Leading energy companies are intent on pushing the world in the opposite direction, expanding fossil fuel production and insisting that there is no alternative. It is evidence that they are motivated not by record warming, but by record profits, experts say.
expanding fossil fuel production and insisting that there is no alternative.
No alternative? No fucking alternative? Like… We’re talking about extinction level scenarios and they’re like “yeah, okay, we’re all going to die, but I don’t think your suggested alternatives to that are viable”
Like, don’t they see that their profits ultimately depend on humanity existing to consume their products? What the fuck is wrong with them? Who do they think will bail them out when the planet is too fucking hot to live on?
I’d go so far as to say if the alternative is extinction, absolutely no action, no matter how drastic and no matter the collateral damage, is unjustified as long as it works.
Yeah, but I think I’d literally die if I were forced to, ugh!, walk to the nearest fast food restaurant. (That’s, like, a mile!) How would I order from the drive-thru without a car, huh? Besides, I need the AC because it’s so hot out.
Rich don’t give a rats ass about any plebs. They know humanity is doomed. They will live their “best” life possible in resorts or on yachts, etc…until end of times.
Problem is the ceos, shareholders are mostly in their 50s so they only have at most 50 years of their lives left. They don’t need to care about the future. They don’t need to care about warming , heating, burning, as they can turn on their AC and stay comfy. Also Many oil production countries are not the most morally responsible countries.
It’s also mental illness, they don’t need to worry about money either they’re rich enough to live wonderful lives already but they are greed obsessed and their ego can only be fed if they’re destroying the world
Companies like Exxon literally buy up green technology that could have huge, net-positive, impacts in the climate resiliency sphere/in combating climate change because they don't want the competition. The sheer audacity of this bald-faced fucking lie. What is the point of money on a dead planet, morons?
Sounds like they were highly motivated to make the world better. Oops, guess they weren’t. Just profit driven whores like many other big disaster companies in the world.
They don’t know they’re getting brought out to be destroyed, it’s the same way Microsoft used to operate ‘oh this tech is amazing we’ll invest and help bring it to the masses!’ closely followed by ‘ok now you signed it over pack it all up into the incinerator…’
If all of the oil companies comply, all is gonna be well. If only one of them doesnt, things are gonna end up well as well. If only two dont, its probably still gonna be good. If three…
They just all wanna be that “one company that doesnt comply”, so they all dont comply.
There is a known experiment about 100 students being given a choice before a test - choose A and you gain 2 extra points. Choose B and you gain 6 extra points. However, if more than 30% of the students choose B, no one gains anything. From what i checked, in every iteration of this experiment, no one gained anything in the end. Thats just human nature.
“They (Oil companies) have left no doubt that their pledges were deployed for cynical political purposes, only to be ditched when they no longer suited the industry’s strategic position,”
That strategic position was to avoid being governed, said Timmons Roberts, professor of environment and sociology at Brown University.
“The climate commitments … were almost certainly made to give the impression that they don’t need to be regulated because their voluntary pledges are adequate,”
You know, I’m kinda tired of every article about oil companies being either something straight out of police reports or just being the same “No shit, Sherlock” about them being evil, lying, manipulative and greedy assholes. I’d love to see them being fined some 50 billion dollars, but I feel they’d manage to overturn that anyway. Justice and police exist to protect property.
If they were fined for fifty billions, they’d argue until they settled for two hundred millions and it would be hailed as a leap forward for justice. :-/
The problem with fining industry is that industry isn’t sentient. It’s the C-levels and management types that need to be seriously punished for pursuing profits over human lives. As long as we don’t do that, nothing is going to change. If you fine Shell 50 billion dollars, nothing substantial changes for the higher ups. Even if these guys would stop making money all together, it would just mean they would have to stop spending so much god damned money and just live of of the millions they’ve already made.
I honestly do not think that it is oil companies that should fight climate change. They should provide oil derived product as required by economy. It is OUR COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY to act. Through individual choices, through government incentives, through carbon taxes and so on. To expect that all oil companies together will act against their profits and interests is naive.
He is trying to say make oil unprofitable or coerce change through the “proper channels.” They control the proper channels through lobbying. So that is not really going to change anything.
No, they are not, at least not completely. Oil industry is just a fraction of the whole economy. And anyway, trying to do it "through proper channels" is infinitely more productive than expect oil companies to become green out of good of their heart or something.
Double price of electricity… double price of labor… double price of real estate and office space costs… there are a lot of ways one can ruin economy, so what?
Those two things are great solutions for the billionaires but absolutely suck for everyone else, no wonder you see them pushed so much.
The first is a tax which will strongly affect the poor while allowing the rich to continue as normal, the second allows the rich to control power generation and essentially continue the monopoly rather than move towards decentralised sources which can be community run.
We need to switch from a greed based system which obsesses over displays of wealth and move to a more ecologically sound way of existence, but people can’t even consider taking the slightest responsibility for their lifestyle
Yes, because oil companies are totally NOT spending millions of dollars fighting every possible movement, organization or act to hold them responsible for the damage they’re causing. Clearly, we just need to hold hands and everything will be solved!
Also, as an individual, you don’t choose whether the electricity you get comes from a gas power plant, hydro dam, coal or something else. You don’t get to choose whether the thing you’re eating was transported from a diesel truck or an electric vehicle. There are many, many steps before you get a final product that needed fossil energy
No I can’t. I have one option. One company. That’s it. And solar would cost me about $15,000. And that’s not counting a battery. Maybe you’re rich, but I’m not.
15K is not rich for US. It is 1/3 of a new car price ($46,290 in 2022). It might be not very doable for you, personally, but I bet that majority of households can afford this, especially since they will get free electricity after that, and if they truly worry about climate change. If not, then why do they require for oil companies to make financial sacrifices, but not for themselves (even if it is a sacrifice at all)?
That statistics might be true, but at the same time 90% of US households have at least one car, and about 60% have 2. Installing solar panels is roughly cash neutral or even positive depending on location. You can take a bank loan and install the panels and the payment back to bank will be comparable to savings you get from not paying for electricity.
Many people do that because it is economically beneficial for them. Do you think that most solar panels on the house roofs are done because people want to be green?
If it makes sense installing solar panels when you have these 15K, then generally it makes sense to borrow the money as well (provided reasonable rates). The reason is that otherwise you would rather invest 15k into something (stock market, CD, whatever) than building the solar panel. Since the return rates from investment roughly follow borrowing rates, the situation is the same in both cases (borrowing vs already having money).
Of course, it does not mean that it is beneficial for everyone. People live in different states, with different laws, have different credit scores, so in each individual case it must be calculated. And in many cases it will work, and in others it will not.
But my main point is different. It is not like you are throwing away 15K. You are investing them, and will get return on investments. So, even if the returns are less than expected, you loose only the difference between 15K and the returns. So, if one really worries about climate change, they can act, and it does not cost 15K at the end to them. And in many cases it can be even financially beneficial.
I don’t think you read the article you provided to me because it is saying it’s more like $25,000. And you still have not demonstrated that you will make up for the debt with energy savings.
Maybe you can, but much of the world operates under effective utility monopolies. On your other point, how is that helpful when the average cost to do so is in the dozens of thousands of dollars, while the average American holds less than $1000 in savings?
When I was installing it on my house it costed me exactly 0$. Essentially the solar panel company rented my roof space installed panels there and sold me electricity. The cost of electricity was even cheaper for me, since there were no delivery charges.
Alternatively - take credit. While I have not done these calculations, it is plausible that you get even or even benefit from installing solar panels while taking credit (this would work better few years ago, when the rates were low)
I cannot change my energy provider. I cannot install solar either, because I live in an apartment. I can maybe put some cells outside my windows, but they’d only be effective for less than half the sunlight hours.
Even if solar was installed in the building I currently live in, we’d have to pay the energy provider for any excess electricity we generate into the grid. Yeah, it’s that fucked up where I live.
I do my part, but I don’t have the money to fight rich assholes and their seemingly endless supply of money financing bullshit arguments and political lobbying.
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