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I'm all for sueing companies like Exxon for misleading people and spreading lies, but I also find it weird that we're trying to blame the big oil companies like

I'm all for sueing companies like Exxon for misleading people and spreading lies, but I also find it weird that we're trying to blame the big oil companies like it's all their fault. After all, it is the consumers themselves who create a massive demand for (cheap) oil.

donatj 7y ago
It’s not just consumers, it’s the entire fabric of modern society. The machinery that makes everything in modern life work runs on fossil fuels, and up until recently there wasn’t another viable option. Even so, with limitations on batteries it’s debatable how viable our options are now. Moving massive payloads takes exponentially more energy than a moving a single driver. Society is built on moving things. Every part of the building you are in now, every piece of food you eat got there via fossil fuels. Like it or not we’re stuck with fossil fuels for the foreseeable future unless the entire fabric of society changes, and I’m not putting my money on that.
- ageofwant 7y ago
  We have modern nuclear technology that can replace all coal plants in a decade if we decide to do that. But we wont.
  - elliekelly 7y ago
    And oil company lobbyist fear-mongering is at least part of the reason we won’t make that switch.
  - dmos62 7y ago
    The "but we won't" insights are spiteful and not that insightful. Here's another one: we could go back to pre-industrial lifestyles.
    - metiscus 7y ago
      Not without a large depopulation event of some kind.
    - ageofwant 7y ago
      The natural nitrogen cycle can optimistically support 4B people. That means 3.5B people need to die for that to even become a workable solution. But but magic tech will save us all ! We have magic tech today, we don't use it.
      - dmos62 7y ago
        > 3.5B need to die. Well more actually, unless noone is born in that time, if you want to be glum about it. I hadn't even heard about the nitrogen cycle. Thanks!
  - smt1 7y ago
    I don't think they could be replaced that fast with nuclear. According to Bill Gates at a speech he gave @ ARPA-E, the limitation of mass nuclear right now is the number of heavy forges left in the world. I think you could scale up a mixture of solar-PV, wind + some nuclear that fast however, because the manufacturing needs are not as bad.
  - vixen99 7y ago
    No, not likely. Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, according to Urgewald, the environmental and human rights organization. The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 percent.
- jklinger410 7y ago
  You aren't educating anyone on this forum with this perspective.
javajosh 7y ago
This is an invalid argument, verging on non sequitor. High demand for a product does not legitimize fraud about the product, especially when that fraud increases demand. It is irrational to expect individuals to make the best ethical decisions for the larger group - this is why we have regulation on food, drugs, energy, etc.
- donatj 7y ago
  I think the flaw in your argument is the assumption that the demand for fossil fuel is variable depending on anything Exxon has to say. I don’t see an Exxon ad and think “man I should buy an SUV”. You wouldn’t blame an electric company on you buying electronic items, it’s the usefulness of the items themselves that drives the sales.
  - javajosh 7y ago
    Demand is a function of many factors, including individual ethical concern and cost. Exxon has spent billions to reduce both of these effects - ethical concern is reduced because of the seed of doubt about climate change, and cost is reduced because of political contributions. Exxon is a great example of a firm successfully privatizing profit and socializing cost.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    it's the usefulness of the item in relation to its cost and the cost to run it. an electric heater is quite useful, but also takes a lot of electricity. if the electric company promises that i'll spend less on electricity for heating than i would on gas, then that does make a difference. so yes, if exxon would promise that the gas prices are so low that i can afford an SUV, then i might be persuaded.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- ta0987 7y ago
  This lawsuit is like two lieutenants on a sinking ship getting in a fight over whose fault it is that they got torpedoed. One of the two may be right, but none the less it's pointless and unproductive. There are more important things to do. Unless of course the ship is sinking really slowly and one of them might get elected governor before the whole thing goes down.
23throwaway23 7y ago
This argument often gets trotted out, but it's misleading. Imagine your grandparents were introduced to heroin and became addicted to it, and you built a society around celebrating and finding new ways to use heroin. Then your parents were hooked on heroin, and people may have found out that heroin actually isn't that good for you, but by this time, the heroin produces had amassed such wealth and power that they worked hard for 40 years to suppress and sow confusion around the science around. Now you're born into a society of heroin consumers, and to some degree you're also addicted to it. Is it the fault of the consumers that the world now runs on heroin? Especially considering that the heroin producers have known for 40 years, and have spent BILLIONS lying to the public and government?
- donatj 7y ago
  Your argument neglects the fact that designing society around fossil fuels improved everyone’s lives exponentially and made the non-agrarian lifestyle not only possible but accessible to billions of people. It’s not heroin, it’s more like some sort of intelligence drug with terrible side effects seen much later. It’s a Faustian bargain we’ve all benefited from in innumerable ways.
  - 23throwaway23 7y ago
    The intent of the analogy is to make clear that consumers have little recourse over their "choice" to consume this material. Lots can be said about the tradeoffs of industrial civilization. We now see that it is leading us to extinction. It's like bacteria in a petri dish, for 50 years it accelerated our consumption of our limited resources and made the petri dish increasingly hostile to life within it. We all know how the story of bacteria in a petri dish turns out.
- marcusverus 7y ago
  This is a bizarre comparison. Petroleum was pulled out of the ground because was useful from day one. It is the backbone of the economy because it is useful. Pretending that petroleum is and has always been a vile, evil thing is poorly considered revisionist nonsense (typed into a petroleum plastic keyboard) Without petroleum, the world today looks a lot more like 1930 than it does 2020.
dmos62 7y ago
They are not being blamed for fossil fuel demand. They are being accused of fraud.
EliRivers 7y ago
I have a massive demand for cheap sandwiches but that doesn't make it OK for Subway to commit crimes in order to supply me with cheap sandwiches.

donatj 7y ago

It’s not just consumers, it’s the entire fabric of modern society. The machinery that makes everything in modern life work runs on fossil fuels, and up until recently there wasn’t another viable option. Even so, with limitations on batteries it’s debatable how viable our options are now. Moving massive payloads takes exponentially more energy than a moving a single driver. Society is built on moving things. Every part of the building you are in now, every piece of food you eat got there via fossil fuels. Like it or not we’re stuck with fossil fuels for the foreseeable future unless the entire fabric of society changes, and I’m not putting my money on that.

ageofwant 7y ago
We have modern nuclear technology that can replace all coal plants in a decade if we decide to do that. But we wont.
- elliekelly 7y ago
  And oil company lobbyist fear-mongering is at least part of the reason we won’t make that switch.
- dmos62 7y ago
  The "but we won't" insights are spiteful and not that insightful. Here's another one: we could go back to pre-industrial lifestyles.
  - metiscus 7y ago
    Not without a large depopulation event of some kind.
  - ageofwant 7y ago
    The natural nitrogen cycle can optimistically support 4B people. That means 3.5B people need to die for that to even become a workable solution. But but magic tech will save us all ! We have magic tech today, we don't use it.
    - dmos62 7y ago
      > 3.5B need to die. Well more actually, unless noone is born in that time, if you want to be glum about it. I hadn't even heard about the nitrogen cycle. Thanks!
- smt1 7y ago
  I don't think they could be replaced that fast with nuclear. According to Bill Gates at a speech he gave @ ARPA-E, the limitation of mass nuclear right now is the number of heavy forges left in the world. I think you could scale up a mixture of solar-PV, wind + some nuclear that fast however, because the manufacturing needs are not as bad.
- vixen99 7y ago
  No, not likely. Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, according to Urgewald, the environmental and human rights organization. The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 percent.
jklinger410 7y ago
You aren't educating anyone on this forum with this perspective.

javajosh 7y ago

This is an invalid argument, verging on non sequitor. High demand for a product does not legitimize fraud about the product, especially when that fraud increases demand. It is irrational to expect individuals to make the best ethical decisions for the larger group - this is why we have regulation on food, drugs, energy, etc.

donatj 7y ago
I think the flaw in your argument is the assumption that the demand for fossil fuel is variable depending on anything Exxon has to say. I don’t see an Exxon ad and think “man I should buy an SUV”. You wouldn’t blame an electric company on you buying electronic items, it’s the usefulness of the items themselves that drives the sales.
- javajosh 7y ago
  Demand is a function of many factors, including individual ethical concern and cost. Exxon has spent billions to reduce both of these effects - ethical concern is reduced because of the seed of doubt about climate change, and cost is reduced because of political contributions. Exxon is a great example of a firm successfully privatizing profit and socializing cost.
- em-bee 7y ago
  it's the usefulness of the item in relation to its cost and the cost to run it. an electric heater is quite useful, but also takes a lot of electricity. if the electric company promises that i'll spend less on electricity for heating than i would on gas, then that does make a difference. so yes, if exxon would promise that the gas prices are so low that i can afford an SUV, then i might be persuaded.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ta0987 7y ago
This lawsuit is like two lieutenants on a sinking ship getting in a fight over whose fault it is that they got torpedoed. One of the two may be right, but none the less it's pointless and unproductive. There are more important things to do. Unless of course the ship is sinking really slowly and one of them might get elected governor before the whole thing goes down.

23throwaway23 7y ago

This argument often gets trotted out, but it's misleading. Imagine your grandparents were introduced to heroin and became addicted to it, and you built a society around celebrating and finding new ways to use heroin. Then your parents were hooked on heroin, and people may have found out that heroin actually isn't that good for you, but by this time, the heroin produces had amassed such wealth and power that they worked hard for 40 years to suppress and sow confusion around the science around. Now you're born into a society of heroin consumers, and to some degree you're also addicted to it. Is it the fault of the consumers that the world now runs on heroin? Especially considering that the heroin producers have known for 40 years, and have spent BILLIONS lying to the public and government?

donatj 7y ago
Your argument neglects the fact that designing society around fossil fuels improved everyone’s lives exponentially and made the non-agrarian lifestyle not only possible but accessible to billions of people. It’s not heroin, it’s more like some sort of intelligence drug with terrible side effects seen much later. It’s a Faustian bargain we’ve all benefited from in innumerable ways.
- 23throwaway23 7y ago
  The intent of the analogy is to make clear that consumers have little recourse over their "choice" to consume this material. Lots can be said about the tradeoffs of industrial civilization. We now see that it is leading us to extinction. It's like bacteria in a petri dish, for 50 years it accelerated our consumption of our limited resources and made the petri dish increasingly hostile to life within it. We all know how the story of bacteria in a petri dish turns out.
marcusverus 7y ago
This is a bizarre comparison. Petroleum was pulled out of the ground because was useful from day one. It is the backbone of the economy because it is useful. Pretending that petroleum is and has always been a vile, evil thing is poorly considered revisionist nonsense (typed into a petroleum plastic keyboard) Without petroleum, the world today looks a lot more like 1930 than it does 2020.

dmos62 7y ago

They are not being blamed for fossil fuel demand. They are being accused of fraud.

EliRivers 7y ago

I have a massive demand for cheap sandwiches but that doesn't make it OK for Subway to commit crimes in order to supply me with cheap sandwiches.