# Big Oil are not Climate Change Denialists **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 3, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303 "2014-07-03T21:32:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/61 "2014-07-04T14:58:27Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Like the oil industry, the tobacco industry tightly controlled legislators at the federal and state levels, so anti-smoking campaigns had moved to local levels and the strategy of creating smoking bans. The youth program not only generated goodwill and helped to undermine anti-tobacco efforts, but it gave the industry a pretext for visiting retailers and paying them to report back to the Tobacco Institute (the industry’s former lobby group) on any political anti-smoking activities that they could then mobilize against – a strategy that was made public in an internal Institute document many years later. And so these things go, unknown and unseen by the public. It’s a three-pronged strategy: control the political process, undermine the public’s confidence in the relevant science, while all the while making yourself look good. We should be dubious on the motives of BO but the public statements, bland or not, seems like an unqualified good. The biggest hurdle for AGW is public perception and public support for AGW from BO can only help. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/62 "2014-07-04T16:10:21Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > We should be dubious on the motives of BO but the public statements, bland or not, seems like an unqualified good. The biggest hurdle for AGW is public perception and public support for AGW from BO can only help. What support? A one or two-line tepid remark on a website that is only read by the few people who are looking for it? Let them take out full page ads encouraging the public to reduce consumption. Let them stop financing political campaigns of candidates who have openly claimed that we don’t know why climate change is occurring. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/63 "2014-07-04T16:25:35Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Outside the USA countries like India and China don’t give a shit, and neither should they. We in the western world had our period of environmental rape, which was instrumental in developing our countries. And now we have the gall, as developed countries, to tell India and China that they are forbidden from following the same model? The US followed a lot of questionable practices when we were a young nation. Should we not be able to take international stands against things like violent strike breaking, child labor, colonialism, or slavery, because these were all things we used to do? ---
**Author:** ![LonghornDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@LonghornDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonghornDave)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/64 "2014-07-04T17:18:18Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The OP explicitly made the claim that Big Oil must not be opposed to climate change science because they posted some bland text on their web sites. To nitpick a little, I am specifically stating that Big Oil are not denialists. They might believe in it and think nothing can be done; believe in it and not want to do anything; believe in it and want to do some token effort that makes little difference; believe in it and want to make major changes. My point is that they explicitly do not deny climate change is occurring and is man-made. ---
**Author:** ![LonghornDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@LonghornDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonghornDave)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/65 "2014-07-04T17:21:57Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > … which is also, in very large part, recreational as well. I don’t think so. I think that certainly we overuse, but that based upon the way society is built, fossil fuels are a necessity for the time being. I mean this in the same way that I would say food is a necessity even though we clearly overeat and waste. Doesn’t mean fossil fuels will be a necessity forever. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/66 "2014-07-04T17:25:16Z")
I always find **GIGOBuster** to be a sad poster, I actually think (from many discussions) I agree with him on climate science but he is terrible in how he talks about it. Namely, he refuses to make arguments himself and use citations to back them up. Instead he only is willing to provide citations and expects you to basically come to your own conclusion by reading them. That may be fine if he was a college professor handing out assigned reading, but in a discussion forum you need to actually make points–and in GD or something use your citations to back up your points. Citations without commentary are not _interesting_, and people only engage in discussion on forums to be entertained. Some of his specific criticisms of **LonghornDave** are way off though. For one, I don’t think it should matter that in climate change circles where **GIGOBuster** is presumably very active, everyone already knows big oil companies are publicly accepting of anthropogenic climate change. That’s absolutely not a commonly known thing here, or at least it’s not commonly stated. Instead it’s commonly assumed in most posts here that all denialist propaganda is funded by Exxon and similar oil majors. A similar criticism we could make to **GIGOBuster** is that since everything he posts is common fodder from activist climate change communities, none of it is new or interesting so he should stop posting and sharing the mountains of links he shares, right? I imagine he’d respond that he shares them here to inform a forum that is not nearly as into this issue as various groups that have it as their sole interest. So all LD was doing was sharing more specialized knowledge not commonly seen here, so the fact it is widely known elsewhere is irrelevant to its value on this forum. The point about what private CEOs fund is a lot less interesting to me. Especially since I suspect there are large amounts of money coming from private CEOs mostly unconnected to the oil and gas industry that go into denialist campaigns. Something I recognized when I did research last year on political spending is that the overwhelming amount of money on that sort of thing does not come directly from corporate coffers anyway. So it really should be known at this point that most “cause” groups are funded by wealthy private concerns and not by publicly traded companies. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/67 "2014-07-04T17:27:58Z")
Anyway, there is no value to anyone, even the climate, for Exxon to waste money on stuff it has no expertise in. The proper way to look at oil majors at this point is sort of like a natural resource trust, they’re going to exist for 70 or so more years and spit out tons of money to shareholders, but they are not going to live forever. It’s not always best to keep a company going forever, and sometimes it’s a much better deployment of capital to simply let a company run out its profitability in the diminishing field where it is competent and the shareholders can put their money in other ventures later on. Companies don’t necessarily need to last forever to deliver shareholder value and sometimes an attempt to be eternally perpetuating actually hurts shareholder value. Most of the reports I read by Exxon project a robust petroleum industry for at least 70 more years but even their own reports see an end to it–I imagine their game plan is to just eventually fold up when that happens. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/68 "2014-07-04T17:32:19Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > We should be dubious on the motives of BO but the public statements, bland or not, seems like an unqualified good. The biggest hurdle for AGW is public perception and public support for AGW from BO can only help. As already noted, this token PR effort by Big Oil is completely outweighed by their political machinations and continuing subterfuge in funding denialist organizations to confuse the public, much of it anonymously through donor organizations and the like, as documented for example [here](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-013-1018-7) and [here](http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/exxonmobil-report-smoke.html). Why do you suppose not a single Republican candidate in the last Presidential primaries was willing to acknowledge AGW (with the exception, I believe, of Jon Huntsman, who never had a ghost of a chance)? There’s a lot more than just Koch money involved here. This is the most intensive anti-science propagandizing that has ever occurred in modern history. It actually makes the tobacco industry efforts totally pale by comparison. Which brings me to this point that I didn’t have a chance to reply to yet: > [@LonghornDave](#): > > The basic takeaway that I get is that when the science was less clear (on a multitude of fronts) we know they contributed relatively very small dollars to groups that were studying the alternative, likely with the goal of finding out that the problem is not as real or severe as it has turned out to be. That is a spectacularly uninformed statement from someone who claims to be an industry insider. Do you really think that in 2006, when the Snowe/Rockefeller letter was written to Exxon about their egregious lies about climate change (and the Royal Society statement made at around the same time) that we just didn’t know a lot about the subject? Snowe, Rockefeller, the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences and the IPCC sure seemed to know a lot about it! Do you for one second believe in the laughable idea that Exxon – at that time run by the notoriously denialist troglodyte Lee Raymond – was actually engaged in legitimate climate research in good faith? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/69 "2014-07-04T17:58:40Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Some of his specific criticisms of **LonghornDave** are way off though. For one, I don’t think it should matter that in climate change circles where **GIGOBuster** is presumably very active, everyone already knows big oil companies are publicly accepting of anthropogenic climate change. That’s absolutely not a commonly known thing here, or at least it’s not commonly stated. Instead it’s commonly assumed in most posts here that all denialist propaganda is funded by Exxon and similar oil majors. A few things. First I must say that in my view your criticism of **GIGO** is both inappropriate and incorrect. He does offer substantial views of his own, but always provides citations to back them up, a process that takes a lot of work and that many, including myself, often don’t bother with. I’m also finding it hard to follow the logic of the quoted paragraph. I, for one, was certainly very much aware the Exxon and other oil companies were making conciliatory-sounding statements on their websites; I believe in the case of Exxon it coincided with Rex Tillerson succeeding Lee Raymond in 2006, the latter being as I mentioned a notoriously myopic denialist. (Tillerson was probably also reacting to the Senators’ letter and the Royal Society, both of which criticisms coincided with the start of his tenure.) It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter what they “really believe”, whatever that might mean – what matters is that they continue to support organizations that deceive the public and promote denialist politicians to promote and preserve their self-serving interests which are so strongly at odds with the public interest. As already noted, what they say on their websites is rather moot compared to what they’re actually doing, specifically in terms of politics and undermining public faith in science, almost all of it behind the scenes. In my view, this makes their efforts to represent themselves as good citizens all the more reprehensible. It’s also my personal subjective opinion that different industries have different codes of ethics reflecting different cultures, and that the culture of the oil industry reeks of inveterate corruption from top to bottom, from the Middle Eastern potentates that they have to deal with down the whole refining and distribution chain to the last individual gas station owner. The scandal some years ago when an illegal cabal of some of the majors were conspiring to drive small independent refineries out of business, or when they were sued for illegal price-fixing, is just routine business in that sordid industry. And the biggest victim in all this is our climate and our health. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/70 "2014-07-04T18:25:14Z")
> [@LonghornDave](#): > > I don’t think so. I think that certainly we overuse, but that based upon the way society is built, fossil fuels are a necessity for the time being. I mean this in the same way that I would say food is a necessity even though we clearly overeat and waste. Doesn’t mean fossil fuels will be a necessity forever. American society, perhaps. But Europe has been making great strides on a multitude of fronts to reduce its dependence on the black stuff, and for quite a long time too - nuclear power, promotion of (electric) high-speed trains and mass transportation, fuel efficiency standards, reduced sprawl in favour of building tall etc… Germany, the population of which is _very_ strongly green and anti-nuclear, has been running a number of bio-diesel experiments notably decentralized power generation using local resources (i.e. household waste, wood chippings, vegetables etc…) as fuel, which not only generates power but produces harvestable heat and reduces the need for fuel transports. Compared to centralized power generation, it also reduces the loss of power inherent in a hub-like network. The problem there is that bio-diesel generates just as much GHG as the other kind - but it’s not fossil GHG introduced to the atmosphere so it’s still an improvement. ---
**Author:** ![LonghornDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@LonghornDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonghornDave)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/71 "2014-07-04T18:59:47Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Mutual funds are invested as the fund owner sees fit. Some of them do concentrate on singular purpose companies, but by no means all of them. > > As for “not since the 1970s” I’ll be sure to let Boeing, Comcast, Parker Hannifin, Procter and Gamble, Johnson Controls, Eaton, 3M, Kimball Industries, General Motors, General Electric, Lockheed, and Raytheon that they are fads and aren’t around, anymore, or buying companies to add into their groups. And those are just the ones I know off the top of my head. > > And it’s not “investors looking to diversify,” it’s companies that buy other companies that diversify their holdings to continue to give profits to their shareholders, usually hoping to keep a record of high returns intact, and to guard against their primary product or service dropping revenue and making them less attractive to shareholders. First, my tone was probably overly rude in my previous post, so I will try to avoid that going forward. Some of the company’s you listed are not conglomerates. However, the main point is that conglomerates were a fad that primarily existed in the 1960s. That doesn’t mean none exist today, but that they are generally looked at poorly. It is generally thought that conglomerates trade at a discount. It is also generally thought that it is better to let investors diversify on their own as opposed to diversifying within a company in an unfocused way. Also, I believe this statement of yours is nonsensical. > [@](#): > > And it’s not “investors looking to diversify,” it’s companies that buy other companies that diversify their holdings to continue to give profits to their shareholders Most would agree that diversification of investments is an overall good thing. Rather than achieve diversification by having a company itself diversify, it is thought to be better to let the owners of companies diversify on their own based upon their own specific needs and preferences. Your statement seems to act like companies diversify for the investors’ good but not because their investors want it. Companies are ultimately run by investors, so I don’t see the sense in your statement. > [@Farin](#): > > Oh, goody. Authoritarian hand-waving with no evidence. You have used none of your proclaimed expertise to show I am wrong. Please, educate instead of hand-waving. > > And suggesting commodities aren’t sold on a contract basis is…just plain confusing. Fair enough. > [@Farin](#): > > Taxes are a business’ best friend - they can pass along a price increase and point directly at the government for it and they bear very little ill will for that increase. Most oil and gas companies do not deal in any way with retail customers. They sell their product to other large companies. It is only portions of the downstream part of the business that deals with retail customers, and most oil and gas companies have zero little of that. The upstream oil and gas companies have zero dealings with retail. Having said that, the issue with some sort of tax increase on companies producing a commodity is that it won’t affect all producers of the commodity. This of course depends upon the specific structure of the tax, but let’s say it relates to the production of oil. Since oil is a global commodity, unless all countries tax equally it will be an additional expense for those being charged it. However, unlike a basic retail product, commodities are priced off of exchanges. An oil company can not simply just raise the price of their product. It doesn’t work that way. > [@Farin](#): > > It increases the retail price of their good while inflicting little of that pain upon the producer, even if the tax is on the production, it will get simply moved to the retail cost of the product/service and there will be very little effect on the oil companies. Even if the tax is added on the retail customer, increased taxes will harm producers as it will destroy demand. Will oil is more inelastic than some other products, demand does fall when the cost increases. Particularly so if the cost increases make substitutes cheaper. > [@Farin](#): > > Even though they are a consumer of oil, the EROI is something like 35x or 40x for oil and gas recovery. The final bill will do little to that portion of the production cost needle. You probably already know this but EROI varies considerably from one type of oil production to another. For example, shale plays versus deepwater versus conventional onshore versus tar sands versus secondary recovery versus tertiary recovery, etc. However, what I was really referring to is that many of the major integrated oil companies (which were only a few of the company’s I had in my original post) also have refineries. Clearly are large consumers of oil, and certainly are negatively affected when crack spread dynamics change, which would be a likely outcome from some sort of carbon tax. > [@Farin](#): > > It will have some effect on demand, but since demand is clinically cinched to oil and gas at the present time, it’ll only hurt the economy overall - not the bottom line of the oil companies. Even in the down years, while profits did go down in the Oil and Gas industries, they were never hurting for cash and generated profits. Which down years are you think of? Oil companies were floundering in the recent 2008/2009 period? I can show you dozens and dozens of bankruptcies. While big guys like Exxon made it through okay, their stock price nearly dropped in half and earnings were more than cut in half. The independents fared far worse. > [@Farin](#): > > For competition, unless the carbon tax is truly massive enough to warrant a move to other generator styles (e.g. cheaper to actually replace your Ford Focus engine with LPG/Propane/Battery/Huge Hamster Wheel than it is to continue to incrementally use gasoline – or replace your electric heater/air conditioner with a gas heater or to buy solar installations to augment electrical supply), no other products will come close to competition. It takes subsidies of solar and wind energies to come close to current household power costs (and even then, payback time is 10-20 years for most household solar installations, variation depending on what is needed for your particular area). And fuel costs are quite a bit below that. Some people are talking about some pretty large carbon taxes. Also, even small reductions in demand can cause certain types of production to become uneconomic. It isn’t making it uneconomic for Saudi Arabia to drill, but it might make it uneconomic for a Bakken producer if the price of oil fell. > [@Farin](#): > > It also wouldn’t reduce supply production. Since you are in the Oil and Gas industry, you’d know that current contract sale takes into account prices that are anticipated to happen in the future. Thus, if you’re buying coal or natural gas, or what have you, the known cost increase from a carbon tax coming into effect on July 1 (for instance) would have the six month contract pricing increasing starting on Feb 1 because part of the delivery would cross that threshold. That’s not really true. While clearly most oil sales use a futures price benchmark, it is the front-month futures contract and usually includes some sort of mechanism to mimic and spot price. In the U.S., a very common pricing formula would by the average daily front-month NYMEX futures price for the month less a 2/3-1/3 calendar roll (takes into account the contango or backwardation of the curve to mimic a spot price) less some sort of transportation or quality deduct price or minus some location differential. The basic point is that current pricing is based off of the currently traded price and not some future price. It would be extremely rare to do some sort of six month contracted price. That just doesn’t happen. If you want to lock in a price, you would do it by hedging with financial derivatives and still selling your product in the current market. However, I don’t really see your point. You seem to be saying that if you know the tax is coming into effect you can adjust your contract price to account for this. That can’t be done since you have no control over the price since it is based upon an exchange traded futures contract price. Sellers simply do not control their sales price in commodities. > [@Farin](#): > > The refinery/production companies will laugh all the way to the bank for upto a year before they start paying for a production tax (although, the longer the contract, the more likely it’s a “good customer” that would likely be able to negotiation some of this pain down). Fuel like gas and diesel, though, will change closer to the time of the tax increase. First, effects from pricing changes affect refineries versus production companies in drastically different ways. It is nearly always a good thing if oil prices increase and you are a production company. It could go either way for a refinery. For example, refineries were hammered when prices rose in summer 2009 as crack spreads plummeted. However, you are fundamentally thinking about it wrong. Production companies sell oil on floating price contracts not fixed priced contracts. Refineries buy oil on floating priced contracts not fixed priced contracts. You are simply misinformed to think otherwise. > [@Farin](#): > > Thus, the supply would only reduce if the contracts reduced, and they wouldn’t in the near term. Everyone would just try to pass along the cost increases to the consumer. The final-end-consumer (either business or individuals that have no one to pass a cost onto) would pay that increase price for as long as they remained profitable. So, by definition, the hope that the supply reduction would occur would be at the expense of jobs or profitability, either(/both) which would cause an economic slowdown. This entire paragraph does not apply to oil companies. An oil company cannot control the price of oil. It is based upon the exchange traded price. It would be impossible to purposefully pass the cost on. Now, it could happen, but it would happen much differently than you are saying. Since commodity prices generally trend to the marginal unit of production cost, an increase in taxes could ultimately cause oil prices to rise in order to maintain the supply/demand balance. However, the primary issue is that at a certain price, demand would be impacted. > [@Farin](#): > > If the economic slowdown happens fast enough, government won’t use it to stop carbon in any way, they’ll use it to plug their revenue holes. If the slow down is long enough off, I’m fairly convinced it’ll be used to prop up things (in the US) like the failing Highway fund or social security instead of reducing carbon. So, really, the only winner in a carbon tax is government that gets additional revenue. I don’t really disagree much although I do think energy sources that put off less CO2 would gain some. Gas gains over coal for example. > [@Farin](#): > > While pain is going to be a factor in any scheme, the above assessment is why I advocate for mandating that for each ton of carbon produced (or, in the case of fuels - to be produced at burning), a ton of carbon is mitigated by the producer of that carbon or fuel. Whether that’s sequestering, filtering at the smoke stack when it’s burned, or beaming it _up Scotty_ isn’t really my concern. It’s far better to have private enterprise focused on what they do best: Bloodthirsty and ruthless competition for the almighty dollar. This will lead to research dollars by companies to find the best way to mitigate the carbon, which will make technology in this area march forward faster than it is, now. While I do not have a fully formed opinion on this proposal, it just sounds impossible. It doesn’t sound difficult, it sounds downright impossible. > [@Farin](#): > > This will get passed along exactly like I laid out above, with all of the economic pain I talked about with one exception: You don’t have the possibility that government interferes and reroutes funds to things not related to what is considered an issue worth taxing over. I’m also cynical enough that in the future, I’m fairly sure that the tax will be applied to all energy concerns (even if we are 150% solar powered with no carbon emissions at all) for whatever socially acceptable reasons at that time come up because politicians aren’t about to let a lucrative cash flow source escape their grasp. Well, government would certainly have to regulate that, which would also be incredibly difficult and costly. The benefit of a tax is that it is simple, and generally easy to understand and comply with. It also makes some logical sense in that generally greenhouse gas emissions are placing a cost on society that people emitting them should pay for. > [@Farin](#): > > It’s hypocrisy to say that we should reduce our consumption while undertaking no effort to do so by the person or entity making the statement. But generally speaking, they aren’t the consumers. And, they do speak quite a bit, nearly every one of them that I researched, about their efforts at reducing their own emissions. For example, most talked about reductions in fugitive methane emissions and reductions in flaring. However, when you are talking about reductions of oil consumption, shouldn’t that be done at the consumer level? Again, I simply don’t see the hypocrisy in a producer saying that consumption should be reduced or that the growth in consumption should be reduced. > [@Farin](#): > > Exxon’s statement, since we’ve focused on that, says that we should put policies in place…Why can’t Exxon do this without waiting for all of the world governments to get into agreement (you know, in the year 2099 when it might actually happen)? Businesses can make internal policies. Better, these policies can be consistent with their political statements! What if they started to contract with their downstream users to provide them with mitigation technologies of some kind? Both a new source of revenue AND consistent with their political statements. _Fancy._ How would Exxon possibly go about doing themselves what they are promoting?For example, how could they possibly personally enact the following? [QUOTE=Exxon] Ensure that any cost of carbon is uniform and predictable across the economy [/QUOTE] Now, I understand how they can do something about fugitive emissions, for example, and they do say the are doing something about those types of things. Those are pretty small compared to the promotion of a carbon tax though. Also, to be fair, other companies such as QPC were on board with cap and trade and said they had set up trading arms. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/72 "2014-07-04T19:14:13Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I always find **GIGOBuster** to be a sad poster, I actually think (from many discussions) I agree with him on climate science but he is terrible in how he talks about it. Namely, he refuses to make arguments himself and use citations to back them up. Instead he only is willing to provide citations and expects you to basically come to your own conclusion by reading them. That may be fine if he was a college professor handing out assigned reading, but in a discussion forum you need to actually make points–and in GD or something use your citations to back up your points. Citations without commentary are not _interesting_, and people only engage in discussion on forums to be entertained. I think educated and sourced opinions are more valid than opinions that have no cites. Like yours. IMHO one that sincerely is not aware of some issues accepts the very strong evidence. Like when they showed me once in the Dope how Guinness beer was Irish, not British, I only did go :smack: and wondered who passed me that misleading bit of info in the past. In this case one should wonder aloud why the OP has not acknowledged that the original post was mostly a straw man. IIRC In past discussions it was mentioned that the funding of groups like Americans for Prosperity does not come from the fossil fuel companies, but nevertheless there are a lot of grubby hands related to the industry that do continue to fund denial. Your accusation that I do not make any arguments shows that you did not read the thread, so so much about who is a sad one. Your post was in the end just a very sophisticated ad hominem. ---
**Author:** ![LonghornDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@LonghornDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonghornDave)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/73 "2014-07-04T19:25:21Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Your OP pretends, (without providing a single supporting assertion), that only the haters of large companies have anything to say on the subject. In what way did I pretend that? > [@tomndebb](#): > > Your desperate effort to try to break the analogy on the grounds that the companies you are trying to defend have a “necessary” product fails. Regardless whether oil is or is not necessary, if the companies (tobacco and oil) both make nice sounding statements about the need to change behavior while actively funding efforts to prevent such changes to behavior, the analogy is perfect. Totally disagree. What happens if tobacco companies say that because their product is harmful they will no longer make it? Some consumers get upset that they can’t buy it anymore. What happens if oil companies stopped producing oil? Society completely breaks down. Even if oil companies were completely altruistic beings, they would needfully have to work on a long transition away from their products? > [@tomndebb](#): > > Nope. Posting bland, single line comments on web sites that “recognize” that climate change occurs (so that people such as yourself come to believe that they are not in denial) while continuing to fund “science” and politicians who obstruct every effort to avert more serious climate change simply means that they have engaged in the practice of marketing. That’s an absurd criticism of my post. I not only posted single line comments, however bland you believe them to be, I also included specific links that in some cases were long proposals of concrete actions some of these companies are taking. Take a look at the Apache one for example. I find it pretty insulting of you to state that all I did was post one line comments. The attempt was to show that it isn’t just one single company, it was essentially every single company that a person would possibly consider Big Oil. How could I possibly convey that in a single message board post format in a way better than what I did? If I focused on all of the efforts of a single company, it wouldn’t in any way show that the overall industry does not deny climate change. So, since you are a moderator and have likely are very experienced in reading thousands if not millions of posts, how would I have better shown what I was attempting to show? > [@tomndebb](#): > > They want to encourage people to purchase their products. If Company A says, “climate change is happening” and Company B says "“climate is not happening,” Company A can use the statement from Company B to advertise “Buy from us!” so all the companies say the same sort of bland, content free stuff. I think you perhaps don’t understand how commodities work. Since every single company is selling the exact same thing, their competitive advantage is not in any way related to marketing efforts. It’s all based upon the production side. Every customer pays the same amount and doesn’t care one bit who they buy from, for the most part. > [@tomndebb](#): > > Persuasive evidence would be a refutation of actual claims made against the oild companies rather than unsubstantiated claims that the straw man arguments you have posted are false. So you are saying I have set up a strawman? Must be inadvertent by me. I’m saying that some people claim that Big Oil are denialists and that this is not true. For this to be a strawman I would need to be replacing some other argument that people are making and replace it with this very simple to refute one. Since I am only interested in refuting this specific argument and not some other hypothetical argument that people are making, it isn’t by definition a strawman. Now, I take it since you think this is a strawman, I guess I have two questions. 1. What argument that people make do you think I am replacing? 2. Have I provided persuasive evidence on this so-called easy to refute argument that I am attempting to defeat? ---
**Author:** ![LonghornDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@LonghornDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonghornDave)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/74 "2014-07-04T19:36:59Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > That is a spectacularly uninformed statement from someone who claims to be an industry insider. Do you really think that in 2006, when the Snowe/Rockefeller letter was written to Exxon about their egregious lies about climate change (and the Royal Society statement made at around the same time) that we just didn’t know a lot about the subject? Snowe, Rockefeller, the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences and the IPCC sure seemed to know a lot about it! Do you for one second believe in the laughable idea that Exxon – at that time run by the notoriously denialist troglodyte Lee Raymond – was actually engaged in legitimate climate research in good faith? I think that as each successive year has gone on we have become more aware in a variety of ways. I also think that the dollar amounts that Exxon was supposedly donating were whispering nothings spread out across lots of companies and that many of them may have been continuing donations for some period of time that simply had momentum on their side and that many of them might have been made for a host of reasons. For example, Exxon provides employee matching contributions. Since they are thousands and thousands of employees, those donations could have been nothing more than the sum total of matching gifts from some random employees. I’m certainly not seeing any evidence that Exxon was donating dollar amounts that would possibly have the affect you are claiming. For example, show me the evidence that Exxon was donating enough money to basically dictate the policy positions of a dozen Republican presidential candidates. Giving $3 million spread across 30 companies doesn’t mean anything to me. That’s nothing and should have absolutely zero affect on anything. Certainly public statements claiming they absolutely agree that Climate Change is real and man made massively outweigh that sort of piddly little donation. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/75 "2014-07-04T19:38:32Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I think educated and sourced opinions are more valid than opinions that have no cites. Like yours. IMHO one that sincerely is not aware of some issues accepts the very strong evidence. Like when they showed me once in the Dope how Guinness beer was Irish, not British, I only did go :smack: and wondered who passed me that misleading bit of info in the past. Umm…the only opinion I’ve given in this thread is on you and LonghornDave as individuals. Surely you don’t believe a _personal opinion_ of another poster requires citations? If so–I cite myself, the opinion I gave was my actual opinion. > [@](#): > > In this case one should wonder aloud why the OP has not acknowledged that the original post was mostly a straw man. IIRC In past discussions it was mentioned that the funding of groups like Americans for Prosperity does not come from the fossil fuel companies, but nevertheless there are a lot of grubby hands related to the industry that do continue to fund denial. Take this as my response to **Wolfpup** as well since it covers all I’d have to say to him. Actually I think the OP made a very narrow point, and never tried to make any further arguments. His narrow point was “the oil majors publicly accept global warming is happening.” You can either say “so what” or whatever, but to try and counter it as if he made a more sweeping point is invalid. You guys act like he has said Exxon is a great agent for social change on the environment and you have to refute this evil lie–but he never made those arguments. There is certainly strawmanning going on, but not from **LonghornDave**. > [@](#): > > Your accusation that I do not make any arguments shows that you did not read the thread, so so much about who is a sad one. Your post was in the end just a very sophisticated ad hominem. I never said that, and the concept that it was a “sophisticated” anything is questionable. It was a few sentences in which I expressed my opinion of your posting habits. Most notable in this very thread someone asked you a simple question about alternative energy sources and you couldn’t just give a single example as an answer, you refused to answer a few times then hit him with a citation parade. Why couldn’t you have just listed, as a matter of example, a single technology? In the thread itself, not through link-city? ---
**Author:** ![LonghornDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@LonghornDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonghornDave)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/76 "2014-07-04T19:40:26Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > American society, perhaps. > But Europe has been making great strides on a multitude of fronts to reduce its dependence on the black stuff, and for quite a long time too - nuclear power, promotion of (electric) high-speed trains and mass transportation, fuel efficiency standards, reduced sprawl in favour of building tall etc… > > Germany, the population of which is _very_ strongly green and anti-nuclear, has been running a number of bio-diesel experiments notably decentralized power generation using local resources (i.e. household waste, wood chippings, vegetables etc…) as fuel, which not only generates power but produces harvestable heat and reduces the need for fuel transports. Compared to centralized power generation, it also reduces the loss of power inherent in a hub-like network. The problem there is that bio-diesel generates just as much GHG as the other kind - but it’s not fossil GHG introduced to the atmosphere so it’s still an improvement. I don’t completely disagree with everything you are stating, although I do disagree in certain ways with parts of it. However, I don’t really see what you are saying as a refutation of what I said. I absolutely don’t think European society would be any good example of a society where fossil fuels are not a necessity. European society would absolutely collapse if they had to stop using all forms of fossil fuels tomorrow. I think maybe some random tribal society would be a better example of a place where fossil fuels are not a current necessity. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/77 "2014-07-04T19:40:33Z")
> [@LonghornDave](#): > > So you are saying I have set up a strawman? Must be inadvertent by me. I’m saying that some people claim that Big Oil are denialists and that this is not true. For this to be a strawman I would need to be replacing some other argument that people are making and replace it with this very simple to refute one. Actually you started the OP by declaring that “Seems like most threads discussing climate change inevitably have someone talk about how evil Big Oil secretly funds all the Climate Change denialism going on.” The “some people” you are referring are the people from this message board indeed. And maybe you have others in mind, but as I also remember what \*\*wolfpup \*\*linked also in the past, it is clear that your say so does not apply to most of the ones that are aware of the issue in the dope. As I get involved in most of the discussions it is clear that on many occasions the byzantine ways how funding from elements of the Oil industry gets to denier groups was discussed. I do remember reading and linking to cites that reported how Exxon and other groups stopped funding, for example, the denier Heartland Institute after they did the stunt of comparing dictators and terrorists with climate scientists or proponents. It may be so that some are not aware of what the Oil industry is officially reporting, but they are aware of how many involved in the industry are denying what their own corporations are affirming, unless I see the corporations confronting and shaming officially those “captains of industry” that are denying what the companies are declaring I will say that the companies’ declarations in their web sites are just cheap talk. ---
**Author:** ![LonghornDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@LonghornDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonghornDave)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/78 "2014-07-04T19:42:36Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > In this case one should wonder aloud why the OP has not acknowledged that the original post was mostly a straw man. IIRC In past discussions it was mentioned that the funding of groups like Americans for Prosperity does not come from the fossil fuel companies, but nevertheless there are a lot of grubby hands related to the industry that do continue to fund denial. I think someone already did wonder aloud. Here was my response. [QUOTE=LonghornDave] So you are saying I have set up a strawman? Must be inadvertent by me. I’m saying that some people claim that Big Oil are denialists and that this is not true. For this to be a strawman I would need to be replacing some other argument that people are making and replace it with this very simple to refute one. Since I am only interested in refuting this specific argument and not some other hypothetical argument that people are making, it isn’t by definition a strawman. Now, I take it since you think this is a strawman, I guess I have two questions. 1. What argument that people make do you think I am replacing? 2. Have I provided persuasive evidence on this so-called easy to refute argument that I am attempting to defeat? [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/79 "2014-07-04T19:44:21Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > It may be so that some are not aware of what the Oil industry is officially reporting, but they are aware of how many involved in the industry are denying what their own corporations are affirming, unless I see the corporations confronting and shaming officially those “captains of industry” that are denying what the companies are declaring I will say that the companies’ declarations in their web sites are just cheap talk. And that’s just your opinion on their position–it doesn’t at all contradict that their official statements show their position on climate change. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303/80 "2014-07-04T19:44:45Z")
> [@LonghornDave](#): > > I don’t completely disagree with everything you are stating, although I do disagree in certain ways with parts of it. However, I don’t really see what you are saying as a refutation of what I said. I absolutely don’t think European society would be any good example of a society where fossil fuels are not a necessity. European society would absolutely collapse if they had to stop using all forms of fossil fuels tomorrow. I think maybe some random tribal society would be a better example of a place where fossil fuels are not a current necessity. Good think that the IPCC and virtually all proponents of change never ever said that we should stop cold turkey. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-oil-are-not-climate-change-denialists/692303.md?page=5)