What Big Oil Knew About Climate Change, In Its Own Words

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This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at The Conversation.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1392548
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The statute of limitation on fraud begins on date of discovery.

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It’s not surprising that the oil companies knew, and knew, and then denied, and denied some more. But what baffles me is that within this time frame of the 50s-80s they also had to know that oil, coal, and natural gas are finite commodities. So why didn’t they get involved in solar farms, wind wind farms, and the like? Wouldn’t not paying a supplier for the raw material needed to create energy make solar and wind cheaper, and thus more profitable for them? And there’s those no pesky oil spills, soot particles, to contend with.

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Fraud, criminal or depraved indifference to human life, child endangerment…

Nationalize the fossil fuel companies and subject their assets to civil forfeiture, then do the conversions needed within the government, and be done with it.

‘By then, we’ll be dead and it’s someone else’s problem.’

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But, but think of all that money they’d would have made by not paying a second and third party to get the coal or NG to their power plants.

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To save that money they’d have needed to spend more money. Corporate executives’ legal obligation to the stockholders means they’re always about the short term.

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Fuckers.

Oil companies who have lobbied against Climate Change ( i.e. all of them) should be prohibited from receiving funds intended to mitigate against climate change damage.

Case in point is the request for funds to make improvements to oil-terminal dock facilities in Houston that are required due to rising sea levels.

They can use their lobbying money.

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The 1960s were the golden age of weather modification. The initial idea was cloud seeding, an idea developed by Kurt Vonnegut’s big brother, to cause precipitation, but quickly evolved to changing precipitation patterns. As studies went on it was clear that wind currents and ocean currents at different levels would be screwed up, and like biochemical warfare, the forcing of one country into drought would have knock-on effects elsewhere. By the early 1970s is was given that human activity was changing the weather anyway, and most of the military stuff went to the EPA and other non-classified departments. If you want to get conspiratorial, the public declassification of what it meant to change planetary chemistry coincided with oil crises. Indeed, the geochemistry was so boring that it attracted little attention until the observation of ozone depletion, and the very focused and rather successful effort to ban CFCs. Some groups in the US stayed on the carbon issue effectively, particularly the Sierra Club. Unfortunately, carbon leakage allowed the US to offshore nearly a third of its emissions.

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It’s the smoking question. When will it become obvious enough, and documented enough, and enough people die before we’re willing to restrict our own actions? With 8 billion humans and climbing, we need different ways to live, or we’re all just frogs in the pot waiting for the lizards to take over again.

Then again, I haven’t blown up my own TV or got rid of my car…

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