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I'm happy to blame big oil for plenty of environmental crimes and PR bullshit. But I don't think the commenter is wrong here. What do you think would happen if

by jurip 5y ago

I'm happy to blame big oil for plenty of environmental crimes and PR bullshit. But I don't think the commenter is wrong here. What do you think would happen if the big oil companies decided (and let's just ignore the shareholder revolt this would cause, for the sake of argument) that they're done pumping oil, and just closed the oil fields and scrapped their tankers? Would the world just celebrate the solution to the climate crisis and happily move on, from now on using only non-fossil energy sources?

jacobmischka 5y ago
I guess it's possible they meant both parties deserve some blame, you're right. When I read it initially it came off to me like the oil companies should be entirely blameless which just was hilarious to me at the time.
- nexuist 5y ago
  I think one nuanced take on this is that oil can be burned in many different ways, some more harmful than others. For example, smoke stacks without filters are obviously more harmful than those with them. The companies that operate power plants without filters should also be blamed, not just the third parties who supply oil to them. And of course, I don't think anyone blames oil companies for supplying oil for plastic production purposes; we blame companies higher up the chain for wrapping everything in plastic. I mean, there's someone in this thread complaining that salami comes packaged in plastic, which is a totally fair complaint, and also something an oil company has absolutely no control over.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  Oil companies are not making people buy large SUVs and other gas guzzling vehicles. At least as far as I know. They may be pulling the strings behind government incentives and consumer demand I suppose.
yborg 5y ago
It's not either/or, this is the point of trying to change board composition. These companies don't give their oil away, they are making enormous profits and it is reasonable as a society to insist that they invest some of those profits in alternate forms of energy that pollute less.
- meltedcapacitor 5y ago
  LOL enormous profits. Look it up. It's nothing that spectacular these days, which is why all (developed markets) major oil companies put together are worth less than Facebook.
- jurip 5y ago
  Yes, absolutely! I think there's plenty of blame to go around. But I see all too often flippant takes like "20 companies cause (a large X)% of greenhouse gas emissions" which just completely ignores demand.
twoslide 5y ago
It they stopped overnight it would be a disaster, but if they gradually reduced output over time then alternatives would come online. They would seem expensive, but demand would also adjust and life would change to adapt quite comfortably, I think. There would be some bumps, I'm sure, but I prefer that road to the scorched earth path.
lyschoening 5y ago
The more accurate scenario is one where they drop everything and rapidly switched to synthetic fuels and chemicals from solar, which initially would be prohibitively expensive. Would they do that, they wouldn't sell anything as they would bankrupt their customers, lest they ate some of the costs themselves until their customers had time to adjust. That scenario, while still being hyperbolic, is in essence what we need to see. Big Oil needs to shrink; their prices need to cover the cost to society, their products need to be used less and they need to spend a whole lot of money on cleaning up their mess.
- makomk 5y ago
  I don't think this is even a remotely plausible scenario. You've got to remember that money is just a convenient way of representing a certain amount of actual, real-world resources, and the big problem with "drop everything and rapidly switched to synthetic fuels and chemicals from solar" is that the real-world resources aren't there. Just the input energy that would be required to build everything would be immense, and I don't think we've got the production capacity for solar cells or the raw materials to do it either. Also, as I understand it the profit margins for fossil fuel production isn't particularly high. The companies have impressive-sounding overall profits, but that's mostly because they sell a lot of fuel thanks to it being used all over society for all kinds of things. In some sense, the benefits of cheap, readily-available fossil fuels are externalized to the rest of society, with competition heavily limiting how much of that benefit goes to the companies making them.
  - Isinlor 5y ago
    They don't have a choice. They can die or try to survive and likely die anyway. The CO2 emissions will be gone by 2050 even if it has to happen on the corpses of Shell, BP or Exxon. The world needs to shift the production power away from oil into renewables. > Just the input energy that would be required to build everything would be immense, and I don't think we've got the production capacity for solar cells or the raw materials to do it either. We can do bigger things than that. We need to create that capacity - grow it exponentially. I think you are seriously underestimating the capacity of human civilization once we decide to do something collectively. Vaccines normally were taking 20-30 years to reach market. Due to COVID we started vaccinating the world in less than a year. If there is a will there is a way. From MIT report "The Future of Solar Energy" https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/MITEI-The-Future-of-Solar-Energy.pdf https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/MITEI-The-... > There appear to be no major commodity material constraints for terawatt-scale PV deployment through 2050." > PV modules will become a major driver of flat-glass production at high solar penetration levels, but the availability of commodity materials imposes no fundamental limitations on the scaling of PV deployment for scenarios in which a majority of the world’s electricity is generated by PV installations in 2050. > Required growth rates for silicon and silver production fall well within the range of historical growth rates, even for 100% silicon PV penetration.
maccard 5y ago
In the shell scenario, they're being given 8 years to make changes. There's a big difference between a mic drop and a transition to alternative fuel sources.

by jurip 5y ago

jacobmischka 5y ago

I guess it's possible they meant both parties deserve some blame, you're right. When I read it initially it came off to me like the oil companies should be entirely blameless which just was hilarious to me at the time.

nexuist 5y ago
I think one nuanced take on this is that oil can be burned in many different ways, some more harmful than others. For example, smoke stacks without filters are obviously more harmful than those with them. The companies that operate power plants without filters should also be blamed, not just the third parties who supply oil to them. And of course, I don't think anyone blames oil companies for supplying oil for plastic production purposes; we blame companies higher up the chain for wrapping everything in plastic. I mean, there's someone in this thread complaining that salami comes packaged in plastic, which is a totally fair complaint, and also something an oil company has absolutely no control over.
SyzygistSix 5y ago
Oil companies are not making people buy large SUVs and other gas guzzling vehicles. At least as far as I know. They may be pulling the strings behind government incentives and consumer demand I suppose.

yborg 5y ago

It's not either/or, this is the point of trying to change board composition. These companies don't give their oil away, they are making enormous profits and it is reasonable as a society to insist that they invest some of those profits in alternate forms of energy that pollute less.

meltedcapacitor 5y ago
LOL enormous profits. Look it up. It's nothing that spectacular these days, which is why all (developed markets) major oil companies put together are worth less than Facebook.
jurip 5y ago
Yes, absolutely! I think there's plenty of blame to go around. But I see all too often flippant takes like "20 companies cause (a large X)% of greenhouse gas emissions" which just completely ignores demand.

twoslide 5y ago

It they stopped overnight it would be a disaster, but if they gradually reduced output over time then alternatives would come online. They would seem expensive, but demand would also adjust and life would change to adapt quite comfortably, I think. There would be some bumps, I'm sure, but I prefer that road to the scorched earth path.

lyschoening 5y ago

The more accurate scenario is one where they drop everything and rapidly switched to synthetic fuels and chemicals from solar, which initially would be prohibitively expensive. Would they do that, they wouldn't sell anything as they would bankrupt their customers, lest they ate some of the costs themselves until their customers had time to adjust. That scenario, while still being hyperbolic, is in essence what we need to see. Big Oil needs to shrink; their prices need to cover the cost to society, their products need to be used less and they need to spend a whole lot of money on cleaning up their mess.

makomk 5y ago
I don't think this is even a remotely plausible scenario. You've got to remember that money is just a convenient way of representing a certain amount of actual, real-world resources, and the big problem with "drop everything and rapidly switched to synthetic fuels and chemicals from solar" is that the real-world resources aren't there. Just the input energy that would be required to build everything would be immense, and I don't think we've got the production capacity for solar cells or the raw materials to do it either. Also, as I understand it the profit margins for fossil fuel production isn't particularly high. The companies have impressive-sounding overall profits, but that's mostly because they sell a lot of fuel thanks to it being used all over society for all kinds of things. In some sense, the benefits of cheap, readily-available fossil fuels are externalized to the rest of society, with competition heavily limiting how much of that benefit goes to the companies making them.
- Isinlor 5y ago
  They don't have a choice. They can die or try to survive and likely die anyway. The CO2 emissions will be gone by 2050 even if it has to happen on the corpses of Shell, BP or Exxon. The world needs to shift the production power away from oil into renewables. > Just the input energy that would be required to build everything would be immense, and I don't think we've got the production capacity for solar cells or the raw materials to do it either. We can do bigger things than that. We need to create that capacity - grow it exponentially. I think you are seriously underestimating the capacity of human civilization once we decide to do something collectively. Vaccines normally were taking 20-30 years to reach market. Due to COVID we started vaccinating the world in less than a year. If there is a will there is a way. From MIT report "The Future of Solar Energy" https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/MITEI-The-Future-of-Solar-Energy.pdf https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/MITEI-The-... > There appear to be no major commodity material constraints for terawatt-scale PV deployment through 2050." > PV modules will become a major driver of flat-glass production at high solar penetration levels, but the availability of commodity materials imposes no fundamental limitations on the scaling of PV deployment for scenarios in which a majority of the world’s electricity is generated by PV installations in 2050. > Required growth rates for silicon and silver production fall well within the range of historical growth rates, even for 100% silicon PV penetration.

maccard 5y ago

In the shell scenario, they're being given 8 years to make changes. There's a big difference between a mic drop and a transition to alternative fuel sources.