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Big oil is big because billions of people rely on hydrocarbons for transport, heating their homes, electricity, and many other things. Demonizing "Big Oil" is a

Big oil is big because billions of people rely on hydrocarbons for transport, heating their homes, electricity, and many other things. Demonizing "Big Oil" is a way to evade the fact that people are not willing to pay large amounts to stop the world from warming a few degrees.

j-pb 5y ago
That is ignoring the trillions of dollar this industry has spend on think tanks for the downplay of climate change, funding of paid for scientific articles to spread fud, funding conservative anti-science parties, lobbying for laws that actively hinder progress in renewable energies, hoarding patents on renewable energies, buying sustainable competitors and killing them. This is beyond "people don't want to pay more", this is "we could get the same energy but cheaper, but that wouldn't allow the very powerfull to exhauste an available resource to depletion before they move on and leave us all with the externalised costs".
- Proven 5y ago
  > That is ignoring the trillions of dollar this industry has spend on think tanks for the downplay of climate change Trillions? That's a lot!
- qeternity 5y ago
  > That is ignoring the trillions of dollar this industry has spend on think tanks for the downplay of climate change Hahaha oh my. Hyperbolize much? It's difficult to take the rest of your comment seriously after this. > This is beyond "people don't want to pay more", this is "we could get the same energy but cheaper, but that wouldn't allow the very powerfull to exhauste an available resource to depletion before they move on and leave us all with the externalised costs". You don't understand economics. If you make a bad thing cheaper, people will consume more of that bad thing, depleting it and screwing over the environment even faster. Fossil fuels need to be much much more expensive so people stop burning them. You can't have it both ways. Oil companies may be bad and evil, but you don't even have a tenuous grasp on the topic.
- ryan93 5y ago
  They haven’t spent any where close to trillions on think tanks. People want cheap energy don’t need think tanks to keep demand for oil high.
JulianMorrison 5y ago
Big industry of all sorts routinely tries to manipulate public opinion and the machinery of government to keep itself in business. That goes for big corn as much as big oil, but big oil is the one fucking over the planet.
- lupire 5y ago
  Did big oil buy you a big house in the suburbs?
  - JulianMorrison 5y ago
    Now ask me if I have a big house in the suburbs? Answer will be no.
throwaway894345 5y ago
Per TFA and many other sources, "Big Oil" (and many other industries) lobby and market hard to make sure that people misunderstand climate change and lack access to the information required to make climate-friendly purchasing decisions. Your comment is peak victim blaming.
- ryan93 5y ago
  Obviously not true. People have known about climate change for many decades. Every countries media discusses it regularly. Scientists have published countless thousands of open papers about it. You act like we just found out about global warming last week
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Of course we both know that it's insufficient that the media and science discuss it if huge swaths of the population distrust those institutions or if they get large amounts of conflicting information via their social networks. > You act like we just found out about global warming last week Humanity isn't a borg mind. Just because science has been increasing its understanding of climate change for decades doesn't mean that the average citizen possesses a climate scientist's understanding. And the carbon industries have worked hard to ensure that laypeople and especially politicians misunderstand.
    - ryan93 5y ago
      I actually think everyone understands that dealing with climate change means increasing energy costs substantially. Oil companies wasted money on lobbying. Human nature would have given us the same result
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        I've never met anyone who could estimate with any degree of certainty how much a given climate policy (e.g., a $15/ton tax on carbon with border adjustments) would affect a given product or service (not even gasoline, which is a straightforward derivative of oil) because supply chains are so opaque. No doubt there are economists and other academics who try to get in the right ballpark, but even then the error margins are enormous and economists account for a minuscule share of voters. > Human nature would have given us the same result Lobbying is human nature. Human nature already gave us this result. Banding together to overcome special interests is also human nature. Everything we do is human nature, so this isn't very meaningful. The meaningful question is whether or not we might have implemented carbon pricing by now were it not for corporate lobbying and disinformation campaigns, and I'm thoroughly convinced that the answer is "yes".

j-pb 5y ago

That is ignoring the trillions of dollar this industry has spend on think tanks for the downplay of climate change, funding of paid for scientific articles to spread fud, funding conservative anti-science parties, lobbying for laws that actively hinder progress in renewable energies, hoarding patents on renewable energies, buying sustainable competitors and killing them. This is beyond "people don't want to pay more", this is "we could get the same energy but cheaper, but that wouldn't allow the very powerfull to exhauste an available resource to depletion before they move on and leave us all with the externalised costs".

Proven 5y ago
> That is ignoring the trillions of dollar this industry has spend on think tanks for the downplay of climate change Trillions? That's a lot!
qeternity 5y ago
> That is ignoring the trillions of dollar this industry has spend on think tanks for the downplay of climate change Hahaha oh my. Hyperbolize much? It's difficult to take the rest of your comment seriously after this. > This is beyond "people don't want to pay more", this is "we could get the same energy but cheaper, but that wouldn't allow the very powerfull to exhauste an available resource to depletion before they move on and leave us all with the externalised costs". You don't understand economics. If you make a bad thing cheaper, people will consume more of that bad thing, depleting it and screwing over the environment even faster. Fossil fuels need to be much much more expensive so people stop burning them. You can't have it both ways. Oil companies may be bad and evil, but you don't even have a tenuous grasp on the topic.
ryan93 5y ago
They haven’t spent any where close to trillions on think tanks. People want cheap energy don’t need think tanks to keep demand for oil high.

JulianMorrison 5y ago

Big industry of all sorts routinely tries to manipulate public opinion and the machinery of government to keep itself in business. That goes for big corn as much as big oil, but big oil is the one fucking over the planet.

lupire 5y ago
Did big oil buy you a big house in the suburbs?
- JulianMorrison 5y ago
  Now ask me if I have a big house in the suburbs? Answer will be no.

throwaway894345 5y ago

Per TFA and many other sources, "Big Oil" (and many other industries) lobby and market hard to make sure that people misunderstand climate change and lack access to the information required to make climate-friendly purchasing decisions. Your comment is peak victim blaming.

ryan93 5y ago
Obviously not true. People have known about climate change for many decades. Every countries media discusses it regularly. Scientists have published countless thousands of open papers about it. You act like we just found out about global warming last week
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Of course we both know that it's insufficient that the media and science discuss it if huge swaths of the population distrust those institutions or if they get large amounts of conflicting information via their social networks. > You act like we just found out about global warming last week Humanity isn't a borg mind. Just because science has been increasing its understanding of climate change for decades doesn't mean that the average citizen possesses a climate scientist's understanding. And the carbon industries have worked hard to ensure that laypeople and especially politicians misunderstand.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    I actually think everyone understands that dealing with climate change means increasing energy costs substantially. Oil companies wasted money on lobbying. Human nature would have given us the same result
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      I've never met anyone who could estimate with any degree of certainty how much a given climate policy (e.g., a $15/ton tax on carbon with border adjustments) would affect a given product or service (not even gasoline, which is a straightforward derivative of oil) because supply chains are so opaque. No doubt there are economists and other academics who try to get in the right ballpark, but even then the error margins are enormous and economists account for a minuscule share of voters. > Human nature would have given us the same result Lobbying is human nature. Human nature already gave us this result. Banding together to overcome special interests is also human nature. Everything we do is human nature, so this isn't very meaningful. The meaningful question is whether or not we might have implemented carbon pricing by now were it not for corporate lobbying and disinformation campaigns, and I'm thoroughly convinced that the answer is "yes".