3 ms·

Did it really hurt their business tho? It seems that pushing climate change only improved their profit margins with artificial scarcity. I'm not sure people ar

Did it really hurt their business tho? It seems that pushing climate change only improved their profit margins with artificial scarcity. I'm not sure people are correctly analyzing their interests here. Renewables are still unreliable in winter, most of the oil is used in transportation and the power grid is just decades away from supporting electric cars. Minewhile they get to enact cartel style output limiting and competition suppression in the name of climate change. I'll also note that the narrative only truly took off when they started getting pressure from shale oil competition, not the literally 40 years beforehand that they had good margins. All in all I believe that the timing and actions are in their advantage.

simiones 4y ago
If serious action against climate change would have started in the 1970s, back when we could prevent the massive problems that we'll have live with in the 2050s and beyond, Exxon Mobil would have been out of business by now (or at least, would have had to pivot to some other industry). Also, oil producers have been coordinating and doing cartel-style output limitting since forever, this is not some new thing or some environmental purpose - OPEC exists exactly for this purpose.
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  If wasn't for you and those and the meddling anti nuclear protesters... - Scooby-Doo
  - concordDance 4y ago
    While, yes, anti-nuclear protestors bear a lot of the blame, what makes you think the parent was one?
- makomk 4y ago
  OPEC is an alliance of state-owned oil producers in the Middle East, and their influence on global oil prices were seriously curtailed when the US started producing more oil - if attempts by global warming activists to limit oil production in the democratic developed world were more successful that'd really help give them back power. Also, there's not really an OPEC analog for natural gas but the ESG movement seems to have had similar effects in practice. I reckon the comment you're replying to is exactly right - people have been mislead about their interests and the effects of specific policies on them. Specifically, the media has pushed for fossil fuel production to be cut back without first tackling the need for it and told people that the reason governments won't do this is because it'll hurt big oil's profits, and then when this had the opposite effect that it was the result of corporate profiteering, and that any claims to the contrary were just big oil propaganda. People bought this because it fit into their existing view of the world and all their friends did. Of course, this couldn't possibly work as advertised because it'd require consumers and the industries supplying them to burn fossil fuel that's not actually available. The whole reason prices go up and consumers can afford less is because the fossil fuel demand at previous levels of consumption can no longer be supplied.
  - machina_ex_deus 4y ago
    It's like mortgage, the existence of mortgages hurts the home buyers and increases the price of homes. You have to compete with other people willing to enslave themselves with long mortgages to buy the house. But approach a simple minded person and he'll say, "how can you get a house without mortgages"? People are so quite bad at understanding the interests behind actions and instead buy the misleading narrative that pushes them to do the complete opposite. Everyone's predicting the weather is going to become more chaotic yet the conclusion is that somehow we should rely on it to produce energy. Want to guess what would happen when that backfires? Oil makes a comeback and these people take a huge unearned profit. I think any solution to climate change that involves relying on the climate is absolutely bonkers. It's ridiculous. You have leaders flying jets and having coast line houses lecturing you about climate. Watch what they do not what they say. Words lie but actions betray thoughts.

simiones 4y ago

If serious action against climate change would have started in the 1970s, back when we could prevent the massive problems that we'll have live with in the 2050s and beyond, Exxon Mobil would have been out of business by now (or at least, would have had to pivot to some other industry). Also, oil producers have been coordinating and doing cartel-style output limitting since forever, this is not some new thing or some environmental purpose - OPEC exists exactly for this purpose.

calvinmorrison 4y ago
If wasn't for you and those and the meddling anti nuclear protesters... - Scooby-Doo
- concordDance 4y ago
  While, yes, anti-nuclear protestors bear a lot of the blame, what makes you think the parent was one?
makomk 4y ago
OPEC is an alliance of state-owned oil producers in the Middle East, and their influence on global oil prices were seriously curtailed when the US started producing more oil - if attempts by global warming activists to limit oil production in the democratic developed world were more successful that'd really help give them back power. Also, there's not really an OPEC analog for natural gas but the ESG movement seems to have had similar effects in practice. I reckon the comment you're replying to is exactly right - people have been mislead about their interests and the effects of specific policies on them. Specifically, the media has pushed for fossil fuel production to be cut back without first tackling the need for it and told people that the reason governments won't do this is because it'll hurt big oil's profits, and then when this had the opposite effect that it was the result of corporate profiteering, and that any claims to the contrary were just big oil propaganda. People bought this because it fit into their existing view of the world and all their friends did. Of course, this couldn't possibly work as advertised because it'd require consumers and the industries supplying them to burn fossil fuel that's not actually available. The whole reason prices go up and consumers can afford less is because the fossil fuel demand at previous levels of consumption can no longer be supplied.
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  It's like mortgage, the existence of mortgages hurts the home buyers and increases the price of homes. You have to compete with other people willing to enslave themselves with long mortgages to buy the house. But approach a simple minded person and he'll say, "how can you get a house without mortgages"? People are so quite bad at understanding the interests behind actions and instead buy the misleading narrative that pushes them to do the complete opposite. Everyone's predicting the weather is going to become more chaotic yet the conclusion is that somehow we should rely on it to produce energy. Want to guess what would happen when that backfires? Oil makes a comeback and these people take a huge unearned profit. I think any solution to climate change that involves relying on the climate is absolutely bonkers. It's ridiculous. You have leaders flying jets and having coast line houses lecturing you about climate. Watch what they do not what they say. Words lie but actions betray thoughts.