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Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

theguardian.com

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Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#231

Post by JohnWhigham »

fallingknife wrote: post #155
marcusverus wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like tobacco companies, oil companies have actively lied and lobbied to maintain demand and obstruct coordinated effort of exactly the kind you describe as necessary. They are not passive actors simply responding to demand as they find it. These really aren't very similar. Big Tobacco's lies were the only thing propping up the tobacco industry. As soon as the truth became clear, their industry was absolutely crushe…

> As soon as the truth became clear, their industry was absolutely crushed Gonna have to disagree with you on that one... https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PM

Seriously, not sure what they're talking about. Many tobacco companies have exceptional dividends. If they're going to continue to supply their wares, I want a little piece of the pie in my portfolio.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#232

Post by UncleMeat »

slingnow wrote: post #188
bwha wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. I mean are people really this unaware of the decades long efforts by oil companies to cover up the truth of what was going on? I'll act in good faith and believe they are. One quick summary by the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-53640382 Choice quotes from above: "... I created a model that showed the Earth would be warming very significantly. And the warming would introduce climatic changes that would be…

I promise you that the reason I drive my car everyday has nothing to do with propaganda from the oil companies in any meaningful way. I'm 100% certain they covered up the truth, but I have no reason to believe that had everyone known the truth, anyone would have cared beyond hardcore environmentalists. Most everyone does what's convenient and necessary until otherwise required.

Driving your car does not fundamentally require burning carbon. That's the thing. Oil companies did not create demand for energy. But they did create demand for oil by sabotaging efforts to shift to other energy sources.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#233

Post by mindslight »

relax88 wrote: post #159
mindslight wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you, or someone you know, ever alternated between having a high-compensation low-free-time (eg high paid tech job), and low/no-compensation high-free-time (ie funemployment) ? They're two completely different operating modes. In the first mode, every minute of time is valuable so you pay more for convenience (eg restaurant food, same-day shipping), and when you're not working you're willing to spend a lot of mon…

This is an excellent way to describe it. I’ve definitely had times in my life with both modes. There is very much a lifestyle trap in which the current work culture prevents a truly balanced approach. I suspect one of the barriers to having a reduced work week is the cost of employee benefits. Companies want to get their money’s worth for every employee on payroll. So the options for reduced work hours are somewhat l…

The biggest intrinsic barrier is that increasing the number of employees increases the communications overhead. Would you rather have one computer with 8 cores and 64G of memory, or two computers each with 4 cores and 32G of memory?

Employees could push back regardless, but lack the power because the BATNA is being left with zero income in the face of huge economic rent. If housing rent were much less of your income, then your necessary burn rate would be much lower and you'd have more bargaining power.

And yeah for highly paid tech roles, a pragmatic solution is to alternate between pouring yourself into a job full time, and taking off periods of funemployment (or possibly a grassroots startup, etc). But we should recognize that's only possible due to our outsized compensation, and can't really define the economy writ large.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#234

Post by FrankenTan »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #100

A lot of comments here seem to be focusing on the fact that individuals use oil products beyond what is necessary for basic life and in fact do have some personal responsibility. This seems to me to be missing the forest for the trees. Sometimes society ends up in a situation where we need things that are not sustainable, like oil or coal. Producing those unsustainable products to meet the demands of society does not…

I agree. Also, sometimes if there exists no demand, corporations will spend a lot to create it such as fashion as mentioned\shown in https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/fast-fashion-turning-...

This is probably not be true for all markets or industries, of course, but I think that (and availability regarding prices) is relevant to not shifting it back onto individual consumer responsibility.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#235

Post by betterunix2 »

jfengel wrote: post #218
glogla wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. I will never understand why people protect oil companies. You know how in comic books there's always a villain going trying to DESTROY THE WORLD and it seems unrealistic and over the top? Oil companies are this villain in the real world. They are doing their best to kill off humanity, for short term profit.

Honestly, I think most of it is culture war. The people who oppose oil companies are often the same people who take progressive views on a lot of other topics -- gay rights, gun control, pollution, etc. And that generates an almost knee-jerk opposition: anything they are for, we must be against. It's tribalism. If liberals are opposed to oil companies, than oil companies must be good. Then they'll be provided with ar…

"the longstanding culture war between left and right"

...by which you must mean the "culture war" that only the right wing seems to know or care about. It is not really "between" the left and right as much as it is a right-wing concept that people on the left almost universally roll their eyes at (or fall into the trap of actually responding to right-wing agitation).

"Neither side has to do any thinking"

Except that, as you point out, one side is responding to scientific results indicating a serious and growing problem, while the other is not. One side is thinking, or at worst dependent on a group of people who at least try to push their personal biases out of the way when they are thinking. The other side reflexively calls all of it some combination of "socialist," "hoax," or "government takeover," without even acknowledging the existence of a problem.

Yes, I know the downvotes are coming for this, but the fact is that the Republican party has stopped even trying. You can be pro-oil-company and also be pro-reducing-carbon-emissions. Where are the Republican proposals to develop industrial-scale carbon capture to offset all those tailpipe and smokestack emissions? Carbon capture could have been an entirely new industry for oil companies to expand into, growing their businesses while reducing net carbon emissions. Instead Republicans lined up behind someone who declared climate change to be a Chinese hoax and stopped even suggesting alternatives to the Democrats' proposed solutions.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#236

Post by SuoDuanDao »

jkubicek wrote: post #198
troyvit wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's totally true, but it's also true that if we reined in consumption, altered our habits and focused on reusing more then we are doing two things. First, we're taking ownership for our responsibility in this whole mess (acknowledging that there are trees in this forest), and second we're hurting oil companies where it counts. If we don't consume they can't supply. If we wait for our governments to hold them to ac…

I don't think focusing on individual responsibility will work. In order to make a meaningful difference we need to make sure that a) everyone knows what the issues are and what changes need to be made b) everyone is willing to make the sacrifices necessary If we've learned anything from (the entire history of the human race) it's that people who know and care will shoulder the burden of making changes while those who…

That may be true, but refusing to make meaningful sacrifices before everyone else does is awful PR. Even if the only meaningful thing anyone can do is change public opinion, leading by example is still the most effective way of doing so.

I really think the DeFi movement is the only group making any headway there, because reducing consumption is billed as a means to further one's own self-interest there.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#237

Post by betterunix2 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #229
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unmoral corporate and legal pressures and incentive structures they're in dictate that they do their best to earn short term profits. They are unconcerned whether their actions kill off humanity eventually, that's simply not a factor they're capable of caring about.

Then we must destroy the very idea of a corporation. If it is truly impossible for a corporation to avoid fundamentally damaging human civilization in search of the almighty dollar, then we need to prevent those incentives from existing in the first place.

There is a better solution: the government reins in corporations that are creating a problem for the world. Once upon a time that was a non-controversial idea.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#238

Post by lhorie »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #215
lhorie wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if we're going to talk about forest and trees, consider that the whole "big oil lobbies governments" thing flies right in the face of the "democracy is the voice of the people" argument. If people collectively don't care to fight back at a legislative level against socialized costs, wouldn't that logically mean they're the ones ultimately responsible for their own predicament? Or more philosophically speaking…

> consider that the whole "big oil lobbies governments" thing flies right in the face of the "democracy is the voice of the people" argument I don't think it does. An important part of the lobbying is that we know oil companies are attempting to intentionally deceive politicians and the public about the negative effects of their industry and the positive effects of competitors. That deception is the point at play, th…

Of course big oil has its share of immorality, but it's not like we never knew that poisonous smoke comes out of the back of our cars, right?

Again, going back to forests and trees, one could also say the sugar industry is deceptive, or that big tech is, or that big telecom is, etc. So clearly there's a pattern, and companies are all run by people, who are motivated by accumulation of wealth. In other words, the negative factors of the system are intrinsically a part of the system, because greed is, for better or for worse, built into it (it's quite literally the driving force for capitalist economic activity).

What I'm saying is that it doesn't really matter whether "companies lying" or "blaming the victim" is the "correct" position, the crude reality is simply that dishonest things happen as a direct negative side effect of a core principle that we as a society agreed to adopt. Pragmatically speaking, the question then becomes one of: a) what can I personally do to "surgically remove" the negative side effects of this core principle, b) if I can't, to what extent do I "care" in the dilemma between participating in a rotten system vs selfishly enjoying my life or, c) when all hope is lost, how do I take cover when shit inevitably hits the fan

It's my impression that most people have lost hope on a), are in denial about b)[0] and have no clue about c).

[0] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/upton_sinclair_138285

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#239

Post by SuoDuanDao »

namanyayg wrote: post #143
glogla wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. I will never understand why people protect oil companies. You know how in comic books there's always a villain going trying to DESTROY THE WORLD and it seems unrealistic and over the top? Oil companies are this villain in the real world. They are doing their best to kill off humanity, for short term profit.

Big oil downvoted this. Jokes aside, I really don't see the reason for downvotes. Oil made our world what it is; but any company who still focuses on its profits while knowing alternatives exist that are better for the planet, and parallelly spending billions in PR, is downright evil. I'd even say it's much more evil than Facebook's or Google's privacy issues that HN bashes every week.

Well, I'd say it's a bit funny to call something evil when a lot of people would die if it disappeared tomorrow. It's very easy to criticise the costs of modern life when the 'evil' is displaced onto someone else. But the truth is, it's a much more morally grey area than we like to admit. And it's hard to opt out of this 'system', but not impossible - I'm sure the Amish would take converts, but not many people want to go that route.

It's an appealing story to say that the O&G economy is the villain and all the people participating in it are innocent, but the truth is, we know how to live in bronze age societies. This 'evil system' doesn't stick around because it holds us prisoner, it sticks around because most of us prefer the lifestyle. And a story that absolves us of responsibility for participating seems like just another defence mechanism the system has built up.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#240

Post by 542458 »

majormajor wrote: post #164
542458 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s profitable because it’s physically efficient - fossil fuels are readily available and highly energy dense and relatively safe. Nothing else offers that. This isn’t some sneaky capitalist plot - the soviets burned lots of fuel as well. I’m not defending the continued dependence on fossil fuels, but let’s be realistic about how (externalities aside) fossil fuels are very, very good at what they do. The problem is…

> The problem is those externalities have turned out to be pretty bad, and our economic systems have been slow to respond. The problems are much more specific and blatant than that: * The externalities were known to be bad by the oil companies and this knowledge was suppressed. * Our economic system is incapable of responding because there is no direct fiscal cost of the externalities that would make alternatives che…

I entirely agree. Strong carbon taxes or other similar systems are the way forward. By correcting for the true cost of pollution we can allow renewables to really shine.

I was only trying to push back against the idea that we’re only using fossil fuels because of capitalism. We’re using fossil fuels because with our initial naive inspection they appear to be an excellent, bordering on miraculous, resource. I’m not denying that they’ve turned out to be very harmful and/or that people have done bad things to preserve the naive interpretation.

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