⚠️Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed. #ClimateCrisis
The case for prosecuting fossil fuel companies for homicide
"In today’s thinking, tort law—the law of civil wrongs—seeks economically efficient outcomes: The question is about whether one party should give another some money. Criminal law, by contrast, is concerned with society’s fundamental values—with morality. It answers whether conduct is permissible or forbidden. Where tort law prices misconduct, criminal law prohibits it.
" If someone substantially contributes to or accelerates a death, that counts as “causing” it. If they did so intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly, that counts as “culpable mental state.” "
Well, #ExxonKnew. #ShellKnew. They all knew, very early on and with astonishing accuracy, what the burning of their product will do. They not only kept on selling the product at great profit, they lied about it.
#ExxonMobil CEO, enjoying record profits, says you and I are not pulling our weight when it comes to addressing the #climatecrisis. I swear I am not making this up.
Exxon CEO Darren Woods says the quiet part out loud: The problem with renewable energy sources is that they “don't generate above-average returns for Exxon's shareholders.” — @pluralistichttps://pluralistic.net/2024/03/06/exxonknew/
The sun generates virtually limitless and free energy, with much of it available in the form of wind and tides. And we’re already well underway to harnessing that energy.
Former Exxon top DC lobbyist Keith McCoy “confessed to everything: funding fake grassroots groups and falsifying the science – he even names the senators who took his bribes. McCoy singled out Manchin for special praise, calling him "a kingmaker" and boasting about the "standing weekly calls" Exxon had with Manchin's office.”
The city of Chicago sues American Petroleum Institute, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil & Shell for “tobacco-industry-style campaigns to deceive and mislead the public about the damaging nature of their fossil fuel products.”
"A coalition of oil and car manufacturing interests in 1954 funded Keeling’s earliest work in measuring CO2 levels across the western US, the documents reveal.
Experts say the documents show the fossil fuel industry had intimate involvement in the inception of modern climate science, along with its warnings of the severe harm #ClimateChange will wreak, only to then publicly deny this science for decades and fund ongoing efforts to delay action on the climate crisis."
We know that #ExxonKnew, and #ShellKnew about climate change at a very early stage, but now it transpires that car manufacturers and banks also knew.
"A total of 18 automotive companies, including Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, gave money to the foundation. Other entities, including banks and retailers, also contributed funding."
The ASTOUNDING huge big news out of COP28 "so far" is Biden's comitment to not just build NO MORE, not one, coal plant ever again, but the cycle down and Replace ALL COAL PLANTS NOW within 12 years.
US TO REPLACE COAL PLANTS
Coal is 20% of the US power system. That is construction of massive size. Terawats of renewable construction. Funding for remefiation for energy industry jobs, protecting former coal communities.
Exxon no longer barks "Its a Hoax" "Its a Hoax" "Its a Hoax" "Its a Hoax" anymore, now EXXON barks "Its too Late!" "Its too Late!""Its too Late!""Its too Late!" But now we know EXXON is an EVIL self-serving LIAR.
The initiative secured $25 million each from six oil companies: BP Plc, Eni SpA, Equinor ASA, Occidental Petroleum Corp., Shell Plc and TotalEnergies SE. Some countries also ponied up, with the United Arab Emirates that is hosting COP28 providing $100 million; the US, $2 million; Germany, $1.5 million; and Norway, $1 million.
No mention of #Adnoc? Isn’t there a bit of a scandal with Sultan Al Jabar being part of COP28 while being the CEO of Adnoc?
BTW, indeed that list of oil companies seems to be a lesser of evils AFAICT, apart perhaps from Shell who Greenpeace really picks on for some reason (maybe the spills?)
The greatest of evils should of course be boycotted. There is no reason you have to buy fuel from:
Chevron (an ALEC member who was caught financing the cloakroom project to conceal meetings between US republicans and giant corps)
Exxon/Mobil who discovered climate change and concealed it (#ExxonKnew)
The best action is to stop driving a personal car. But if you don’t think you can (yes you can; #fuckCars), the least you can do is boycott #Chevron and #ExxonMobile.
This is Darren Woods, the current CEO of Exxon. He doesn't want you to think of him as a villain.
He wants you to "consider all options, even those that don't align with your ideology," while ruling out options that don't align with his free market ideology.
He wants "market-based solutions," but he also wants taxpayer investments in technologies that would keep Exxon in business--like carbon capture.
He says we need to "get real," while proposing that no slowdown of international trade is permissible.
"Oil and gas companies reliably provide affordable products essential to modern life. Making them into villains is easy. But it does nothing – absolutely nothing – to accomplish the goal of reducing emissions," he says, without presenting any evidence that recognizing the evil of Exxon and its human agents hurts the goal of reducing emissions.
"Back in 1979, #Exxon had privately studied options for avoiding #GlobalWarming. It found that with immediate action, if the industry moved away from #FossilFuels and instead focused on #renewable energy, fossil fuel pollution could start to decline in the 1990s and a major #ClimateCrisis could be avoided.
"But the industry didn't pursue that path. Instead, colleagues and I recently found that in the late 1980s, Exxon and other oil companies coordinated a global effort to dispute #ClimateScience, block fossil fuel controls and keep their products flowing.
"We know about it through internal documents and the words of industry insiders, who are now beginning to share what they saw with the public. We also know that in 1989, the fossil fuel industry created something called the Global Climate Coalition—but it wasn't an environmental group like the name suggests; instead, it worked to sow doubt about climate change and lobbied lawmakers to block clean energy legislation and climate treaties throughout the 1990s.
"For example, in 1997, the Global Climate Coalition's chairman, William O'Keefe, who was also an executive vice president for the American Petroleum Institute, wrote in the Washington Post that 'Climate scientists don't say that burning oil, gas and coal is steadily warming the earth,' contradicting what the industry had known for decades. The fossil fuel industry also funded think tanks and biased studies that helped slow progress to a crawl."
If you require the simplicity of putting a “good” & “bad” label on things, keep in mind the label will change depending on what you’re comparing. If you are comparing Starbucks to a mom & pop shop hole-in-the-wall diner, Starbucks would get the “bad” label. If you are comparing Starbucks to a company that dumps toxic chemicals into rivers and has massive insecticide spills in India before negotiating 3 figure payouts to families of the dead (Dupont), or a company that discovered #climateChange and kept it secret (#Exxonknew), it’s safe to give Starbucks a “good” label.
The article you posted foolishly relies on company size alone as a good/bad meter.
At least three groups — "Fridays for Future", "Fight Fossil Fuels", and "End Fossil Fuels USA" — are joining together to organize climate protests and strikes next month.
Here is part of their message...
The fossil fuel industry is driving a predatory and destructive economic system that harms people and the planet, fueling climate breakdown.
The science is clear: what the world needs now is a rapid and just transition to an energy and economic system that is efficient, fair, and universal. A system based on clean energy sources and produced with respect for nature and the sovereign rights of Indigenous peoples.
This September, as world leaders discuss climate action at the United Nations in New York, people on every continent will join the largest-ever globally coordinated action and together WE WILL end fossil fuels.
@breadandcircuses we know that the #fossilfuel industry knew in the 1960s that burning fossil fuels would cause global heating and lead to climate change. We also know that the same industry put knowingly put dangerous lead in our fossil fuel and suppressed the knowledge of that. If it was anyone else they would be in prison and they would be broke due to the compensation payout. #climatechange#exxonknew
We Are Witnessing the First Stages of Civilization’s #Collapse
Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland?
by Michael T. Klare, August 22, 2023
"The question today is: Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland?
"As Diamond argues, each of those civilizations arose in a period of relatively benign climate conditions, when temperatures were moderate and food and water supplies adequate. In each case, however, the climate shifted wrenchingly, bringing persistent drought or, in Greenland’s case, much colder temperatures. Although no contemporary written records remain to tell us how the ruling elites responded, the archaeological evidence suggests that they persisted in their traditional ways until disintegration became unavoidable."
"As early as the 1970s, #Exxon’s scientists predicted that the firm’s #fossilfuel products could lead to #globalwarming with “dramatic #environmental effects before the year #2050.” Yet, as has been well documented, Exxon officials responded by investing company funds in casting doubt on climate change research, even financing think tanks focused on #ClimateDenialism. Had they instead broadcast their scientists’ findings and worked to speed the transition to alternative fuels, the world would be in a far less precarious position today."
Back in 1985, Carl Sagan told Congress that continuing to burn fossil fuels will increase global temperature, cause climate change, melt glaciers and ice sheets, and cause sea level rise.
His solution: Fewer government subsidies for fossil fuels and use of renewable energy.
@davidho … and #exxonknew ExxonnMobile knew since 1970
and
the Oil & Gas trade assoc. knew since 1950
and
there was a newspaper published in 1899 that stated unequivocally that burning coal made CO2 which blanketed the earth and heated it.
(saw this post earlier; can’t find it again)
We’ve know for a LONG time.
The problem:
They have a transhumanist view. #onepercent gonna live underground cities.
a #greatreset of humanity seems their goal — remake society.
(within 200 years)
#BigOilAndGas can afford to fix the problem they created!
Largest oil and gas producers made close to $100bn in first quarter of 2022
Shell made $9.1bn in profit, almost three times what it made in the same period last year, while Exxon raked in $8.8bn
Oliver Milman, Fri 13 May 2022
"#Shell made $9.1bn in profit from January to March, almost three times what it made in the same period last year, while #Exxon raked in $8.8bn, also a near threefold increase on 2021.
"#Chevron upped its profits to $6.5bn and #BP reveled in its highest first-quarter profits in a decade, making $6.2bn. #CoterraEnergy, a Texas-based firm, had the largest relative windfall of the 28 companies, with a 449% increase in profits on last year, to $818m."
Chevron, Exxon Opt Out of Funding COP28 Methane-Reduction Fund (www.bloomberg.com)
Archived copies archive.today ghostarchive.org
Is Stealing From Corporations Morally Correct? (Yes. Just don't get caught.) | Beneath the Pavement (beneaththepavement.substack.com)