GIGO pretty much always provides framing, a detailed quote and a link. I agree that pairing a statement with a you tube vid asks too much of the reader. But GIGO doesn’t do that. He’s an addition to this board.
Strawman arguments such as the following make it relevant:
Partly accurate, part fantasy. I don’t have a problem with most Exxon employees, even those who do a number on the environment. I do have a problem with secretly bending the rules in your favor. I do have a problem with securing billions of dollars of federal tax breaks and subsidies and Exxon shareholders with a diversified portfolio should have a problem with that as well. But that sort of activity is way above the pay grade of 99% of their employees.
[hijack]We’re on page 3, so I’ll go off track a little. What should smart shareholders with a highly diversified portfolio tell Exxon to do? Say they own an SP500 fund. Well they stop them from most lobbying: cozy deals from big guv tend to rob from service firms like Microsoft, Oracle or even Apple to pay for capital intensive firms like GE or Exxon. At the very least, lobbying should be transparent so it can be evaluated by the shareholders.
More generally, Exxon needs to manage its rise and inevitable fall: they are in an extractive industry after all. Some of their skills could be applied geothermal, but it’s by no means clear that this will represent but a shadow of oil and natural gas. Another emerging tech might involve refining biofuels I suppose. At any rate, such decisions will be made far in the future. [/hijack]
This is hilarious. You actually think that the issues surrounding climate science are as straightforward an unambiguous as the simple factual matter of Guinness being from Ireland. And, lo, GIGO is a fair-minded chap, after all he admitted being wrong. True, he had to because it was a simple matter of fact that anyone could look up in 5 seconds, or by just picking up a can, but let this be evidence for his princely fairness and detached objectiveness. HA!
Or did you intend this post of yours to appear in The Onion?
This is not my impression at all. In fact, next to BrainGlutton, he is the poster most guilty of responding with a link and not much, if anything, else. So much so that one poster thought he was a Bot.
Not to be short but what’s being said here is “we do not have the evidence you’re asking for because it doesn’t exist.” Which makes it questionable to be making claims in this area so assertively as GIGO has done.
I never followed the tobacco stuff too closely but I don’t remember Big Tobacco accepting the science (publicly) on smoking and cancer until basically they were legally forced to put warnings on their product. So in a sense I do think even what (I’ve never contested) is a minor gesture paints a better picture of the oil majors than the tobacco companies.
But I also think’s it’s a good thing to understand what companies are and particularly the oil majors. Their role is to provide a product that is currently essential to the global energy picture and for which there is immense demand. They are not going to be an engine of environmental change any more than Ford or GM are going to be big proponents of getting people to ride trains more often. There’s nothing inherently wrong that broad societal goals conflict with the more narrow goals of parts of our society (and yes, corporations and their stakeholders are parts of our society.) When you’re in the majority and recognize what must be done you simply have to do things to those parts of society through regulation and such that they may not like but will be better for society as a whole.
I do not find it particularly useful or even meaningful to try and paint them as villains, they’re doing what they were created to do. It’s like painting a lion as a villain when it kills a gazelle on Discovery channel.
What are you on about? I have not posted as a Mod, at all.
I have made two statements that could be construed as Mod calls, but I did not post them in Moderator mode: in the first, I simply told one poster to back off on insults; in the second I noted that a poster was starting a hijack. There was an insult posted and the hijack was real. (Regardless how necessary oil may be, this thread was opened to discuss PR issues, not the need to continue to use oil. Oil companies are perfectly capable of buying ads that point out their necessity if that is what is required–and they have not.)
I have not been able to spend any time reading this thread for more than 24 hours.
I note that several posters are continuing the hijack regarding whether oil is necessary.
Knock it off and open a new thread. This discussion is regarding the issue of whether PR indicates a serious attitude by oil companies regarding climate change.
If I was confronting a creationist then sources like Talkorigins.org demonstrates where the consensus and science are available to answer what it is clearly the repeated and already debunked positions of contrarians and people that did not bother to look at the science that was already reported. What you miss is that indeed some subjects were already so investigated that there are even groups that put those replied to death items to be cataloged. On subjects like this one contrarians are reaching what Asimov talked about in the Relativity of wrong.
And in the past I have encountered pseudoscience proponents that also accused me of being a bot, it only demonstrated that they had run out of ideas or just resorted to attacking the poster and always avoiding what was cited, so if you want to be in the same column as the pseudo-scientists that thought that the sun is made of iron and all craters on mars were made by electrical super lightning be my guest.
You are only ignoring that some subjects have a lot of resources and support and you are ignoring that that is also a huge failure from the contrarians, that on top of being wrong are recklessly ignoring that we are in the 21st century and think that uneducated opinions have more value; sorry, but I look for more than just feelings.
(Science writer Peter Hadfield explaining how contrarians only resort to feelings, and ignore the science… and attack the poster with accusations of being a bot when in reality contrarians are only avoiding dealing with the science positions that were cited already)
As Frontline showed, the contrarian think thanks and groups are finding that among scientists and academia they lost the debate a long time ago. Now the fight is to bend the rules indeed, and part of the bending is happening in congress, they are getting rid of even republicans that accepted the science and that should had been a scandal among the conservatives that appreciate science; but so far in discussions like this one I have not found one.
Should we be expecting oil companies to come out and say, “What can you expect us to do, given that the world still needs us to supply our product for decades?”
First, apologies for being late to respond. I don’t do so much on weekends.
I find this particular attempt at an analogy to be between situations that are insufficiently similar. I don’t believe this specific difference is at all nitpicky; I find it a fundamental difference that makes comparisons poor.
Apache was just one that I remembered being very detailed. Also, Apache’s a pretty damn big company. It’s market cap is $40 billion. In the U.S. it drills more wells annually than Exxon, and it produces about half the oil that Exxon does. It’s a really large company. I’ll look for some other detailed proposals from other companies though.
Well, I think there can be a main argument and then several offshoots of discussion. The main argument, as stated in the title, is that Big Oil are not climate change denialists. I think some of the several related arguments that are worth discussing are:
Does it matter if they aren’t Denialists?
Do they fund denialists?
Should they be leading the way on climate change science and alternative fuels?
Are they hypocrites if they still produce oil?
I don’t think I have failed to discuss any of these. I specifically responded to the links regarding the funding that the dollar amounts discussed were too small to matter and could have been made for any number of reasons. I haven’t responded with huge detail on that, but I might if I get around to it.
I did this already. But may do it in more detail.
This is absurd. How have I done a bait and switch. Look at the topic title. Look at the bottom line argument of the OP.
[QUOTE=LonghornDave]
So, I guess I’d like it to be considered settled that Big Oil agrees that climate change is real. Any disagreements with that?
[/QUOTE]
With that as the primary argument of this OP, how could I have possibly put out a more on point list of sites than the OP without being overly long?
You are seriously stating that I replaced one argument with another when the supposed replacement is the topic title, the bottom line argument in the OP, and what all of the evidence in the OP supports? It’s certainly fair to say I am arguing several things, but you have to twist my words pretty heavily to say that I have not been arguing from the beginning that Big Oil are not denialists. Further, poster in this thread specifically call them denialists. My point on that argument is that they cannot accurately be called climate change denialists when they don’t deny climate change is occurring.
And what I am saying is that their expertise does not translate to alternative fuels. There is nothing similar about drilling oil wells and building solar panels. This isn’t like Coca Cola realizing they are in the beverage business and bottling things other than soda. Big Oil’s skills don’t even translate very well to shale well drilling.
I appreciate the discussion on the topic, but realize two things. First, I’m not saying that experts on the subject are unaware. I expect experts on the subject to be aware of most things related to the subject. I don’t think it is common knowledge among the populace even amongst the basic rank and file supporters of climate change activism. Second, I was not saying that activists propose the immediate stopping oil of production. I was saying that I believe the necessity of the product is a fundamental difference between oil and cigarettes.
“Many” can speak for themselves, if they so wish.
Y’know, when I first read the OP I honestly thought it was written tongue-in-cheek, given the miniscule and vague handwaving you pointed out versus the vast amount of time, effort and money the oil companies have spent over the years supporting the efforts of denialists.
Thank you for your post. I appreciate your points. I have a few comments.
First, I am not unwilling to discuss other tangential aspects such as whether oil companies are hypocrites or what portion of climate change denialism is funded by oil companies, or what they should be doing to combat climate change or any number of others items. I feel like I’ve done that already and would be glad to double down on my efforts there. I don’t think it is fair to say I am arguing a strawman, shifting my arguments, avoiding answering, etc. I feel like I’m doing a decent job of trying to respond to almost every post that is directed toward me.
I don’t think the dollar amounts that Big Oil has donated come close to making a difference in public perception. I also think they are, today, more than countered by their public positions and statements. I think that when we’re talking about small dollar contributions from any big company then we are potentially dealing with pet causes of individual employees.
Donating to the Heritage Society can’t reasonably be called funding climate change denialism. They could, and almost certainly are, donating for many reasons.
I personally think that much of the anti-climate change opinion is society and politics is one of convenience. People don’t like being told they need to change their ways. A lot of people are anti-science in general. I’ll write more about this later, but I want to catch up on other responses first.
Well, for one, the absence of necessity means that tobacco companies were fighting for their survival while oil companies don’t need to. Their survival is already guaranteed. I think they rightly know that there is a strong need for petroleum products for at least the next 3-5 decades. They are in no danger of being eliminated as an industry and this would color their motivations.
Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I just don’t see the funding as material. According to this, the American Petroleum Institute gave $274,000 between 2001 and 2007 and Exxon gave $335,000 between 2005 and 2010, and Exxon gave $15,000 in 2000.
That they will profit is guaranteed since their business will survive for decades. The demand for oil last decades in a similar volume to that needed today. Zero reason to think they can’t produce and sell it at similar margins to today.
