Big Oil quietly walks back on climate pledges
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
* https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64241994
* https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-...
* https://theintercept.com/2020/01/08/imperial-oil-climate-cha...
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/exxon-mobil-predicted-global...
And during the seventies is was global cooling.
The whole thing is a farce, until the argument is pro nuclear and anti renewables, it is a joke.
Glad the oil companies are properly allocating their resources. They will move to non-west companies and still make money. The whole coal burning from Germany proves the green movement is a joke.
The current crop of fossil fuel extraction companies need to be brought to heel by whatever means necessary.
They have shown overt enmity to the well being and perhaps even the survival of the species.
There is no measure at this point that should be off the table to deal with them, with extreme prejudice and any necessary force.
This is no different from an arsonist roaming free in your neighbourhood under the color of law. We need to collectively disavow their legitimacy whether by nationalisation, punitive taxation, or whatever other means may become necessary.
Additionally, the executives and even the employees of overtly hostile-to-humanity cartels such as the current incarnations of the fossil fuel industry need to be held socially responsible and overtly made pariahs within their communities.
They are much more harmful than any criminal or terrorist organisation in their current methodology, and society needs to deal with them accordingly.
Instead of demonizing the current energy regime with petulant, ridiculous rhetoric, maybe that time is better used on building viable alternatives for customers.
You can try to “Just Stop Oil” but currently without fossil fuels, the world stops.
And if you were to actually read my post (which I assume you can?) you would find that I’m not advocating “stopping” oil, I’m advocating for responsible extraction with concomitant carbon capture or some other solution, of which there are many, aside from just making the survival of the species someone else’s problem while they stuff their pockets with money.
Until that happens they are literally and knowingly stealing from the future of humankind for personal gain.
The people also want murder for hire, heroin, and nuclear weapons. Should we also just say, “well, it’s what the people want, so I guess it’s just the wisdom of the market!” Should we allow these markets to operate uncontrolled as well?
Your arguments are so far removed from reality that they are difficult to take seriously.
Instead of funneling resources to counter productive efforts like building more armies of do-nothing government regulators and gifting trillions to the private sector via regulatory capture the focus should be on new efficient, competitive technology for electric automobiles, energy generation and storage. Particularly on cheap storage
Carbon taxes and sequestration are simply someone lobbying for the right to make a buck while adding no value whatsoever.
Frankly, that’s relatable. I wish that I also believed that greening current tech would at least buy us some time.
For your own peace of mind, I’d recommend not to look into it too much.
Or, hear me out, we could legislate a carbon tax that prices the externalities fairly.
But I’m all for giving it a damn good try.
The CO2 emitted from the use of a barrel of oil is about .43 tonnes per barrel. The capture cost is around 200 dollars per ton, so the tax would be about $86/bbl.
Economies of scale would probably bring the price down, and petro companies would theoretically be incentivised to pour money into that industry, as long as it was allowed for them to verifiably sequester carbon to offset their tax liability.
It would fundamentally change the relationship of these companies to humanity overnight. But I don’t see that happening so far, unfortunately.
(See Ogoni nine, Ecuador vs Chevron, Chevron in Nigeria in general)
The oil cartels themselves have chosen to operate outside the social contract whenever it suits their needs. I see no reason they should be afforded the comforts of a contract they themselves have actively rejected.
The fact is, oil companies act just as any other corporation does in a capitalist society. They’re fulfilling a demand that society is asking for. It’s the responsibility of governments (and the people they serve) to enact legislation to enforce climate goals.
My plane gets about 23 miles to the gallon, and produces far, far less carbon than other ways of getting to where I take it (boat or snow machines being the other motorised options).
Plus, at 23mpg , weighing 870lbs empty and having been made in 1946, having flown around a million miles, and not using any highway infrastructure, I’d be surprised if it’s overall carbon footprint per mile wasn’t much, much smaller than a modern electric or hybrid car. Certainly it’s other environmental impact is negligible in comparison.
Some planes (mostly experimental category) can get better than 30mpg while flying over 140mph.
Flying doesn’t have to be wasteful, and the infrastructure impacts are tiny when you operate from grass or gravel airstrips.
As for the responsibility of society to prevent people from doing great harm, I agree with you there 100 percent. That doesn’t mean we should treat employees of Academi or Wagner with the same moral regard as employees of the local sanitation company, even though they are all allowed to exist under the laws of society.
There are activities, while legal, that a person should reasonably choose not to participate in, and if they do it speaks volumes about their moral character and courage of conviction.
I’m saying to judge people on their actions, and participation in an industry that has chosen, in the face of better options, to continue to betray the best interests of the species is questionable at best.
I say this as a person who has worked on the oilfields in Alaska and chose to do something different.
In participating in the oil industry, I’ve found opportunities for climate advocacy that far exceed the difference an average person can make outside the industry. What can you do outside? Buy a hybrid vehicle? Donate to Greenpeace?
I’ve been able to work on improving tracking of emissions. I’ve improved the accuracy of regulatory filings. I’ve advocated internally for low-emissions infrastructure improvements like tankless facilities.
You should want pro-environment people working in the oil industry.
I am skeptical however that you find yourself in a position to move the needle in any meaningful way.
When your employer sells a product you know causes lasting, multigenerational harm and they fail to at least lobby for solutions that might change the incentive structure so that they could do so responsibly and still make a profit, you might be working for the bad guys.
You should examine closely if your positive actions are greater than the harm that is being done by your participation.
It quickly gets murky, , participating in a fundamentally unethical process under the pretence of making it less bad in a small way.
If no one participated under the current methodology, the problem would be solved. Of course that will not happen, but still “if I don’t do it somebody will anyway” is an extremely hollow justification for compromising one’s ethics.
No shit, Sherlock. You really think corporations are going to let a mountain of money just sit there if it's up for grabs?
This is not the responsibility of you and me, buying an electric car and flying less won't save the world. It's not the responsibility of corporations, they just won't do it so expecting them to magically just do something that isn't ideal for making money won't get you anywhere.
This is, unequivocally, the responsibility of governments and by extension people, us. In order for corporations to go green it needs to make them money. In order for people to buy the right stuff it needs to be the cheapest option. Anything beyond that will never ever work.
The again it doesn't matter, it's way too late now.
But corporations, even governments, are just the amplification and personification of every selfish element in human nature, which tends to trump benevolence in any sort of "prisoner's dilemma" interaction.
So all we actually need to do is eliminate selfishness from all humanity.
This is where you're wrong. It's not the responsibility of regular businesses, but corporations were specifically created by governments to manage narrow societal interests, such as the railways or a national telephone network. And as an extension of government, corporations do have a reponsiblity towards the broader society.
The fact that now every large business is allowed to name itself a corporation and is allowed to chase any business interest, whether it's related to their original charter or not, is a travesty. Corporations should only be allowed to operate within their charter, and government should be able to revoke that charter if the corporation acts contrary to society's interests.
If a company is not prepared to operate according to a government charter, they should not be called a corporation (and not get the tax benefits), they're an enterprise.
Not necessarily, you need only appeal to their rational self-interests. People frequently buy things that aren't the cheapest options.
Rich people do. Generally speaking, the cheapest option is what prevails.
Yes it is; or rather, it is the responsibility of the human beings that make up corporations to not destroy the society with-in which they live.
> This is, unequivocally, the responsibility of governments and by extension people, us.
People make up corporation too.
So either the government needs to make it profitable to go green, or it needs to find another way to make them go green.
Or we can keep sitting here like a bunch of morons yelling at Taylor Swift for flying her private jet and yelling at BP for polluting and they will keep merrily ignoring us while swimming in money.
We have the system that we have. In said system, corporations behave as close to the "paperclip maximiser" AI as possible, replacing "paperclip" with "share value". Short of changing the system for a better one (which I would argue is not feasible, but that's another topic), all we can do is change the conditions under which share value will increase, such that a corporation gets greater share value for being less bad for the environment.
That's where some problems arise, as too many people advocate for de facto individual responsibility of consumers, in the spirit of "voting with your wallet", as if it were even possible to convince a big enough proportion of consumers to have any noticeable effect on profits, let alone share value, and thus on the actions of the paperclip maximisers. That is as pointless as a solution as it would be to advocate for individual responsibility of investors to "vote with their portfolio" and invest more in corporations that do follow through with their climate pledges. Consumers and individual investors are not as soulless as corporations, but they still have their own economic interests to fulfil.
The only way to get the paperclip maximisers to change their behaviour is to impose strong internalising costs such as carbon taxation and well calibrated punitive tariffs, and that has to be done at the level of Government(s), namely four: the USA, the EU, the PRC, and India. Make it so that a business that does not follow the rules simply cannot operate in these economies. Make it so that owning stocks in a business that does not follow the rules is taxed to a prohibitive amount. Make it so that a business that follows the rules but does not optimise for climate neutrality is blown out of the market because their prices are too damn high compared to the ones that do. Ban trade from any nation that does not impose similar draconian measures. Now we're talking.
And it doesn't matter that it's way too late now. Let's do it anyway.
I'm so sick and tired of this nihilistic doomerism because it turns out the world doesn't work like a freaking Superhero cartoon 2-parter where the bad guys only win once at the end of part 1, and then the heroes come back from momentary defeat and save the day in part 2, looking over a prosperous sunrise as the credits roll.
Back in the middle ages they started cathedrals knowing that the would take multiple generations to complete, but we're so decadent as a society that we can't do the same for an arguably existential crisis. Yes, our children may have some challenges due to climate change, and perhaps an overall lower quality of life, and they don't deserve that and it sucks. How about we try and make sure that our grandchildren or great-grandchildren have what they need to turn the corner? If the best we can do in our lifetimes is slow the decay and limit the damage, that's still WAY better than nothing.
I'm hoping for the best and I hope I'm wrong but this is what it looks like to me, based on various reports and such that I see. The temperature graph is clearly exponential (at least for now) so the next 1.5 degrees are going to come much faster than the previous. I won't be surprised if we live to see 5, which is generally considered apocalyptic.
And we haven't even started hitting the brakes, not even slightly. We're still producing more CO2 every single year than the previous. So yeah, I'm not optimistic. If you want to be that's fine and I'll happily support any proper action. But there's nothing I can do beyond live my best life while I can.
My $0.02: The US needs several constitutional amendments before this and other issues are addressed. Just a minor amendment I had in mind: forbid congress from taking bribes/lobbying or from them or their family from owning commercial interests that can be manipulated with legislation. Criminalizing non-individual campaign contributions is another item. There are many more things like that which are not polarizing to the people.
A constitutional convention of the states needs to be held because congress will not willingly pass such laws.
You realize that "lobbying" is just another word for "talking with your representative", right? Do you think that constituents shouldn't have the ability to influence their representatives?
How does the professionalization of lobbying imply either of these? The latter is clearly about campaign contributions, and the former is going to happen regardless of whether there are professional lobbyists or not (unless you think that representatives shouldn't have friends).
Friends being paid to tell representatives something is just veiled bribery.
I'm not convinced the status quo is inevitable. When things become illegal and there is enforcement people generally adapt their behavior.
Campaign financing of course needs an overhaul, even McCain saw this. Yet there are some entrenched interests to overcome.
Right, but why does the professionalization of lobbying imply politicians would be "hearing [...] only their friends and those paid for access"? I agree that it's certainly a possibility, and you'd be a better lobbyist if you had exclusive access, but that's like saying having employees own stocks imply insider trading (ie. it's certainly a possibility, and you'd be a better trader if you had insider information).
Professional lobbying is almost universally backed by business interests, which often have no alignment whatsoever with the broader interests of constituents, and has no equalizing opposite force representing those constituents.
In other words, if I want to become a "professional lobbyist" fighting for the needs of a community, the playing field is heavily slanted towards businesses/organizations with the money to buy the necessary influence.
Campaign contributions are certainly a major part of this, and contribution rules would go a long way towards addressing this. But contributions aren't the only story, and professional lobbying still contributes to the asymmetry in its current form.
If professional lobbying starts to meaningfully include groups that do so on behalf of "normal people", it becomes easier to argue that lobbying isn't the problem. That's not the current state of affairs, and it's unclear if it can/would be merely because of changes to campaign contribution rules.
In other words, well resourced parties (ie. businesses) have more resources to do stuff, like trying to influence politicians. I'm not denying this. But going back to the original question, does that mean we should ban any attempts at influencing politicians?
This sets up a binary position that doesn't need to exist. I don't think "ban any attempts at influencing politicians" is what I took away from the GP's comment/suggestion, nor do I think this is the automatic outcome of rules that restrict business interests.
What I took away was something like this: the current environment involves obviously inflated influence from a subset of well-funded groups, and that won't change without changes to laws. GP presented an idea that would restrict that influence, but this is not synonymous with the binary outcome "ban all attempts at influencing politicians", nor do I think such a goal would even make sense, because what is the purpose of a representative if not to be be influenced by their constituents? The real question is whether or not it's acceptable that influence scales primarily based on wealth/friendship, and what changes we can make to level the playing field.
I don't know if GP's $0.02 are the right policy positions, but I also don't think holding those positions equates to the binary position.
The only way to counter the effects of corporate lobbying is more grass-roots lobbying and general awareness of policy by voters in general. The blanket contempt people have for lobbying these only serves to discourage the type of lobbying that was instrumental in for the passage of Civil Rights and environmental legislation decades ago.
That sounds closer to bribery, not lobbying. In case you don't know the difference, here are some resources:
I'm not claiming that an individual voter lobbying his representative by writing a letter or whatever is equivalent to some corporation hiring a lobbyist, but at the fundemental level they're the same: trying to influence the representative. The original proposes that we "forbid [...] lobbying", but it's unclear what that would mean. Taken literally, that would mean banning any attempts at influencing the representative. Is that what we want here?
lobbying
noun [ U ] GOVERNMENT
the activity of trying to persuade someone in authority, usually an elected member of a government, to support laws or rules that give your organization or industry an advantage:
- In her speech she stressed that she is not involved in the firm's lobbying of Congress.
- lobbying against/for sth This week, a coalition of unions, religious groups and liberal advocacy organizations will officially begin its lobbying for a higher minimum wage.
- extensive/fierce/intense lobbying There was intense lobbying against the measures by drug companies.
- lobbying effort/campaign/activity Lobbying efforts by high-powered tech firms turned former supporters of the bill against it.
- lobbying firm/group/organization
- lobbying costs/fees/expenditure
So if I want to become a member of Congress I have to rebalance my entire investment portfolio so that there is no stock of commercial companies in it (directly or as part of mutual funds) and I have to get my family to do the same?
If Exxon cuts back or stops there is plenty of surplus in Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran to make up the shortfall.
There are trillions of dollars in state owned oil reserves that no one is walking away from.
Even if you think they buy into climate change, Russia would net benefit from warming and SA would be largely unaffected.