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Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

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Re: Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

#31

Post by intended »

joe_the_user wrote: post #19
sremani wrote: post #4

Outrage is not the answer, if you live in OECD countries you have a massive footprint that rivals villages of developing countries. So do something about it. No, your pre-order of Model 3 that is going to come 3 years down the pike, does not put a dent in your carbon footprint. It is one small step, the roads your Tesla drives on needs petro-chemicals, so do those perfectly manicured french fries. Oil industry is gre…

Outrage is a tool that could do one useful thing - exclude a group of disingenuous people entirely from the discussion. You have a powerful, organized group that have worked to obstruct discussion on the crucial topic of how to solve this problem for a while. Punishing them harshly would serve the important purpose of preventing their obstruction. Figuring out how to deal with the climate change problem would be hard…

I agree more with the original parent comment than I do with your position.

I rememebr the 1980s clearly, and how incensed people were then. I also rememebr that environmental damage was covered up, and that industry was suppressing or spreading FUD against science.

In the time since, it hasn't improved - and Kyoto, a band-aid over a gangrenous wound, has failed instead of getting stronger.

Studying human nature and working in larger more coordinated goods is pretty much the last Hail Mary option. Enlightened self interest is very clear - "let's see who survives till the end. I'm going to be its me."

The issues are pretty vast, and short of someone convincing the first world to give up fossil fuels, while simultaneously convincing the third world to give up their ambitions, - enlightened self interest only leads to more fuel being burned.

I bet that we will be resorting to terraforming before we tell people that they can't live a first world standard of living.

Re: Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

#32

Post by maxxxxx »

sremani wrote: post #4

Outrage is not the answer, if you live in OECD countries you have a massive footprint that rivals villages of developing countries. So do something about it. No, your pre-order of Model 3 that is going to come 3 years down the pike, does not put a dent in your carbon footprint. It is one small step, the roads your Tesla drives on needs petro-chemicals, so do those perfectly manicured french fries. Oil industry is gre…

Outrage is certainly not the answer. The problem is that this constant propaganda stops any kind of rational look at the situation in its tracks. The same was done with smoking for a long time, with drugs for a long time (things seem to improve though), health care in the US and other things. In my view that's the worst (and most evil) these people are doing: they kill rational dialog.

Re: Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

#33

Post by chris_wot »

dsp1234 wrote: post #28
chris_wot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um. I'm having difficulty parsing your question. Are you saying we wouldn't have behaved in the way we did if petrol companies didn't do all those dreadful things?

There are certainly a lot of 'not's in the statements, so I apologize for the confusion. I was trying to keep the previous comments pure. At a basic level: Would we have taken the same actions, if the oil industry had not taken the same actions? If someone thinks the answer the question is, 'obviously yes', then I'm suggesting they look at the results of the revelations of the same actions by the tobacco industry. If…

Ah. I thought that might be what you were saying - thanks for clarifying :-)

I don't believe we would have taken the same actions, or at the very least we would have modified our behaviour at lot sooner.

Re: Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

#34

Post by beatpanda »

noir_lord wrote: post #29
sremani wrote: post #4

Outrage is not the answer, if you live in OECD countries you have a massive footprint that rivals villages of developing countries. So do something about it. No, your pre-order of Model 3 that is going to come 3 years down the pike, does not put a dent in your carbon footprint. It is one small step, the roads your Tesla drives on needs petro-chemicals, so do those perfectly manicured french fries. Oil industry is gre…

I live in a flat that is suitable for living alone, I don't drive, I cycle everywhere except when I need to go really long distances in which case I use public transport. I buy nearly all my food from the local market most of which comes from farms within a hundred miles, I minimise energy consumption, most of the furniture I buy is good second hand stuff, I rarely buy clothes and everything I do own would fit on a s…

Help organize collective action to make it easier for many more people to make the choices you're able to make.

Re: Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

#35

Post by intended »

dsp1234 wrote: post #28
chris_wot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um. I'm having difficulty parsing your question. Are you saying we wouldn't have behaved in the way we did if petrol companies didn't do all those dreadful things?

There are certainly a lot of 'not's in the statements, so I apologize for the confusion. I was trying to keep the previous comments pure. At a basic level: Would we have taken the same actions, if the oil industry had not taken the same actions? If someone thinks the answer the question is, 'obviously yes', then I'm suggesting they look at the results of the revelations of the same actions by the tobacco industry. If…

I think something else, because I don't think that individual human choice is the only driver of society, and modern human civilization.

This is precisely the role of policy and governance - we don't use CFCs for example, and we move towards more progressive emissions norms around the world every year.

lots of people would be tremendously happy to wait for tomorrow to make a difficult moral choice, even if it was obviously immoral.

And then there's additional fallout. The improvement and evolution FUD. A series of catchy rhetorical arguments, has given birth to "deniers", and the amazingly made expertise itself toxic.

And with the web, this malaise spreads over the English speaking web and infect other countries, forums and communities.

So, yes - as a society we would have taken different decisions and at a different time scale.

Re: Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

#36

Post by SilasX »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #8

> When do we hold someone responsible for a harm? What if the harm is climate change? We all burned oil in our cars. We didn't make an effort to carpool because it wasn't convenient. Skipped days riding our bike to work because it's too cold, etc. To me holding the blame entirely on the oil industry is akin to persecuting prostitutes for sex crime.

That wouldn't accomplish anything; it would just free up more fossil fuels to be applied to marginal uses by people with far less restraint: "Hippies don't like oil? More for me!"

This is a collective action problem; if we don't collectively limit or penalize the emissions, we're just leaving grass on the commons for someone else to graze.

With that said, cutting back can prepare you for the time when collective limits or taxes are in place. It can also signal your own belief in the seriousness of the problem. But individually refusing to overgraze the commons cannot be blamed for commons going barren; the refusal to implement real limits, however, can.

And no, subsidies for more efficient grazing aren't "limits"; they make it worse.

Re: Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

#37

Post by surfaceTensi0n »

givan wrote: post #10

Is the industry or us evil? most of us have big suv's that we drive alone and the only thing we care about oil is the price. Some will look worried, chat on forums about these stuff but continue to do nothing because "there is nothing we can do".

I don't think your assertions are correct. This article[0] is a bit old (2015), but it puts the number of SUVs on the road at 35%. There absolutely are things you can do, though obviously you, personally, aren't going to solve the problem. For example, skipping meat one day a week can have pretty substantial affects on emissions[1]. Or you can get involved with a group that is organizing around climate change.

[0] - http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2016/01/usa-suv-crossover-marke... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock's_Long_Shadow

Re: Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

#38

Post by surfaceTensi0n »

givan wrote: post #10

Is the industry or us evil? most of us have big suv's that we drive alone and the only thing we care about oil is the price. Some will look worried, chat on forums about these stuff but continue to do nothing because "there is nothing we can do".

I don't think your assertions are correct. This article[0] is a bit old (2015), but it puts the number of SUVs on the road at 35%. There absolutely are things you can do, though obviously you, personally, aren't going to solve the problem. For example, skipping meat one day a week can have pretty substantial affects on emissions[1]. Or you can get involved with a group that is organizing around climate change.

[0] - http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2016/01/usa-suv-crossover-marke... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock's_Long_Shadow

Re: Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

#39

Post by outworlder »

sremani wrote: post #4

Outrage is not the answer, if you live in OECD countries you have a massive footprint that rivals villages of developing countries. So do something about it. No, your pre-order of Model 3 that is going to come 3 years down the pike, does not put a dent in your carbon footprint. It is one small step, the roads your Tesla drives on needs petro-chemicals, so do those perfectly manicured french fries. Oil industry is gre…

Of all the harmful effects of oil, asphalt does not make the top of the list. Sure, it covers up soil, nothing grows on it, it causes flooding by not allowing water to infiltrate the soil, and so on.

But the stuff was put there on purpose and it mostly... sits there. As designed.

What about water bottles? Many of those are made of plastic from oil. Not all are recycled. Or most things made of plastic for that matter.

What about fertilizer? We are using dead dinosaurs to fertilize our crops.

The list goes on.

I'll say this, though: should we reduce our dependence on oil as fuel, we will buy ourselves a lot of time to fix the other issues.

Re: Smoke and Fumes: How the oil industry influenced the debate on climate change

#40

Post by sliverstorm »

beatpanda wrote: post #34
noir_lord wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a flat that is suitable for living alone, I don't drive, I cycle everywhere except when I need to go really long distances in which case I use public transport. I buy nearly all my food from the local market most of which comes from farms within a hundred miles, I minimise energy consumption, most of the furniture I buy is good second hand stuff, I rarely buy clothes and everything I do own would fit on a s…

Help organize collective action to make it easier for many more people to make the choices you're able to make.

Yup; not to knock personal lifestyle changes, but your own personal impact is a drop in the ocean- you only start to make a true difference when you can spread them to many other people.

Of course, practicing what you preach can be a key step in spreading those changes.

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