Is Big Oil why we can't have affordable, safe, quiet housing in dense cities?
Is Big Oil why people like taking planes to Hawaii?
Is Big Oil why it's much cheaper to heat with natural gas?
Is Big Oil why people like taking planes to Hawaii?
Is Big Oil why it's much cheaper to heat with natural gas?
There's a certain mindset of technological determinism that says we can't control what happens with a new technological development, and how it impacts our society, but I completely disagree with it. And so do the people running a lot of the companies developing those technologies - they have and will continue to aggressively push for the policies which favor them regardless of the externalities, so we absolutely have to push for regulation of how technology is used and shapes our lives.
The way the GI Bill was structured contributed as well.
But Big Oil? Way down the list. If you aren't conceiving of the real reasons, you can't address people's true concerns. In a democracy their vote is just as valuable as yours.
However, lies are bad.
Presumably they had a motivation to tell such lies, yes? Presumably they believed that telling such lies were to their benefit? Presumably the mechanism by which they believed telling such lies would be to their benefit would be by influencing the actions of others?
Surely you don’t think the reason for the lies is just that they would feel socially awkward if they had been honest?
Presumably they perceived a risk that if they hadn’t lied, that some regulations would have been imposed.
These regulations could have restricted emissions by reducing consumption.
Yes, this would mean that consumers would lose something they wanted.
This does not justify lies.
When was the last time politicians voted for something >55% of their voters didn't want? LBJ and the Civil Rights Act? How did that turn out?
Number 1 shared American value is mass consumerism.
Cities are designed the way they are because of cars. Roads and highways cut up the city and make neighborhoods less walkable. That wasn't an accident, but the result of decades of lobbying by oil and car industries.
People like flying to places because they are fed FOMO about travel. That has a profit motive. You may find this less convincing.
And yes, it's cheaper to use natural gas because of... Drum roll... Lobbying. Consider what heating would cost if those companies were properly paying for the environmental damage they are causing. Look at California PG&E going bankrupt after the damage from the huge forest fires they kept causing. Climate damage is no less real, but who is footing the bill?
Heating with natural gas is incredibly expensive. It only looks cheap because most of the costs are externalised - thanks to lobbying by Big Oil.
1 Not to my knowledge; housing policy reflects the desire for segregation.
2 No, Hawaii is nice.
3 No, it's physics. Until very recently even a heat pump would burn more hydrocarbons using the grid than direct heating and cost a lot more.
2: Big oil did push to keep the plane fuel low (or rather inexistant) worldwide though. But true.
3: What? No. Unless recently is everything after the 70s. Heat pump was more efficient than gas heating since the 50s (at least), but was hard to control, that was the main issue. My friend grandad learned to work with heat pumps during the Franco-Algerian war (54 i think) and installed one in his home (on Oleron Island) in the 70s (first that were home-sized). I think they were built in Sweden. His career was made on this tech.
Of course, insulation is and was the most carbon-efficient investment.
The oil industry has spent much on misinformation and lobbying around their impact to climate. They are actively evil. From Standard Oil on, this industry has always been about enriching the few at the expense of everyone else. Big Oil is an active threat and everyone involved in its climate change denial needs to be removed from the energy industry.