Can’t take them seriously.
Their attitude towards hydrocarbons is a bit like saying to the armed forces after winning WWII.
“Right, you’ve won and preserved our freedom, now we want you out.
But not just yet, we need to keep using you to keep us safe, we’ll tell you when you can fuck off permanently”
Anyone who thinks this is about Greta or anyone else is seriously screwed up, a complete WUM!
1 Like
Yawn
Here’s one to help with that boredom, @Dane
1 Like
Charging oil companies with homicide solves precisely nothing. There’s nothing much that can be done to remove CO2 that’s already in the atmosphere. There is much that can be done to prevent more getting there.
If we want to take it out of them then tax them to buggery and spend the money on alternatives.
1 Like
Where are the indictments for everyone involved in raising, slaughtering and marketing mammal meat to humans?
1 Like
I think the key issue is the following:
The paper is rooted in part in the growing body of evidence fossil fuel companies knew of the harm their products caused and misled the public about them.
We aren’t at this stage yet, but if people start losing their homes or their lives directly because of earth warming, then there is a case to be made imo.
Exon specifically was originally at the forefront of climate change science. Originally they did it because they felt that being serious actors in this space was the best way for them to get a seat at the table once the stringent regulations required to manage these risks started being discussed. Once they saw their data and realized how bad it was they realized their seat at the table would have no impact if people were clear eyed about the implications of their practices. At that point they changed course into what is essentially corruption.
1 Like
I like their idea here:
The authors go so far as to recommend a particular sentence should fossil fuel firms be found guilty of homicide: restructuring them as public benefit corporations, similar to what happened to Purdue Pharma as part of its settlement for contributing to the opioid crisis. Doing so, they argue, would allow for rapidly winding down fossil fuel production to reduce further climate harm while ramping up investments in clean energy and protecting workers and communities tied to fossil fuel companies.
Americans playing their favorite game: who can we blame (anybody but ourself who did all the driving and flying) and how much money can we get out of it.
1 Like
Also, let’s not kid ourselves. Much of the plastics, chemicals and medical industry has oil as its denominator. Oil and gas made our lives easier in countless many ways. Not saying we shouldn’t attempt to diversify away from it (we will have to at some point). But demonizing the industry that improved human life immeasurably should not be the starting position.
1 Like
The criticism is of the oil companies. You can praise the ingenuity of plastic companies without having to wipe the sins of Exon and their ilk under the carpet or pretend that companies like BASF and Dupont wouldnt have been able to do their stuff without the petroleum companies lying.
Not to mention farming. It has been said that modern agriculture is largely a process to make petrochemicals edible. The problem with that is you can’t just ban food because it is bad for the environment. There are alternatives but even seeing the Dutch struggling to control nitrate pollution shows what an uphill struggle that will be.
1 Like
Seriously, though, the ills of oil-related pollution haven’t been known for decades? We might as well sue the booze manufacturers. My god! Your product causes cancer, violence, Parkinson’s, accidents, etc. And yet, all you depicted in advertisements were good times with good-looking people. I’m shocked! Hurt! I feel duped!
2 Likes
Known? Sure. But that reality has not be remotely reflected in the public debate, precisely because of the actions companies like Exon have taken to prevent the debate being had in good faith. We’ve finally moved past the 90s and 00s era of denying climate change is real, and even denying it is man made now finally seems to be a minority position. But these sort of milquetoast attitudes towards how we respond to what we now seem to accept is happening, something bordering on apologism, are only possible precisely because most of your adult life has existed in an environment in which the public discourse was subverted by these companies.
As for plastics, the biggest money maker for the oil companies with plastics are disposable single use plastics. This again is an area of massive corporate obfuscation, in which they flooded industry with product we had no say over and then pretended it was on us to be responsible about it. We dont need to pretend that we’re stuck with this part of the industry if we want to continue advancement in nanoparticle, or whatever the next generation of valuable plastic science will bring us. This is a choice by them, one they have made purely based on economics while being fully aware of the environmental cost of it, and one they have allied with the same sort of poisonous disruption of the public discourse on it.
1 Like
Looking at a snapshot of the American population, there’s probably more grounds for charging McDonald’s with homicide.
I agree. When I was still selling frozen meat, I was talking to a counterpart in Africa about the criticism of eating meat causing climate issues. And he said something along the lines, the society who enjoyed the good and which caused these issues now want the rest of the world like Africa who now just are starting to be able to enjoy these “luxuries”, to save the world. The issues are real but so are the hypocrisies. But I agree that those who can should do more to ease the various issues caused by oil or meat farming etc…
2 Likes
Where is the outrage? On a side note, take a look at the chart in this article. Those pesky wetlands have simply got to go!
It is actually a little scary how massive that problem is. There are parts of the Canadian north that were permafrost a generation ago, but are a grade of wetland in the summer months now. That has become a significant infrastructure problem, but the jarring part of it is how easy it is to dislodge methane from the ground, and get that not-quite-bitumen smell. Apparently an enormous belt of Russia has the same phenomenon.
1 Like
People simply don’t believe the problem and are not willing to make dietary changes either. McDonald’s or bust. They prefer bust. Classic “it’s not me gov”
The idea that cow farts are a major CH4 contributor is laughable to the climate sceptics.
Also we’ve been constantly reminded that CO2 is the problem when this is also a massive issue on its own.
The whole topic and scepticism behind the problem is crazy but that’s the world we live in. Truth is buried under the mire of Facebook bollocks.