7 ms·

Decades of disinformation by fossil fuels halted US climate policy

94 points by mzs 5y ago

spaetzleesser 5y ago
Same happened with nutrition (fat vs sugar) and smoking. Putting out misleading propaganda works. And a lot of political decision makers don’t really care about facts as long it gets them votes and donations.
- daniel-cussen 5y ago
  According to my view of justice, the act of carrying out a disinformation campaign is proof of knowingly and deliberately doing harm, to the point of the guilty endeavoring to stop even literate, intelligent victims from protecting themselves and those around them from the guilty. Through a full-court press of shitty little lies.
juanani 5y ago
One can only wonder which policies are being halted today by corporate interests. I can assume the largest players are always lobbying in their interest. What's the endgame? get mine, burn this mother down?
ryan93 5y ago
This assumes the public had appetite for expensive climate policies that subverted by the oil companies. In reality most voters don’t want to pay a lot for energy
- king_magic 5y ago
  They'll much prefer paying a lot for energy vs. the coming mass extinction from human driven climate change.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I have some serious doubts that 1990s Bob wanted to pay a lot for energy so that 2050 Linda could live better.
    - dwaltrip 5y ago
      Yeah! Fuck the future generations. Perhaps we should murder and eat our grandchildren. Sounds pretty tasty. Oh I misspoke. Let’s eat the kids from the developing nations. Far more civilized.
- toiletfuneral 5y ago
  lol sure, just like voters REALLY wanted the F-35
- cool_hacker 5y ago
  Well, the hackers on TheHackersNews certainly don’t want to High taxes amirite hackers?!
- kennywinker 5y ago
  It doesn't assume the public had an appetite, it describes how these bad-actors spiked the existing appetite. Even the idea that it's going to be expensive is a product of their disinformation. Inaction is the expensive choice... the cost of environmental degradation is HUGE. e.g. the california wildfires, the massive west coast heat wave this year, hurricanes, building dykes to hold back rising sea levels. On and on. The bill for fossil fuels is stacking up and we're all going to pay for it.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    *the future cost. I’m not saying the oil companies weren’t bad just skeptical that they are why we don’t have climate action
    - kennywinker 5y ago
      Well, the article outlines how oil companies influenced our lack of climate action. So the question is not "did they have an impact", it's "how much impact did they have". And given how the feedback loops of climate inaction and climate change work, even a little push in the wrong direction is likely going to be responsible for millions of deaths before the century is out.
cf100clunk 5y ago
Text version: https://text.npr.org/2021/10/27/1047583610/once-again-the-u-s-has-failed-to-take-sweeping-climate-action-heres-why https://text.npr.org/2021/10/27/1047583610/once-again-the-u-...
eulers_secret 5y ago
Worst-case climate change is going to happen. It cannot be stopped, those with money and power are too powerful and have too much money to be opposed. Billions will die or suffer so a couple hundred can be absurdly wealthy. The only path I see going forward is waiting until climate change related disasters are extremely bad (loss of life on par or worse than COVID-19 in US/EU, every year, for probably a decade); then we will see massive government investment into carbon capture/sequestration (probably run by the oil/gas giants who caused this). This is what the world looks like in an age of regulatory capture.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  Even this could be considered part of the strategy to deny responsibility for climate change. Action now to replace fossil fuels can still have an effect, and will still end up as net benefit to our civilization and even still our economy.
- bojangleslover 5y ago
  >The only path I see going forward is waiting until climate change related disasters are extremely bad (loss of life on par or worse than COVID-19 in US/EU, every year, for probably a decade); Climate change is too gradual for that to happen. We will adapt faster than the mean temperature rises.
  - Nevermark 5y ago
    Globally, "adaptation" may involve a lot of wars, violence and poverty as natural and managed resources decline, especially in the worst areas but spilling elsewhere unpredictably. The greatest tragedy is climate will continue changing for some time after we take real action. And there is no obvious limit to the damage until we do take real action. By the time we do take real action, on all the compounding problems (degradation of the oceans, deforestation, etc.) we may be left with only hard choices of what to mitigate at terrible cost, but no viable complete solution to a massive painful drop in human population.
- yodsanklai 5y ago
  > Billions will die or suffer so a couple hundred can be absurdly wealthy I think the responsibility is shared here. Middle classes in developed countries are high CO2 emitters and aren't willing to change their ways of life, even though they are well aware of the problem.
Hokusai 5y ago
> "Did we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these 'shadow groups' to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that's true. But there's nothing illegal about that. You know, we were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders." They were looking for their own bonuses, it's laughable that so much egoistic behavior is sold as "we are just doing our work" > Two names likely to come up at the hearing are Charles and David Koch, the conservative petrochemical magnates. They have poured millions of dollars into efforts to discredit the science of climate change. People like these would be held accountable for their in bad faith actions. They damaged all the world just for profit, thieves in the streets get ready more for much much less.
- makerofspoons 5y ago
  We need a Climate Nuremberg.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    We're all living it. It's called climate change.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      I believe it’s accountability and consequences OP was insinuating.
      - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
        Our society never was good at holding rich and powerful people/industries accountable for the damage they have done.
- Ansil849 5y ago
  > People like these would be held accountable for their in bad faith actions. They damaged all the world just for profit, thieves in the streets get ready more for much much less. What about holding the people who actually buy the products accountable? The Koch fortune originates from gasoline. That fortune would not be able to be amassed, and their influence would not have spread, if it were not for people driving. If you drive around, you are complicit.
goldenManatee 5y ago
At some point, the parties that gave and received lobbying and donations should be tried for crimes against humanity.
jhallenworld 5y ago
The problem is self interest and legalized bribery: "The coal industry has been shrinking in West Virginia for decades. But Manchin himself made nearly $500,000 last year from investments in the state's coal sector. He also raised $400,000 in campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies in the third quarter of this year, as he questioned the need for the CEPP. Manchin is the top recipient in Congress of donations from the oil and gas industry." On top of this, I think we have a huge problem with the Senate. The representation is terribly skewed, giving far too much weight to rural people. We need to break up the big states or something.
- svachalek 5y ago
  Giving representation to land never made sense in the first place, it's a 200 year old compromise over forgotten politics. Just make it proportional. Maybe 10 states share a senator, California and Texas get more.
- solarhoma 5y ago
  ‘There are less of you therefore you do not mean as much.’ This has been applied in the past with terrible consequences. The founding fathers developed the House and Senate to avoid a majority dictatorship.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The founding fathers developed the House and Senate to avoid a majority dictatorship. How does lowering the support threshold for total political control, as long as the faction seeking control is disproportionately distributed in smaller (and/or more effective at disenfranchising those outside the faction) states do that? It doesn't. It just makes dominance of a particular interest group, even with a majority, harder, while making dominance of the diametrically opposed group, even if it only has a minority, easier. (If the representational skew of the different bodies was opposite, it might do what you suggest, but both houses (and the electoral college) are, by design, biased in the same direction with different strengths.
    - 5y ago
gmuslera 5y ago
You don't commit crimes against mankind if you are rich enough.
ivansavz 5y ago
Here are direct links to the "caught on camera" videos with ExxonMobil lobbyists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNFBjcrU5Pc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNFBjcrU5Pc [10 mins] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1Yg6XejyE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1Yg6XejyE [9 mins] I found these to be a fascinating glimpse behind the scene of "political debate" about environmental issues...
Drunk_Engineer 5y ago
Interestingly no mention of NPR's role in the disinformation campaign: https://fair.org/home/public-radios-pro-fracking-spin/ https://fair.org/home/public-radios-pro-fracking-spin/

94 points by mzs 5y ago

Same happened with nutrition (fat vs sugar) and smoking. Putting out misleading propaganda works. And a lot of political decision makers don’t really care about facts as long it gets them votes and donations.

daniel-cussen 5y ago
According to my view of justice, the act of carrying out a disinformation campaign is proof of knowingly and deliberately doing harm, to the point of the guilty endeavoring to stop even literate, intelligent victims from protecting themselves and those around them from the guilty. Through a full-court press of shitty little lies.

juanani 5y ago

One can only wonder which policies are being halted today by corporate interests. I can assume the largest players are always lobbying in their interest. What's the endgame? get mine, burn this mother down?

ryan93 5y ago

This assumes the public had appetite for expensive climate policies that subverted by the oil companies. In reality most voters don’t want to pay a lot for energy

king_magic 5y ago
They'll much prefer paying a lot for energy vs. the coming mass extinction from human driven climate change.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I have some serious doubts that 1990s Bob wanted to pay a lot for energy so that 2050 Linda could live better.
  - dwaltrip 5y ago
    Yeah! Fuck the future generations. Perhaps we should murder and eat our grandchildren. Sounds pretty tasty. Oh I misspoke. Let’s eat the kids from the developing nations. Far more civilized.
toiletfuneral 5y ago
lol sure, just like voters REALLY wanted the F-35
cool_hacker 5y ago
Well, the hackers on TheHackersNews certainly don’t want to High taxes amirite hackers?!
kennywinker 5y ago
It doesn't assume the public had an appetite, it describes how these bad-actors spiked the existing appetite. Even the idea that it's going to be expensive is a product of their disinformation. Inaction is the expensive choice... the cost of environmental degradation is HUGE. e.g. the california wildfires, the massive west coast heat wave this year, hurricanes, building dykes to hold back rising sea levels. On and on. The bill for fossil fuels is stacking up and we're all going to pay for it.
- ryan93 5y ago
  *the future cost. I’m not saying the oil companies weren’t bad just skeptical that they are why we don’t have climate action
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    Well, the article outlines how oil companies influenced our lack of climate action. So the question is not "did they have an impact", it's "how much impact did they have". And given how the feedback loops of climate inaction and climate change work, even a little push in the wrong direction is likely going to be responsible for millions of deaths before the century is out.

cf100clunk 5y ago

Text version: https://text.npr.org/2021/10/27/1047583610/once-again-the-u-s-has-failed-to-take-sweeping-climate-action-heres-why https://text.npr.org/2021/10/27/1047583610/once-again-the-u-...

eulers_secret 5y ago

Worst-case climate change is going to happen. It cannot be stopped, those with money and power are too powerful and have too much money to be opposed. Billions will die or suffer so a couple hundred can be absurdly wealthy. The only path I see going forward is waiting until climate change related disasters are extremely bad (loss of life on par or worse than COVID-19 in US/EU, every year, for probably a decade); then we will see massive government investment into carbon capture/sequestration (probably run by the oil/gas giants who caused this). This is what the world looks like in an age of regulatory capture.

dv_dt 5y ago
Even this could be considered part of the strategy to deny responsibility for climate change. Action now to replace fossil fuels can still have an effect, and will still end up as net benefit to our civilization and even still our economy.
bojangleslover 5y ago
>The only path I see going forward is waiting until climate change related disasters are extremely bad (loss of life on par or worse than COVID-19 in US/EU, every year, for probably a decade); Climate change is too gradual for that to happen. We will adapt faster than the mean temperature rises.
- Nevermark 5y ago
  Globally, "adaptation" may involve a lot of wars, violence and poverty as natural and managed resources decline, especially in the worst areas but spilling elsewhere unpredictably. The greatest tragedy is climate will continue changing for some time after we take real action. And there is no obvious limit to the damage until we do take real action. By the time we do take real action, on all the compounding problems (degradation of the oceans, deforestation, etc.) we may be left with only hard choices of what to mitigate at terrible cost, but no viable complete solution to a massive painful drop in human population.
yodsanklai 5y ago
> Billions will die or suffer so a couple hundred can be absurdly wealthy I think the responsibility is shared here. Middle classes in developed countries are high CO2 emitters and aren't willing to change their ways of life, even though they are well aware of the problem.

Hokusai 5y ago

> "Did we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these 'shadow groups' to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that's true. But there's nothing illegal about that. You know, we were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders." They were looking for their own bonuses, it's laughable that so much egoistic behavior is sold as "we are just doing our work" > Two names likely to come up at the hearing are Charles and David Koch, the conservative petrochemical magnates. They have poured millions of dollars into efforts to discredit the science of climate change. People like these would be held accountable for their in bad faith actions. They damaged all the world just for profit, thieves in the streets get ready more for much much less.

makerofspoons 5y ago
We need a Climate Nuremberg.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  We're all living it. It's called climate change.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I believe it’s accountability and consequences OP was insinuating.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      Our society never was good at holding rich and powerful people/industries accountable for the damage they have done.
Ansil849 5y ago
> People like these would be held accountable for their in bad faith actions. They damaged all the world just for profit, thieves in the streets get ready more for much much less. What about holding the people who actually buy the products accountable? The Koch fortune originates from gasoline. That fortune would not be able to be amassed, and their influence would not have spread, if it were not for people driving. If you drive around, you are complicit.

goldenManatee 5y ago

At some point, the parties that gave and received lobbying and donations should be tried for crimes against humanity.

jhallenworld 5y ago

The problem is self interest and legalized bribery: "The coal industry has been shrinking in West Virginia for decades. But Manchin himself made nearly $500,000 last year from investments in the state's coal sector. He also raised $400,000 in campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies in the third quarter of this year, as he questioned the need for the CEPP. Manchin is the top recipient in Congress of donations from the oil and gas industry." On top of this, I think we have a huge problem with the Senate. The representation is terribly skewed, giving far too much weight to rural people. We need to break up the big states or something.

svachalek 5y ago
Giving representation to land never made sense in the first place, it's a 200 year old compromise over forgotten politics. Just make it proportional. Maybe 10 states share a senator, California and Texas get more.
solarhoma 5y ago
‘There are less of you therefore you do not mean as much.’ This has been applied in the past with terrible consequences. The founding fathers developed the House and Senate to avoid a majority dictatorship.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The founding fathers developed the House and Senate to avoid a majority dictatorship. How does lowering the support threshold for total political control, as long as the faction seeking control is disproportionately distributed in smaller (and/or more effective at disenfranchising those outside the faction) states do that? It doesn't. It just makes dominance of a particular interest group, even with a majority, harder, while making dominance of the diametrically opposed group, even if it only has a minority, easier. (If the representational skew of the different bodies was opposite, it might do what you suggest, but both houses (and the electoral college) are, by design, biased in the same direction with different strengths.
  - 5y ago

gmuslera 5y ago

You don't commit crimes against mankind if you are rich enough.

ivansavz 5y ago

Here are direct links to the "caught on camera" videos with ExxonMobil lobbyists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNFBjcrU5Pc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNFBjcrU5Pc [10 mins] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1Yg6XejyE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1Yg6XejyE [9 mins] I found these to be a fascinating glimpse behind the scene of "political debate" about environmental issues...

Drunk_Engineer 5y ago

Interestingly no mention of NPR's role in the disinformation campaign: https://fair.org/home/public-radios-pro-fracking-spin/ https://fair.org/home/public-radios-pro-fracking-spin/