case you haven't noticed, we've now elected an Administration and Congress who explicitly don't believe climate change is real, and who are gutting the EPA as I write this. There is zero support in government for moving towards more environmentally sustainable practices, and the Citizenry backs this change of course wholeheartedly.

> There is zero support in government for moving towards more environmentally sustainable practices

Zero support in the executive administration and the legislative majority, sure.

> and the Citizenry backs this change of course wholeheartedly

Election results and polling data do not support the idea of the citizenry supporting the current administration and/or legislative majority "wholeheartedly".

IMO, the problem is much worse than that. There are trillions of dollars in assets "on the books" that are currently priced into existing markets and corporate valuations. Everyone who is invested in these firms stands to lose a ton of money if humanity can manage to keep it in the ground.

http://www.carbontracker.org/resources/#unburnable-carbon

I mean, you say they are not idiots, but also that they are knowingly destroying the ecosystem on which supports all life on their planet. Which is kinda like knowing the brakes on your car are not working but being smart enough to cheat an inspection. Is that actually smart?

If these guys were knowingly creating massive externalities, and they are blamed and penalized for it, how do you put a price on the damage without putting a stop to modern civilization? State AGs are now taking these companies to task much in the same way big tobacco was tried. Not everyone smokes, but everyone participates in petroleum fueled global economy.

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