Yes, roll eyes for effect. It must be very hard for you to respond to my posts, especially after your numerous accusations of me ignoring posts from you I have clearly already responded to.
I’m attempting clarification on this point because I am getting absolutely contradicting responses from the two people responding most vociferously to this. Further, I would like you to answer in a clear way. Quit you references to previous posts. Confirm that you disagree with what Wolfpup says? Wolfpup says that it is clearly a bad thing and that any claims to the contrary have been thoroughly demolished in this thread. If you disagree with him, I’d like you to specifically state it.
The first time I pointed that you avoided replying to that specific item it was still a valid complaint, you then replied with just a dismissive “will look at it later”.
If you press it that way, then yes, I do not disagree with him.
Once again the only way one can agree with your sorry OP is that one should ignore a lot of context.
Sorry, but you did reply to 3 items in my post, it was the 4th one the most difficult one and it was deftly avoided. And I remarked on it. Your complaint here that you could not do so because of time is the pathetic one since you could to it for all other items.
This is clearly an opinion item. I’m certainly not saying agree to disagree, but there is never a factual answer on how on point any analogy is. I find this particular item unworthy of much additional discussion, but you’re the moderator expert so I can keep going if you really find this an interesting point of discussion.
I’m not allying with any side. I would be interested to know what side you think I’m on. I’m not sure what specific side I would be on other than the stop arguing against an all evil boogie man side, which both major political parties are apt to do.
But, I guess I’ll keep going on this specific point since you seem to think it continues to worthy of discussion. I’d like to see some evidence of enormous money from Big Oil going to denialism. I’ve seen some evidence of small money going toward it, especially several years ago. I’ve also seen some evidence of medium money going to completely unrelated items. I’ve yet to see evidence of large money going towards climate change denialism.
Further, I don’t know how to say this any more clearly but I think when your back is against the wall and you are facing extinction (like tobacco was) you have different motivations than if you are in the strong position of continuing large profits for decades to come. One is arguing from a position of strength and has less reason to lie. I think that makes the analogy not apt. I certainly can understand that some people might disagree since it is entirely opinion based, but I strongly disagree. You can bring your definitive “you are wrong” statements all you want, but you’re failing to back them up.
Finally, I’d like to say, you moved from your moderator stance of “may or may not have funded the various pseudo-scientific research efforts” to now they are “spending an enormous amount of money to persuade the public”. At the very least you should thank me for starting this thread as your stance has clearly changed enough since you must have done enough research on the topic (since I started) to convince yourself to change so much. I guess we can both thank the straightdope.com message board for allowing discussion like this to take place as many of us learn things, even if some of us like to stifle that.
Jesus Christ, pathetic. I’m not trying to twist anyone’s words here. I’m not arguing any straw man. I’m saying I think it is a worthy discussion point to say they are a hypocrite. No where in the language I used did I state that that was the only, commonly, or even what any person was arguing. I stated that I thought it was a related discussion point among several (unnamed) discussion points. I stand by that, think it would be a useful discussion point, and think that some people (including in this post) would make that claim.
Now, to address a meaningful point and try to get the topic off of freshman fallacies of argument topics, I again don’t think that Big Oil is spending a lot of money to convince the public that the way we are using oil is having no money on the environment. I think, in fact, that zero evidence has been posted for that claim. I think some people have tried to show how Big Oil has spent some small amounts of money to back some pseudo-science studies that disclaim links while at the same time making definitive statements that they themselves fully believe climate change science. Any evidence to the contrary?
Man, I thought we were getting somewhere, but you go ahead and ignore my posts to the contrary. You were so insistent that I not talk about small potatoes, Apache, and instead talk about big Exxon. I thought I complied with your orders. What exactly was it about the 51 page Carbon Disclosure Project report that I provided that has you continuing to call it a couple of lines on a web page? How many lines until you call it a few? Most people consider a couple to be two, maybe three. They’ve got 51 pages worth of nothing but climate page discussion for 2013 and imminent future in a question and answer format designed specifically by a climate change activist. Can you upgrade it to a few lines? Maybe several?
Well, I think you are completely incorrect here. I think I have numerous posts without referencing those often discussed “one-liners” (i.e. 51 page documents). I think you might not be following this discussion carefully if you think I’ve done nothing but continue to reference those scary “one-liners”. I can re-link them if you would like. Your moderator powers might already let you research previous posts. Let me know; I’d be glad to help.
I would like to honestly thank you for responding to this in what seems like an uncondescending and mature manner. I think that criticism might be valid and is worth discussing. Are you talking about Exxon here? I think they, at least from an oil company perspective, probably are leading the way. They are probably at a slower pace than most would like, but I think efforts like their (Exxon’s) Carbon Disclosure Project are somewhat leading the way. They are in active discussion with shareholders that are concerned. What specific actions could they make more to lead the way and show civic responsibility? You said you’re good with them still producing oil and promoting their products. You don’t seem to like their other actions. What’s the next step they should take?
And see, I think that calling them denialists is a specific accusation that they are denying climate change? I mean, how could it not be? It’s the very definition of the word. Now, in your response to #1 up top, you made it seem like funding denialists makes you a denialist. I’m pretty sure I never said they can’t possibly be funding denialists if they make some (now tepid) “one liners”. I’d be interested in you showing where I specifically said that. Also, please remember that I’d be happy to show those links where I did more to respond to claims of them funding than posting those same “one liners”. If you need me to do it, I’m here to help. By the way, it might color your response to know that there are people, even experts, right here in this here thread that continue to call them Big Oil folks denialists. I mean, I might be creating a strawman and all, but some of those strawmen have come to life, right here, and are stating, right here, that these Big Oil guys are denialists. Crazy, since I created that strawman out of thin air. If you’d like, I can point some of that strawman activity to you.
Okay, just to make sure, are tepid, feel good “one liners” not acceptable? I just want to make sure. I mean, the last thing I’d like to do is post any more “one liners”. Can you please point out exactly which Wolfpup post you are referring to. I might have already responded (hopefully not with a tepid, feel good one liner), and I want to make sure I know which one you are referring to. I promise I’ll respond if you point it out.
Done and done. I think I still completely disagree with you, find your posts totally condescending, ambivalent to the other discussion having taken place, and devoid of logic. I’m pretty sure they might also be myopic, close-minded, and useless.
They’re definitely very hateful toward those terrible one liners though. Winky face.
And my response is that I quoted it and responded to it first of all. I may not have done so in a manner you liked, but I hardly ignored it. I’m willing to think you might have just overlooked my response, but I’d at least like some general acknowledgment that I didn’t avoid anything, deftly or not. Fact based questions take a little more time to respond to (and we all are unaware of each other’s schedules) than opinion based questions.
I’m perfectly willing to take my lumps, argue with people that know more about certain topics than me, and admit when I’m wrong. I’m highly sensitive to responses saying I’m ignoring or avoiding tough questions. I’m doing no such thing.
I will say that when I first responded, I didn’t really understand the wording in your response and thought it was more rhetorical in nature. My apologies as I didn’t understand how important it was to you. Like I said though, I’ll undertake the effort (maybe you know the answer in advance and maybe you don’t; I sure as hell don’t).
Okay, just wanted it on the record that you (like wolfpup) think it is a bad thing that oil companies publicly acknowledge man made climate change.
I think you are doing your side (not my side and not contrary to my side) no favors with this sort of thought process. I think you would be better off taking every bit of additional support that you can get. I’m not trying at all to sound adversarial, but you yourself acknowledge that a huge part of the problem is the denialism (literally denial of the problem) by certain politicians and the public. How does it not undercut, even slightly, that denial when some of the biggest actors publicly state their agreement that the science is sound?
To me, the slow, steady build of consensus is the way to go on most major issues. When, for example, Bill Gates relays his (reasonable sounding to me) conversations with a Charles Koch, I take some hope that ultimately reasonable heads will prevail. I think that the ultra-confrontational stance ultimately does more harm than good, if your real goal is action on the issue rather than being on the winning side of a debate.
To me, I think it would be incredibly powerful for a politician (in a debate) to show how out of touch his opponent is if even there is broad consensus from oil companies. I think that making the oil companies part of even a stop gate partial solution would be better than another decade of stall. I think generally that environmentalists shoot themselves in the foot often pushing for the perfect solution instead of improvements over the status quo.
It is in the nature of any organization to protect its self interest.
If “Big Oil” decides the the best PR is giving lip service to climate change science while continuing with business as usual, that’s the tack they’ll take. Internally they are going to probe for weakness of any perceived external threat to buy time while they reassess the market.
While this may seem to make them a nice scapegoat for those who want climate change to be anybody’s fault besides me and Al Gore, it’s not as if this sort of behaviour is peculiar to “Big Oil.” It’s no different than the behaviour of my local school district, my state and national government, or the IPCC for that matter.
Inside any organization, the approach to external threats to their existence is a matter of great concern, and in the modern world at least, every public message is carefully manipulated to serve the interest of the organization. A fly on the wall at internal meetings around public messaging would yield quite a different perspective from the final one given out for public consumption. Every organization has a broad range of perspectives distinct from the official party line.
It’s not clear to me where “Big Oil’s” official position on Climate Change science has much relevance at all. They are in business to meet a demand for energy. That demand is astoundingly unlimited, created by the desire of every human on earth to live life as richly as possible. Nothing is going to happen to oil consumption until we have enough alternate energy to replace it, and for the forseeable future we will be consuming every watt we can create from every source. Not nuclear instead of oil; nuclear plus oil. If I were Big Oil, I’d be saying “Yes, dear; the situation is very concerning. We are very concerned with you” to the IPCC and climate change alarmists, and then after patting them on the head gently, go sell oil to the vast majority of the world’s population demanding a better life. On the side, I’d be looking at ways to cover my ass should demand change for my product and new energy sources come into play that require me to shift product lines.
The thing that keeps Big Oil alive is not disingenuous PR. It’s me (and Al Gore), and all the rest of us who want to live well. So of course there is no reason really, for them to deny Climate Change until such time as the alarmists have some sort of reasonable alternative to oil (at which point Big Oil will begin to switch product lines).
And I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what is happening and what will continue to happen.
Oh for Christ’s sake cut the silliness. I’ve said, probably at least six times in this thread, that the basic facts of AGW are so well established that it’s essentially impossible for a major multinational to try to publicly deny them – it would be PR madness and make them vulnerable to attack and ridicule from scientists and responsible politicians. Which already happened many times in the past – as per the letter from Snowe and Rockefeller or the criticism by the Royal Society or the UCC – and it gave their image a black eye. In this post I implied, mostly tongue-in-cheek, that an environmental activist might almost wish that they continued to openly deny climate change because then it would be trivially easy to expose them as the discreditable miscreants that they are. Sorry you missed the humor.
I stand by all the points I made in that post and you haven’t refuted any of them. It’s not useful to continue to insist that disclosing their own industrial emissions is somehow a “good thing” when it’s an empty PR gesture that accomplishes nothing. And it’s no good insisting that the Carbon Disclosure Project or the allegation that they publicly support a carbon tax somehow makes Exxon a terrific corporate citizen when both those initiatives are entirely self-serving, and the latter isn’t even accurate – they prefer a carbon tax to cap-and-trade, because they can manipulate it to their own ends, but they actually oppose both. Nor is it any good calling my positions on those things an “outlier” when those positions are backed up by cited facts from reputable sources. Remember my story about the tobacco companies’ youth carding program allegedly to prevent young people from smoking. Why would a historically sordid and dishonest industry like tobacco suddenly become responsible and act against its own interests? As I described, the answer was that they wouldn’t and they didn’t – it was a brilliant PR move that helped them fight anti-tobacco regulation at the local level where it was most effective, and actually made it more likely that young people along with everybody else would take up smoking. What Exxon is doing in their public posturing is exactly the same, and I gave you the evidence for it.
There are already alternatives and thank you for ignoring how Al gore is** not at all like you** (In fact most of his investments now are for alt energy companies), it makes it easy to figure out people that have no ideas left. Like you.
I agree with the first part, but it’s also a mistake to consider Big Oil equivalent to other companies or industries. The scale at which they operate (Exxon’s revenues are larger than the GDP of many nations) is alone enough to make them unique. But oil companies also share with the tobacco and health insurance industries a kind of intrinsic dishonesty that is inherent in the products that they peddle – the harm that they cause in the case of the first two, and their utter unproductive uselessness in the case of the latter. All three, as I said earlier, are very major users of public relations agencies, often in nefarious ways. There’s probably not really a lot of secret inside information about companies like Apple or IBM or Google that would really shock people. Not so for that group of three. Not all industries are equivalent, not by a long shot.
Comparing oil companies with school boards or government is just silly, and comparing them to the IPCC is too ludicrous for words. Exxon makes hundreds of billions a year and will do anything to protect its enormous profits, including lying about climate change; the IPCC doesn’t even pay the scientists who write its reports.
According to LonghornDave, this is impossible because oil is all they know. Apparently they will peddle nothing but oil to the bitter end.
Piffle, as **wolfpup **said you started behind an eight ball of your own making. The point I made stands it is just more complicated than what you can conceive, but that is not my problem, once again what is important is that many others can see through the inadequate and incomplete view that you have.
You were not happy enough to help by showing all those full of hot air simple deniers that even the fossil fuel companies officially accept the science you needed to pile ip on the straw that others in the SDMB did the same; however, right away you showed how wrong you were regarding people like me that in many past discussions already pointed at the oil companies not directly funding deniers anymore, it is also a reality that powerful members of those same companies are still doing efforts against the declared “official” positions. It is also a reality that those same companies are not lifting a finger to remove the ones that are blatantly going against what they declared.
I insist that until I see them stopping funding deniers and start instead to fund more groups** and politicians** (This is the key now) that will follow the “official” positions, the companies will still need to be treated as the robber barons that they are. (The robbery is in not taking into account the real costs of treating the atmosphere as a sewer, resulting in things like the loss of coastal cities)
Don’t tell us it is raining when in reality it is the companies or CEOs and others that are peeing on us.
I should also add to what I said before, which wasn’t really a direct response to that, that Big Oil absolutely does have a reason to deny climate change and that’s why they’ve been doing it. Numbers like 50 or 100 years of allegedly guaranteed oil consumption are thrown around as if they actually mean something. The reality is that the oil consumption curve – and the future decline thereof – depends to a very great extent on the public perception of climate change and the role of fossil fuels in driving it, because the development of alternative energy is almost entirely a matter of demand, money, and political will. Simply put, the more the public understands the dangers of climate change, the faster fossil fuels will be phased out. Oil and coal companies want to postpone that eventuality as long as possible.
Excluded middle fallacy. You’re overlooking the fact that it’s perfectly possible for Big Oil to have both a long-term incentive for acknowledging anthropogenic climate change and pursuing non-fossil-fuel energy alternatives, and a short-term incentive for delaying popular acceptance of climate change science and its anti-fossil-fuel implications as long as possible.
And indeed, that’s exactly why fossil fuel companies pay lip service to the importance of climate change while funding researchers and organizations attempting to downplay or disparage the importance of climate change.
Your naive oversimplification of the economic incentives implies that fossil fuel companies have no rational reason to care whether, say, US consumers cut back on purchasing their product, since there’s an unlimited demand for it and they could just go sell it to, say, China instead.
But that’s sloppy reasoning. In fact, not only do export regulations and access vary according to where a particular product is being shipped, but decreasing demand even in one market has a depressing effect on prices overall.
If US consumers and/or regulators get serious about improving energy efficiency to the point of significantly reducing our fossil-fuel consumption, fossil fuel companies will unquestionably see their profits decline at some point, even if they’re still in no danger of going out of business altogether.
So yes, there is a very good reason for oil companies to invest resources in widespread denial of climate change, even if they also have valid reasons to pay cheap and superficial lip service to acknowledging it.
As I already noted, you appear to be unaware of what an analogy is or how it works. As to “additional discussion,” I have only been responding to your attempts to avoid the clear similarities that Rvenman pointed out for which you attacked him. You drop it and I have nothing to which to respond.
Really? You set up the straw man that people were calling Big Oil “deniers” (without ever actually quoting someone who was making that claim) and then tried to “disprove” it by quoting some feel good lines on web sites. Now you want to claim that you are not taking a side in the discussion. You are not persuasive.
Then you are simply in denial, yourself. Look at the paper to which wolfpup linked in Post #119. Nothing you have posted has come close to refuting that information. Beyond that, there are the substantial contributions by oil companies to obstructionist politicians. That you refuse to acknowledge how much money they are spending to oppose science investigating anthropogenic climate change is not my problem, (although it again challenges your claim that you are not taking sides).
I pointed out the exact analogy being presented and you hand-waved it away by trying to change the subject. Regardless of motivation, the actions of big oil and big tobacco have been identical. If you want to pretend that that does not provide a clear analogy, there is nothing I can do to persuade you otherwise.
You do tend to generally get things wrong.
I have not posted in “moderator stance” in this thread.
I have not changed my position. In the first post, I noted that your attempt to insult Ravenman was based on a failure to understand his point. In that post I refrained from actually engaging in the discussion. Once you dug in your heels and went of on you misunderstanding of analogies while pushing your pro-oil position, I did more fully engage in the discussion, taking an actual position regarding the actions of big oil.
Again, you are simply ignoring the evidence presented by wolfpup along with the significant evidence regarding oil’s funding of obstructionist politicians. You are welcome to play that game, but you are unpersuasive when you do.
Once again with the straw man. They have been accused of funding deniers, not actually being deniers. That is what makes their actions so reprehensible. They, like the tobacco companies, know the harm that failing to address climate change will bring, but they are more interested in immediate profits than in taking a responsible stand. They do not need to give up oil production or sales, but they could stop funding efforts to persuade the public that climate change is not a human issue while not seriously hurting their profits, yet they choose to go in the opposite direction.
There is nothing ambivalent about my posts. My logic is seriously better than yours. I am, indeed, condescending toward posts that use straw man tactics and bait and switch arguments, then fail to recognize analogies. Tough.
Considering that a huge portion of the Republican party actually does deny man made climate change as does a very sizable portion of the population, I think it does mean something that these companies stand up and publicly state their agreement with the science.
Which is why oil companies refuse to give money to Republican politicians for not getting with the program and getting on the climate change bandwagon, right? :dubious:
So you keep saying. I would ask you to go back and read that Snowe-Rockefeller letter again. For the oil companies, explicit public denial of AGW is a “been there, done that” – a battle that they’ve come back from bruised and bloodied. They’re not going there again – not publicly. You may think they’re being virtuous for making those website statements, but as you’ve been told again and again, it’s just a necessary evolution of their ongoing PR.
And you clearly seem to be unaware that there is the concept of a bad analogy. The tobacco companies here as an analogy is more being used in a similar way to a Godwin’s Law type analogy. I don’t claim that there are no similarities. I think it is a poor analogy. It serves no good purpose. We all agree that tobacco industry lied in an attempt to save itself. There is no evidence that the oil companies did anything anywhere close to the degree that tobacco companies did. Where are the decades worth of smoking gun internal memos outlining that the oil companies knew one thing and publicly stated another? Where are the decades long lawsuits with Big Oil fighting against the idea of climate change? There are millions and millions of documented papers showing the extent of Big Tobacco’s lies. Why is there not anything close to that with Big Oil? Could it possibly be that the level of lying is no where near similar? Could that possibly be because the motivations to lie are no where near similar? Pointing out the worst case in documented history of corporate lying and saying that Big Oil is just like that is not a good analogy.
There are people in this thread that we are currently participating that are making that exact claim. GIGObuster, for one, specifically says they are denialists. You are simply not paying attention if you think no one believes that Big Oil themselves are denialists.
You’re also completely misrepresenting what I just said. I didn’t say I’m not taking sides in this discussion. I clearly am doing that. I was clearly wondering what side you were implying I was on with your scare quotes “your side” reference. What side are you referring to with that?
I did look at that paper. I’ve also commented back on it. You stated that I have said nothing back other than re-posting the same old feel good tepid one liners from the OP. That’s simply a lie. I didn’t respond back with that. I responded back by calling into question the accounting of the dollars. Specifically, I stated that they should not be counting dollars that were donated to groups such as Heritage Foundation American Enterprise Institute, etc. The largest dollars of that paper were to groups that have almost nothing at all to do with climate change. Further, as I will post in a follow up reply, some of those groups don’t even deny climate change themselves.
I hand-waved it and tried to change the subject? Really? It seems like I’ve kept arguing back on it the entire time. Talk about getting things wrong. If Big Oil and Big Tobacco actions have been identical, please post the millions of pages of documented evidence of Big Oil’s cover-up? I can do that for Big Tobacco. Put up or shut up. I can show mountains and mountains of evidence of purposes lies by Big Tobacco. Show me where Big Oil has been sued by nearly every single state in the country? Show me where Big Oil has admitted wrong doing and entered into a major settlement regarding their decades of cover up and lies that you claim is identical to Big Tobacco’s. Oh, you can’t do those things. Perhaps one of the reasons is that it’s not a good analogy.
I quoted your exact changed position. You included it in your response. I guess if you think the two quoted statements I provided are the same it goes a long way toward showing why you would think the Big Oil and Big Tobacco actions are identical. You’re just not very good at comparing things. You can’t see the obvious differences.
Nope, not ignoring. I’ve responded specifically on this and am still responding. A donation to the Heritage Society is not huge funding of denialism.
Nope, still not a straw man. They are being accused of actually being denialists.