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Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

theguardian.com

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Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#21

Post by lasfter »

whatever1 wrote: post #5

I don’t understand what was the expectation. For Big Oil to start campaigning against their own product? We have legislative bodies that we literally elect and pay to do this job. Let’s stop the hypocrisy and look ourselves in the mirror.

Just because it's in your best interest to fuck over the world doesn't mean it's morally justifiable. The fact is that the people profiting from Big Oil would have still been plenty rich enough if they did campaign against their own product, so their choice to withhold this information can only be attributed to plain greed.

We don't expect murderers to turn themselves in, we pay police forces to find them. But it's not hypocritical to call murderers evil, and it's not unreasonable to expect that people should not murder.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#22

Post by suprjami »

whatever1 wrote: post #5

I don’t understand what was the expectation. For Big Oil to start campaigning against their own product? We have legislative bodies that we literally elect and pay to do this job. Let’s stop the hypocrisy and look ourselves in the mirror.

Knowingly cause millions or billions of deaths and destroy the planet, or not make as much money short-term and pivot the industry to something else.

Yeah, tough choice.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#23

Post by hansonkd »

manv1 wrote: post #8

[flagged]

If you look past your snide remarks, breathtaking was a quote from Geoffrey Supran who is a Research Fellow in the History of Science at Harvard and has a PhD in Materials Science & Engineering.

So i think that says more about your biases than anything about the reporters who have liberal arts degrees.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#26

Post by lordnacho »

kingstoned wrote: post #13

It reminds me of tobacco industry. Check out this article: https://pandodaily.com/2015/06/30/tobacco-industry-will-kill...

Tobacco is a good one actually. A legendary statistician, IIRC Fisher(?), came up with a bunch of reasons why the statistics might not show causality. As in, how do we know it isn't just people who were at higher risk of dying that smoked? He had a whole bunch of these statistical critical thinking type objections that are all very valid from an epistemological point of view.

Climate change actually has the same. There's a bunch of stats and a bunch of "yeah but what if" things that have been dealt with over the years.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#27

Post by jrgoff »

whatever1 wrote: post #5

I don’t understand what was the expectation. For Big Oil to start campaigning against their own product? We have legislative bodies that we literally elect and pay to do this job. Let’s stop the hypocrisy and look ourselves in the mirror.

They could have pivoted to more climate-friendly energy production

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#28

Post by smolder »

whatever1 wrote: post #5

I don’t understand what was the expectation. For Big Oil to start campaigning against their own product? We have legislative bodies that we literally elect and pay to do this job. Let’s stop the hypocrisy and look ourselves in the mirror.

> For Big Oil to start campaigning against their own product?

I know people who prioritize ethics & morality tend not to get promoted too high, but that doesn't mean we should blanket forgive decision makers at oil companies for sweeping such a huge problem under the rug for as long as possible. The positive example of what to do instead would be to communicate the issue as soon as possible, not cover it up, and then pivot into the work of moving away from fossil fuel dependence.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#29

Post by Barrin92 »

TinyRick wrote: post #6
whatever1 wrote: post #5

I don’t understand what was the expectation. For Big Oil to start campaigning against their own product? We have legislative bodies that we literally elect and pay to do this job. Let’s stop the hypocrisy and look ourselves in the mirror.

Problem is that Big Oil pays those politicians more.

that's not even remotely the issue. Money may buy you access but it doesn't magically buy you votes. People could easily kick every oil lobbyist out.

The genuine reason is that citizens are not willing to internalize the costs of their pollution and change their habits. Cheap gas, big cars, big houses, cheap Big Macs, cheap plane tickets is what the people vote for. Big Oil just supplies the juice.

Re: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

#30

Post by dsfyu404ed »

mschuster91 wrote: post #14

Surprise, surprise. And yet, Big Oil continued to launch campaigns designed to deflect responsibility from companies and governments away to individual consumers, like BP's "carbon footprint" [1]. When will those responsible be held accountable for helping to advance the destruction of climate and the immense loss of life and property that climate change has brought? How can we explain to our children and grandchildr…

>When will those responsible be held accountable

You have sown the revolving door and now you reap its harvest.

Nobody will be held to account so long as the institutions that would be doing the holding have a massive overlap in relevant skills, subject matter and therefore, personnel (especially at the management levels where these sorts of decisions get made).

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