Leading energy companies are intent on pushing the world in the opposite direction, expanding fossil fuel production and insisting that there is no alternative. It is evidence that they are motivated not by record warming, but by record profits, experts say.
“They (Oil companies) have left no doubt that their pledges were deployed for cynical political purposes, only to be ditched when they no longer suited the industry’s strategic position,”
That strategic position was to avoid being governed, said Timmons Roberts, professor of environment and sociology at Brown University.
“The climate commitments … were almost certainly made to give the impression that they don’t need to be regulated because their voluntary pledges are adequate,”
You know, I’m kinda tired of every article about oil companies being either something straight out of police reports or just being the same “No shit, Sherlock” about them being evil, lying, manipulative and greedy assholes. I’d love to see them being fined some 50 billion dollars, but I feel they’d manage to overturn that anyway. Justice and police exist to protect property.
The problem with fining industry is that industry isn’t sentient. It’s the C-levels and management types that need to be seriously punished for pursuing profits over human lives. As long as we don’t do that, nothing is going to change. If you fine Shell 50 billion dollars, nothing substantial changes for the higher ups. Even if these guys would stop making money all together, it would just mean they would have to stop spending so much god damned money and just live of of the millions they’ve already made.
