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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

#141

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

credit_guy wrote: post #116
erulabs wrote: post #85

I've chatted with a few folks who have spent their entire lives working in climate science while being employed by the oil industry. They're some of the most moderate, intelligent, considered people I've ever talked to. And most people hear "a climate scientist who works for an oil company" and assumes they're the worst sort - a profiteer or a liar or a complicit drone. They're not leadership - they don't get to deci…

> Now... the leadership folks who commissioned these predictions and then ignored them... That's another matter! Ok, you made me curious. What were they supposed to do? Stop drilling and selling oil? Ask the government for increased taxes to take care of externalities? Dismantle the corporation? Just resign and go find a job in a different industry?

Remain employed and sabotage the business as much as possible whilst also carefully leaking information.

A business that is seeking profits over the continued existence of human life is clearly something that must be destroyed before it destroys us.

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

#142

Post by dawdaway »

satvikpendem wrote: post #66
lasfter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

> Just because it's in your best interest to fuck over the world doesn't mean it's morally justifiable. When people talk about corporations and morality, I am reminded about the quip about Larry Ellison: > You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don…

Why are you so willing to absolve all responsibility from decision makers?

Corporations do not act but for the behest of their controllers and decision makers, who clearly should take morality into account. Larry Ellison is not a lawnmower, he is a person who is responsible for the decisions he makes and how those decisions effect those around him. Larry Ellison CAN hate you, Larry Ellison COULD give a shit about you. He chooses not to. He deserves the negative repercussions from decisions he makes. It is simply inane to demand that every aspect of morality must be legislated before corporate owners and decision makers should include it as a factor. It is only the security afforded to them by the rest of the population permitting them to continue operating that allows them to operate as they do.

Frankly, your point is far less insightful than you think.

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

#143

Post by satvikpendem »

dawdaway wrote: post #142
satvikpendem wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because it's in your best interest to fuck over the world doesn't mean it's morally justifiable. When people talk about corporations and morality, I am reminded about the quip about Larry Ellison: > You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don…

Why are you so willing to absolve all responsibility from decision makers? Corporations do not act but for the behest of their controllers and decision makers, who clearly should take morality into account. Larry Ellison is not a lawnmower, he is a person who is responsible for the decisions he makes and how those decisions effect those around him. Larry Ellison CAN hate you, Larry Ellison COULD give a shit about you…

Explanation is not condonation, condemnation, or absolution.

Like it not, my comment is how corporations work. We've tried letting them have in-built morality, but guess what, it didn't work before, and it doesn't work now.

> who clearly should take morality into account.

"Clearly?" Why? How is it clear at all? If there are no consequences or benefits for doing so (and indeed, a highly beneficial outcome by not doing so), why should they?

> he is a person who is responsible for the decisions he makes and how those decisions effect those around him

You're viewing this from your own moral viewpoint. Imagine, what if Ellison simply doesn't give a shit at all about how his decisions affect those around him, what would you do then? At some point, if corporations or other entities aren't following the rules we set out informally as a society, then yes, you must formally and explicitly lay out the rules you want them to follow. Otherwise, stuff like in TFA will happen, and will continue to happen.

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

#144

Post by Beltalowda »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #137
credit_guy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now... the leadership folks who commissioned these predictions and then ignored them... That's another matter! Ok, you made me curious. What were they supposed to do? Stop drilling and selling oil? Ask the government for increased taxes to take care of externalities? Dismantle the corporation? Just resign and go find a job in a different industry?

Not go out and publicly try to discredit work they know to be true? Start shifting their companies aggressively towards energy sources which will not kill us all decades earlier by using their insane benefits to invest in R&D? Anything which is not akin to sacrificing millions and handing a terrible situation to the next generation to make a quick buck? Have a soul?

We've seen the same thing with tobacco, asbestos, lead, etc.

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

#145

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

smackeyacky wrote: post #139
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common but erroneous thinking. Man influenced climate change is an ongoing process. It would have been great to start doing something thirty years ago to avoid some of what’s happening now but we didn’t. Now we still have to do something or it will get even worse. This is not a throw your arms in the air and wait for the end while screaming situation.

Not advocating throwing my hands in the air, but the deliberate delay has narrowed our choices at a rate faster than technology has come to the rescue. There is going to be a lot of complaints as choices keep getting removed and decisions forced upon us by the escalating crisis. If you are a freedom loving libertarian, you are not going to enjoy the next few decades. Which would be deliciously ironic if it wasn't suc…

I’m not sure I agree with this take.

What we are starting to meaningfully see, at least in Europe, is regulations which actually have teeth regarding where investments go and what companies can do regarding emissions and sustainability.

It means some things are going to either get more expensive or downright disappear but I wouldn’t call that a significant curb on freedom.

It’s more akin to not being able to use lead in plumbing than living under an authoritarian regime. Sure there will be less meat on the menu but, well, c’est la vie.

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

#146

Post by iamsaitam »

nickersonm wrote: post #40
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…

Yet these companies aren't the ones actually burning the oil, are they? They merely sell the product which others then burn. How can you hold only them responsible but excuse the parties further downstream?

You're missing the point. Their impact on the subject is much greater than simply making oil products available. They pushed a narrative that aligned with their self interests at the same time it was detrimental to the world. They did this through various means, including press/media and lobbying. The world of energy production could be very different from what it is today if they didn't act only on their self interest. Actions were taken much later due to their misinformation. In my view, the decision makers should pay heavily for what they did.

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

#147

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

Beltalowda wrote: post #144
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not go out and publicly try to discredit work they know to be true? Start shifting their companies aggressively towards energy sources which will not kill us all decades earlier by using their insane benefits to invest in R&D? Anything which is not akin to sacrificing millions and handing a terrible situation to the next generation to make a quick buck? Have a soul?

We've seen the same thing with tobacco, asbestos, lead, etc.

Yes, I know.

You would believe that at some point in the past decades, with the multiple crisis caused by failure of leadership in the financial sector and with the numerous scandals in both auditing, energy production, manufacturing and shipping, people might have started to question if there might not be something fundamentally wrong with the way we do corporate governance and more generally how we have organised our society and economy. But apparently no, it’s really going to be denial up to and over the edge of the cliff.

I remember as a kid being fascinated by the idea that while decline was felt throughout the Roman Empire, something which once stood so powerful had then become powerless and was rendered unable by its own structure to restore what used to be and prevent what was to come. I kept wondering how it was even possible. Now I know.

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

#148

Post by Beltalowda »

klyrs wrote: post #97
LarryMullins wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to claim coal miners could transition to another mining industry, but what mining industry in those regions could absorb that many miners? None I think. It's not as though a secession of coal mining would create a boom in other mining industries. > We could cut them each a $1M check for the trouble, which is about 10 years worth of coal subsidies[2]. Maybe if they were offered that deal for real, they'd tak…

I don't think this is about politicians duping coal workers, no. And that $1M bonus idea is just a comparison of scale. It's a comparatively tiny industry, which is extremely harmful to the environment and its workers. There are certainly coal-mining towns that exist solely because of what's in the ground, and of course you can't just dig up something else there. I'm not a "rootless cosmopolitan tech worker," I'm one…

We could simply give the coal workers a sort of "pension".

40k people at $60k a year is $2.4 billion/year, which is a tiny fraction of the annual $4.8 trillion federal budget. You can structure parts of this in different ways outside of a blanket cheque, such as ways to incentivize starting businesses, credits for free education, or whatnot. It's still a lot of money, but the benefits are probably worth it, IMO. If $24 billion/year in student loan forgiveness is possible then I don't see why this isn't.

Politically it's a non-starter so I don't expect anything like this will happen. The GOP seems more concerned with simplistic "culture war" chest-beating and the Dems don't seem overly concerned with the plight of the working class and have their own style of simplistic culture war chest-beating (albeit less egregious).

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

#149

Post by boeingUH60 »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #134

If the species was a human, it would by now be institutionalized for self-harm while delusional, but well, there is no warden to put us into a zoo and govern affairs, so there is that. Instead we basically have a species, that is the equivalent of a homeless drug addict on the tenderloin, soiling its own future. A good start would be to honestly communicate this as the starting point of every debate. Then evaluate wh…

Are you advocating blowing up a pipeline? Won’t even get into the morality of that, but that’s a nice way to get yourself killed or spend decades in prison for terrorism.

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

#150

Post by Beltalowda »

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…

Everyone deflects responsibility to everyone else.

Consumers say government should do something or that businesses should change their ways. Businesses say what they're doing is legal and merely catering to consumer demand. Government says businesses should "self-regulate" or consumers should choose different.

You see this pretty much everywhere, from climate change to those ridiculous SUVs that are a danger to everyone to basic animal welfare in food production, etc.

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