US Lawmakers Accuses Big Oil of a Long-Running Climate Disinformation Campaign (cnn.com) 104
A year-long investigation by a Congressional commitee is accussing the fossil fuel industry of spreading climate disinformation. CNN reports:
The committee found the fossil fuel industry is "posturing on climate issues while avoiding real commitments" to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Lawmakers said it has sought to portray itself as part of the climate solution, even as internal industry documents reveal how companies have avoided making real commitments. "Today's documents reveal that the industry has no real plans to clean up its act and is barreling ahead with plans to pump more dirty fuels for decades to come," House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney told CNN in a statement....
The committee said documents uncovered also showed the fossil fuel industry has presented natural gas as a so-called "bridge fuel" to transition to cleaner sources of energy, all while doubling down on its long-term reliance on fossil fuels with no clear plan of action to fully transition to clean energy....
In a 2016 email from a BP executive to John Mingé, then-Chairman and President of BP America, and others, about climate and emissions, an employee assessed that the company often adopted an obstructionist strategy with regulators, noting, "we wait for the rules to come out, we don't like what we see, and then try to resist and block."
"The fossil fuel industry has of late been involved in extensive "greenwashing" — misleading claims in advertisements, particularly on social media, claiming or suggesting that they are "Paris aligned," and that they are committed to meaningful solutions," Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor who has studied the fossil fuel industry's rebuke of climate science and consulted for law firms that have brought suits against the fossil fuel industry, told CNN. "Numerous analyses shows that these claims are untrue."
The committee said documents uncovered also showed the fossil fuel industry has presented natural gas as a so-called "bridge fuel" to transition to cleaner sources of energy, all while doubling down on its long-term reliance on fossil fuels with no clear plan of action to fully transition to clean energy....
In a 2016 email from a BP executive to John Mingé, then-Chairman and President of BP America, and others, about climate and emissions, an employee assessed that the company often adopted an obstructionist strategy with regulators, noting, "we wait for the rules to come out, we don't like what we see, and then try to resist and block."
"The fossil fuel industry has of late been involved in extensive "greenwashing" — misleading claims in advertisements, particularly on social media, claiming or suggesting that they are "Paris aligned," and that they are committed to meaningful solutions," Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor who has studied the fossil fuel industry's rebuke of climate science and consulted for law firms that have brought suits against the fossil fuel industry, told CNN. "Numerous analyses shows that these claims are untrue."
Whaaaaaaat? (Score:2, Offtopic)
I'm shocked! Shocked I say.
[ Even more that bros pushing crypto as solid investments. ]
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It's laughable... pathetic, really. But the penalties levied will essentially amount to a carbon tax, which is what we should have done 20 years ago anyways. But if crafting this narrative about delivering justice to the bad people tricked us into burning so much coal and gasoline is what causes the public to support it, well, OK I guess.
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It's laughable... pathetic, really. But the penalties levied will essentially amount to a carbon tax,
No, not at all equivalent to a carbon tax. A carbon tax needs to be proportional to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, in order to be an incentive to emit less carbon dioxide. A penalty not proportional to carbon dioxide emissions is not useful.
which is what we should have done 20 years ago anyways.
True.
But if crafting this narrative about delivering justice to the bad people tricked us into burning so much coal and gasoline is what causes the public to support it, well, OK I guess.
I don't expect that the results of this investigation will change the opinion of the public at all. It's nice to get good documentation of what we already knew was happening, but this won't change anybody's ideological stance.
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A year-long investigation by a Congressional commitee is accussing the fossil fuel industry of spreading climate disinformation.
You can't get much past these guys! Merely a year of investigating to discover the bleedin' obvious.
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I think their next step should be investigating themselves, to determine if they too are "posturing on climate issues while avoiding real commitments". But I think we already know the answer.
Penalties? (Score:2, Funny)
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Fines you say? Perhaps they will pay them out of all the subsidies they get.
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Fines you say? Perhaps they will pay them out of all the subsidies they get.
The government gives them massive subsidies. Consumers give them a massive market. And Biden pleads with them to increase production.
Yet somehow global warming is all their fault.
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I think it was the lying and cheating part that is definitely their fault.
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You make a compelling argument. If they had not have lied, none of this would have happened.
Re:Penalties? (Score:5, Informative)
Well to give some scope of what might happen, look at the Tobacco Master Settlement. They must pay money to the various States for the healthcare of smoking injury patients in perpetuity. Basically, to be a tobacco company in the United States requires a payment to the States for the healthcare of your customers until you are no longer a tobacco company.
And this plays out. Insurances can draw on this fund if you have issues that derive from smoking. And this is something that at this point is just a cost of doing business in the tobacco industry in the US. But this is completely within the domain of forms of restitution from the courts. If big oil has been truly deceptive, then they may find themselves paying massive costs of healthcare for the majority of United State citizens or even clean up cost forever. This could be basically, every EV car suddenly get a $2000 discount because the oil companies are having to cover that cost or it could be more or less than that.
The entire point here is (1) Were they deceptive? (2) How much actual harm was caused? (3) What form of restitution is appropriate? It all really depends on what the court finds. Even then there are appeals and processes.
But what is important is that this is an initial report. And it will be up to the House Oversight Committee if they refer it to the Department of Justice. Even then the DoJ will be compelled by law to begin their own investigation which could take easily a decade. So we may not see resolution on this matter until 2050 or 2060, which will be long after I am dead. But the point is that all things like this begin somewhere. This may go nowhere seeing how the House is going to be swapping ownership here soon, or it could be something that just gets put on hold till the Democrats become majority again. But the implications in the report are massive if they hold up in a court of law, if they ever make it there.
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it may be what ends up happening, but all of there types of lawsuits going for massive damages against an industry providing a socially accepted good or service are BS.
Asbestos, tobacco, opiates, the firearms ones people are now trying...
in another 10 or 20 years we'll have lawsuits against the marijuana industry for claiming it was safer than tobacco.
and against ranchers and supermarkets because meat and dairy increase the risk of cancer and there aren't warning labels on them...
it's all insincere pearl
Re:Penalties? (Score:5, Insightful)
all of there types of lawsuits going for massive damages against an industry providing a socially accepted good or service are BS
That is the nature of law. To openly question remedy if need be. There should not be some point of law that conflicts with society as it changes. If society sees fit to undo the stipulations entered into by an industry, then they use their power in a legislative system that is polled by the people.
in another 10 or 20 years we'll have lawsuits against the marijuana industry for claiming it was safer than tobacco
I don't know any concerted group that is attempting this, but indeed that doesn't preclude it. Again, the point is that when there is injury there is a means or remedy. There isn't some settled point where we go, welp, that's the end of that litigation unless that specific issue is addressed by legislation, order, or amendment if need be.
and against ranchers and supermarkets because meat and dairy increase the risk of cancer and there aren't warning labels on them
It seems you bemoan the court system, but the never ending back and forth is the entire point of a "more perfect union". What is okay today may not demonstrably be okay tomorrow and vice versa.
it's all insincere pearl clutching to get a payout from some deep pocketed entity
Redress of injury isn't pearl clutching. If there exists specific injury and the courts see that the injury was willingly against the law or in violation of the rights of the people, the point is to seek restitution. Why would you want a world where specific injury to yourself could in conjecture here be beyond the redress of the courts?
Regarding fossil fuels specifically: Pretty much everyone benefited and continues to benefit from fossil fuels
That's not the point. If there was some drug that caused injury in some of the people and the company that made the drug knowingly hid that information from public discovery, we would seek to find remedy from that company for the injury given. Now if the company was forthwith about the potential for injury and gave that information out for the public to "do their own research", that is an entirely different domain. But if there is an active hiding of information preventing people from fully assessing the risk/benefit analysis, then that is broad injury to the public that our law indicate is addressable by our legal system.
It has been such a core technology of the modern world for what.. 10 generations now that everyone, including the most ferverent environmentalist has benefited from them
And so too have many things before it and when there was violation of specific rights of the people or society had changed such that there needed to be some point to address in law or in amendment, there was some redress of the situation. The law is ever shaping. It is not some static thing that dead men once wrote never to be considered ever again. This entire reply is a woeful mischaracterization of what our legal system exists to specifically do.
Specifically to your point, if the oil companies knowingly hid information that prevented the people to truly understand the full risk/benefit of the issue at hand, that's illegal. What we've gained and what we've lost is a matter of restitution which comes in the sentencing phase of a trail. But we do not live in a free society if we cannot openly question an industry in a court of law on if they have knowingly hid information from the public. The entire ability to bring the weight of our legal system onto questions of specific interest of the public is a benefit of our system, not some cash grab. If we lacked such, how would we then question anything and the answer to it have the weight of something recognized by our nation?
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Basically you're arguing for apathy. Why not just post "fuck the future"? If we don't make industries and consumers pay for the externalities then we are literally mortgaging the future. It's a buy now, pay later scheme.
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and against ranchers and supermarkets because meat and dairy increase the risk of cancer and there aren't warning labels on them...
How is this the same? Ranchers and supermarkets aren't backing massive campaigns to lie about the risk of cancer due to meat and dairy.
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we may not see resolution on this matter until 2050 or 2060, which will be long after I am dead.
If they don't rein in big oil a lot faster than that, they're going to kill a lot more people.
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we may not see resolution on this matter until 2050 or 2060, which will be long after I am dead.
If they don't rein in big oil a lot faster than that, they're going to kill a lot more people.
Reign in big oil? Whazzat, make "them" pay, and then magically the price of gasoline hits $10 a gallon and nobody can figure out why? It couldn't possibly be all those "fines" that the government is doing?
There is just absolutely no alternative to oil in the near future. If you want to get from point A to point B, the only ways to do it is 1) walk, 2) ride a horse 3) ride in a vehicle. Electric cars are a nice idea, but for now, the affordable solution for most people is an internal combustion engine
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Reign in big oil?
OK, Ivan.
Re: Penalties? (Score:2)
One of Slayer's less well known albums?
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Switzerland [Re:Penalties?] (Score:3)
Switzerland for instance is drawing up plans on dealing with (now rather likely) power shortages, and that includes not allowing EV owners to charge their cars...
That would be counterproductive. Since electric cars are more efficient than fossil fuel cars, they ought to encourage the opposite: discourage people from using fossil fuel cars and encourage use of electric cars instead, to conserve energy for heating and other critical usages.
But since electric vehicles are only 2.3% of all passenger cars in Switzerland, it's really too small a number to cause a difference in energy supply by regulating their charging. Such a law is clearly intended to be for show, not
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Frankly, considering the costs of climate change, gas should be somewhere around $30 a gallon.
The universe doesn't give a fuck about your libertarian bullshit. CO2 has the properties it has. Thermodynamics works the way it works. I cannot fathom the kind of fucking stupidity that worries about "authoritarianism" when it comes to holding both the o&g industry and consumers accountable for fucking the entire planet up.
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Right now there are a lot of people with too much to lose by seriously rocking the boat. Those with truly nothing to lose are a dangerous bunch and I wouldn't want to be standing in the shoes of those who took it all away. You had better have a real good plan to provide for
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....Right now there are a lot of people with too much to lose by seriously rocking the boat. ...
Nothing is changing overnight.
These are long term changes.
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These are long term changes.
Unfortunately, the hysterics have hijacked the movement. Nothing can be long term to them. In year's past, they would be the ones wearing a sandwich board claiming the end is nigh.
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These are long term changes.
Unfortunately, the hysterics have hijacked the movement. Nothing can be long term to them. In year's past, they would be the ones wearing a sandwich board claiming the end is nigh.
If you choose to ignore all of the thousands of actual reasonable voices talking about the real world in order to cherry-pick the "hysterics," yes, you can choose to make it seem like that.
A lot of people like to do that, to listen to only the most extreme fringe voices.
Stop being one of them.
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Governments... mostly ignore the problem. (Score:2)
If you choose to ignore all of the thousands of actual reasonable voices talking about the real world in order to cherry-pick the "hysterics," yes, you can choose to make it seem like that [the hysterics have hijacked the movement].
My concern is that those in power are listening to those extreme fringe voices. Calmer heads may exist, but governments seem to be carrying water for the hysterics.
Why in the world would you think that?
Governments are mostly doing their best to ignore the problem, and, when they can't ignore it, doing things that amount to promising to do something in the future.
Name one single way in which governments actions show that people in power are "listening to extreme fringe voices" about climate change. One thing.
They aren't listening to the fringe voices. YOU are.
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And what the fuck do you think is going to happen to food security when major river systems are disrupted because glaciers disappear? Fuck me, your cure to this supposed problem creates the exact problem you think oil and gas cure.
Do you know what's coming? Do you know what's already started? The snowpack and glaciers in the Himalayas are in massive decline, so what the fuck do you think that portends for something like 1.6 billion people?
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No one is going to starve to death because they don't get a steak, and oil and gas are creating a far vaster crisis. And please save me from "save the poor people". That's the line the O&G industry uses all the time. They don't give a fuck about the billions around the world for which AGW represents a direct threat to food security. You just don't want to contemplate having to pay for it.
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They told me Biden was going to make my gas $10, and yet I fueled up yesterday for $2.60. In a couple of years, I'll be paying $0, because I won't need gas at all.
Venezuela has even cheaper gas than the US, but it couldn't save them. While Europe has $8-10 gas, and they seem to be doing fine.
The $10 figure doesn't worry me in the least. Even if that figure wasn't pulled out of someone's asshole.
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Reign in big oil? Whazzat, make "them" pay, and then magically the price of gasoline hits $10 a gallon and nobody can figure out why?
Despite your language of one-sided ideological outrage, you have actually pointed out here the key problem. People do want to see carbon dioxide emissions reduced, but any rise in the cost of gasoline is political poison. So I'm not expecting to see this.
It couldn't possibly be all those "fines" that the government is doing?
For what it's worth, I just went and looked at the most recently proposed carbon taxes and did the math to convert to dollars per gallon: the answer is between 30 cents and 70 cents per gallon.
So the answer to your question is "no", carbon taxes as prop
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Without oil chemistry, how are you going to manufacture *any* modern electronics? You won't have any plastic parts, insulation, or anything else.
And that's just electronics. What about all the other plastic around you?
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If you want to get from point A to point B, the only ways to do it is 1) walk, 2) ride a horse 3) ride in a vehicle.
You can also move A closer to B.
The US, and Canada, is burdened by rules which make it illegal - illegal - to build anything other than detached houses in vast swathes of land. There are no local pubs, no local shops, no local work because it is illegal.
So, repeal those zoning laws and move A closer to B. Then higher petrol prices don't matter so much and you can use less of it without being basically put under siege by planning regulations.
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Oh, yeah, another pet peeve, zoning. This should be illegal itself. Zoning is controlling someone else's property without paying for it. If you want to build a small "superette" style store within walking distance of 100's of people, you can't, because it's "zoned" residential. So everyone has to jump in a car to go buy paper clips and shoelaces. Stupid and wasteful. Amazon ALMOST has this cured with drone delivery of such things the same day, but I don't think we're quite there yet. Almost, th
Re:Penalties? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Don't worry, everything will be fine for them ;-)
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How is this news? (Score:3)
Took them long enough (Score:1)
Greenwashing (Score:2)
Greenwashing is all the rage these days. Why vocally oppose climate change action when you can instead profit from it? Loudly proclaim your company to be environmentally friendly while doing fuck all to actually help anything climate-wise, but do something like carbon trading which doesn't make anything materially better but it allows the right people to make more money.
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It's worth mentioning that "greenwashing" is what these senators are doing, too.
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Its the same everywhere. Labour here in australia love to make a song and dance about climate change and how were kicking goals and all that.
But actually put in place plans to end coal mining and replace coal fired power stations.
Hell no. Last time they tried that the mining companies kicked the shit so hard out of them with dodgy political advertising it cost them the election.
The *only* way to deal with this comes from voters. You tell them "Fix the fucking climate or we are not turning up to vote" (or in
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The *only* way to deal with this comes from voters. You tell them "Fix the fucking climate or we are not turning up to vote" (or in the case of mandatory voting countries "Fix the fucking problem or we are voting greens/teals*/whatever"
This would work but most voters don't care enough to do that.
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The *only* way to deal with this comes from voters. You tell them "Fix the fucking climate or we are not turning up to vote" (or in the case of mandatory voting countries "Fix the fucking problem or we are voting greens/teals*/whatever"
This would work but most voters don't care enough to do that.
Most voters don't want a fix that will crush their standard of living. I look at our Green party platform and it is quite clear that is exactly what they would do.
And most people in the developing world aspire to our standard of living, they won't be taking kindly to no as an answer either.
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As far as I can tell, all that is true.
Re: Greenwashing (Score:2)
Roll on Skynet. Efficient, and you know where you stand.
The real purpose of renewables (Score:1, Troll)
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is to get you to blame yourself for AGW instead of the extraction industry.
I do blame myself. I mean I'm the stupid person who buys a product for the purpose to set it on fire. The oil industry is a shitshow that has pushed a defensive agenda for decades, but they rightfully don't shoulder the entire blame.
Now give me my cheap energy, I don't care what it takes as long as it's cheap!
- Sincerely, The People.
The real solution is nuclear but don't expect that to be brought up in this show.
Nuclear needs to be developed, but it's not a solution to our current problems. It can't be scaled in any meaningful way. We absolutely need to reduce our consumption of primary
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You have that backwards. It is one of the few technologies that scales. How did you get that one wrong?
Typo. I simply missed a word. I was trying to write "It can't be scaled QUICKLY in any meaningful way". I.e. We won't be able to build a *single plant* before any of the deadlines or goals we have set. It literally can't form part of any solution.
It's like seeing an oncoming train which is about to kill you and hoping that a long term plan to reroute the train line will save you.
And reducing consumption will do nothing to solve AGW. It just doesn't move the needle enough.
AWG is 100% consumption related. If we didn't consume anything there would be no emissions. Obviously this a comment taken to absu
Pot meet kettle (Score:1)
The committee found the fossil fuel industry is "posturing on climate issues while avoiding real commitments" to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Which is exactly what the committee itself was doing.
They have been doing this for a while. (Score:1, Troll)
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Yeah, like the THTR-300 that had to be scrapped. Safe, sure. Reliable and _workable_ not so much. BTW, the THRT-70 is still a radioactive ruin that nobody knows how to dispose of.
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You say that like its a bad thing, nukes are too expensive to build, too slow to build, cant be insured, generate overly expensive power and cost a fortune to decommission, plus nobody wants nukes.
China has built 40 new modern reactors since 2011, and have plans for 100 more in the next 15 years, which I have no doubt they will accomplish. This is why they will be the next great power, the West simply can't do big things anymore. Too many whiners.
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To be fair they were far from the only ones. It's one thing to point at a single industry fighting against another, but quite something else when your talking points of the likes of Greenpeace or re-enforced by some quite epic disasters (no no no, don't look at how we killed everyone on Piper Alpha, that was just an accident, not a nukular disaster).
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Oh? And where do you have the > 1M year reference project on waste storage? Because without that you are simply making empty claims.
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Comparable (Score:3)
The fossil fuel industry has of late been involved in extensive "greenwashing"
So not that much different honesty wise from politicians then.
Too late? (Score:2)
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At the very least partially. We are never getting back to the relatively nice climate we still have today. Well, maybe in 5000 years or so, but not anytime soon. If there is a human race around after the man-made catastrophe that is inevitably coming.
Yes, it's real, but do stick to reality, please. (Score:2)
...If there is a human race around after the man-made catastrophe that is inevitably coming.
Quit the idiotic doomsaying.
Yes, climate change is real. Yes, it will be destructive and expensive and will only get worse the longer we wait to deal with it. No, it's not going to end the human race.
Exaggerating the threat is exactly the kind of thing that makes the real threat seem fake, because of the Chicken Littles running around shouting absurd things.
Reality is bad enough.
Re: Yes, it's real, but do stick to reality, pleas (Score:2)
Are you sure? I'm not...
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Are you sure?
Yes. Nothing about climate change has the potential to end the human race.
I'm not...
If you want current best estimates of the actual effects of climate change, try the IPCC working-group II reports on the impacts of climate change: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/six... [www.ipcc.ch]
Documents uncovered showed NG a bridge fuel? (Score:3)
Your tax dollars at work gentlemen, the Congressional committee's investigation has at long last revealed ... anything anyone could read on an oil major's website!
Also... is it not? Think back to when natural gas plants were being rolled out as to the current state at of actual green energy at the time. Wind turbines with a fraction of the power. Solar cells with a fraction of the efficiency. Thanks congress critter, but I'm with the oil industry on this one. You spent many years not funding actual solutions, so bridge fuel is what you get.
It's easy to criticise someone for protecting their core business when you spend 20+ years not giving a fuck as a government policy.
The fossil fuel shills seem to be out in force (Score:2)
Funny how the fact that most of the governments in the Free World have been captured by corporations has gone unnoticed here. Of course governments have been largely ineffective. More money = bigger, more effective campaigns = perpetual office holders who deliver for their owners, not the people they're elected to serve.
Just as an aside, I couldn't help but notice the name of the past Chairman and President of BP America...John Mingé. In vulgar British slang, "minge" is another word for "c*nt"
Umm (Score:1)
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You just claimed that doing capitalism is species suicide. Want to rethink that?
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You just claimed that doing capitalism is species suicide. Want to rethink that?
Technology is species suicide, capitalism is a form of social technology, so no.
Not News. Not surprising either. (Score:2, Flamebait)
We have long known that big oil has taken many lessons from big tobacco.
Deny the science. You can pretend scientists don't agree. I understand that there are still a few "scientists" who assert that smoking is good for you. A similar number of, so-called experts, still keep saying that all this climate change stuff is either a Chinese plot to destroy the US economy or just a clever way of getting a better research grant!
Pretend it is a tenuous new thought: The way that CO2 works to keep some heat in the at
Pot meet Kettle (Score:2)
That anyone can take the U.S. Government seriously when they claim disinformation especially after the last few years is mind boggling.
You would need to have your head so far up your ass people would think you're cosplaying a pretzel.
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So some government disinformation, especially under trump, means everything is untrustworthy? Even when the committee has documentary proof?
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DOGWHISTLE: TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP
Really speaking of cosplaying a pretzel, Anyway here's a few points you need to understand even though it's obvious you can't or won't..
1) The government trying to control their speech is a direct violation of the first amendment.
End Full Stop. This isn't for the it's for you.
2) If you think this began or ended with the Trump Admin You need to sue your educators for malpractice.
The attempts to restrict free speech have been going on as long as there has been a country. Every so
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Obviously when the committee shows that the oil companies are lying, and have the evidence to prove it, it has absolutely nothing to do with "trying to control their speech". Why don't you want thieving liars to be held accountable for what they do?
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"Why don't you want thieving liars to be held accountable for what they do?"
Awwwe aren't you just the sweetest little thing. Well maybe if you say your prayers Santa Claus and the Congress will save you from the bad ole liars.
P.S. Do you include yourself in the group of Liars that need to be held accountable or is it just liars you don't like ?
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You keep on wandering down your rathole there, buddy.
In other news... (Score:2)
Citizens accuse lawmakers of long-running disinformation campaigns.
Unstable systems love censorship (Score:1)
There seems to be a lot of claiming misinformation, disinformation, and blasphemy as a means of silencing dissent against the system [reason.com] even in small ways:
Fragile ideologies fear alternatives because those ideolog
You don't say... (Score:2)
I mean, Big Oil basically has been determinedly trying to kill the human race for the last 40 years or so. If they do not succeed, that will be by accident, but it does look like they may be successful after all.
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what nonsense, fossil fuel use has created and maintained civilization, lengthened human life and made life healthier, created and sustained middle class.
Big Oil has been providing what people want to buy.
They are not the source of information on climate, only an idiot would go to them for that or even make note of it.
Until such time as we have good storage systems, fossil will rule. That's why the US government's push for EV as step one is moronic, storage systems are the key to going to all non-polluting
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As usual, you just confirm that you are a no-clue, no-insight idiot with a big ego. They did a _systematic_ misinformation campaign starting in the 1980s when they found out how bad their product was. Yes, Big Oil knew _first_ about the climate change they were causing and how bad it would probably get. And then they decided to not only hush it up but actively discredit and buy off other researchers in the area. It is well documented. It does not get much more evil than what they did and continue to do.
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who cares? no one goes to the gas station to fill up their car because of your alleged "misinformation campaign". No one in the NE buys fuel oil because of "misinformation campaign", nor does anyone around me buy nat gas because of that.
We fill up cars because EV are too expensive for Joe Sixpack (and 80 percent of the charging is from fossil anyway and they have 3.5 year carbon debt because made from fossil energy)
NE people buy fuel oil and we cook with nat gas because it's 1/3 the price of electric heat
Ho hum. (Score:2)
Ho hum. Companies like to say they are good. Dog bites man.
But the biggest and most pernicious purveyors of misinformation, and especially disinformation, are governments, and that's at least one area where the US leads the field, challenged only by China and Russia.
To be fair (Score:3)
Is there a huge difference between corporate petrochemical companies green-washing their operations and activist/politicians flying 800 corporate jets into the latest global warming conference to shake their "naughty finger" at the rest of the world for not being green enough while making breathtaking eco promises they don't even faintly intend to keep?
Both are primarily performance art intended to get complete hypocrites what they want.
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I think the issue is that maybe without the seemingly purposeful coverup and decades long misinformation campaign the transition off fossil fuels could have been started decades earlier. Make no doubt you are correct in that politicians are complicit in this as well (some more than others obviously)
There was more a push for it in the 1970s during the oil crisis but funnily enough that seems to have been the decade this effort started up really. Reagans election pretty much the nail in the coffin combined w
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Must say I'm just slightly more believing that politicians would be more forthright and do the right thing; and maybe conduct their own investigations, rather than some profit driven corp., but then I look at the number of millionaires in congress and realize how much of an idiot I am...
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Must say I'm just slightly more believing that politicians would be more forthright and do the right thing; and maybe conduct their own investigations, rather than some profit driven corp., but then I look at the number of millionaires in congress and realize how much of an idiot I am...
A millionaire is not terribly unusual in America; that basically means a person who's had a job all their life and is of retirement age. The average family worth of Americans in the 65 to 74 age range (the age bracket most congresspeople are) is $1,217,700.
It is more surprising to see how many congresspeople are not millionaires.
Source: https://money.usnews.com/money... [usnews.com]
(to be fair: median net worth is quite a bit lower.)
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I get where you are coming from, things have to make economic sense for people but at tee same time I feel like you can use this line of thought to counter the idea of every stage of human civilizational progress and also justify the worst practices in history.
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All of the above [Re:Huh?] (Score:2)
There is no contraint "we have to pick one and only one energy source for the entire future.
Saying "wind and solar can't solve the entire problem" does not preclude "wind and solar can be major contributors to the energy supply."
One of the worst enemies to solving problems is people who argue 'if we can't solve all of the problem all at once, then it's not useful to solve any of it.'
If we cared about getting rid of fossil fuels (at least for electricity production) then we've had a solution for that: nuclear. Solar and wind will not be an effective power source.
Sorry, your punctuation is wrong: you put a period after "nuclear, where you shoul