That the fossil fuel industry has unleashed its egregious influence to delegitimatize the serious threat of climate change is nothing new. Alarmingly, in the third and final report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), fossil fuel proponents exerting their editing prowess, urged cuts to be made to the report that attribute climate change in large part to the oil and gas industry.
What was cut from the 3,000-page report was “Summary for Policymakers.” But leaked reports reveal that a senior staffer for Saudi Aramco – Saudia Arabia’s state-owned oil and gas company – insisted rewriting the language on shutting down fossil fuel production. It’s not IPCC’s fault, actually, but rather the government delegations who are often staffed by oil company employees, who wielded the editorial scalpel as if it were a meat axe.
The Guardian authors kindly revealed what the full draft left out. It’s frightening how much power and influence the fossil fuel industry wields. It is ultimately responsible for the darkening storm that is the climate crisis.
The fossil fuel industry has longed argued that climate change is our fault because we forgot to turn out the lights when we left the room, or because we didn’t bike to the store three blocks away, or because we haven’t stopped eating Big Macs at McDonald’s. Let’s be clear: the real perpetrators of the mess we are in are the fossil fuel companies and their enablers. Big finance, big bankers and money managers, big insurance companies and reinsurers. Big petrochemical firms. Ask Google, Siri and Alexa, whose servers use lots of electricity. And these days one shouldn’t exempt crypto-miners.
We and everybody should call out all the wealthy malefactors who place short term profits over a congenial climate, a breathable atmosphere, and an extant, no extinct, human race. Let’s make their life hell just as they’re making ours hellish.
Image: https://clear.sf.ucdavis.edu/explainers/fossil-fuels-vs-animal-agriculture
3 Responses
According to a report by George Ropes and Abby Luby, fossil fuel businesses are still major polluters, manufacturing and marketing fossil fuel goods. At the same time, experts warn we need a mass movement toward renewable energy and efficiency. Low-carbon energy and cleaner natural gas were the focus of an advertising campaign in 2019 by BP. What’s more, the problem is not limited to BP. It is a widespread issue in the sector. The UK National Contact Point received our complaint on December 2019 over BP’s advertisements. Campaigns to restrict fossil fuel advertising unless it includes a tobacco-style health warning have also been started by us. There are many misconceptions regarding fossil fuels that need to be dispelled by the public.
That the fossil fuel companies are major polluters AND a mass movement is needed to promote clean energy and efficiency are not incompatible statements. Both are true. However, BP and other petroleum product purveyors should get no credit for recent ad campaigns greenwashing their products and touting their efforts to limit the damage they cause the environment and those living in it. The industry has spent billions in advertising over many decades inculcating the very views expressed by the commentator. The misconceptions held by the public about fossil fuels were long and subtly foisted upon it through advertising, lobbying, and misinformation promulgated over 50 years by the fossil fuel firms. They are to blame for the climate crisis, not you, not me, not the general public. But we can only avoid the certain to worsen living conditions by insisting vocally and actively that the powerful leaders of government, business, and finance exert their power over the greedy oil companies that care more about their profits than the well-being or even the existence of human life on planet Earth.
I agree they are to blame for the climate crisis, not you, not me, not the general public. But we can only avoid the certain to worsen living conditions by insisting vocally and actively that the powerful leaders of government, business, and finance exert their power over the greedy oil companies that care more about their profits than the well-being or even the existence of human life on planet Earth.