Rockefellers and clean energy - a sea change?

Great Debates
21

I’m not sure I follow. The article I cited specifically references South Africa and Apartheid, and then explains why she thinks things are different.

I also explain why I think it’s different in my post.

You can disagree with my argument, but I’m not just denying the analogy for the hell of it. I laid out explicit reasons for why they’re not comparable. Here they are again:

  1. South Africa was a single entity with a particular policy that people wanted to change. Fossil fuel use is global and requires massive coordinated effort.

  2. There was an easy and obvious solution to Apartheid, and lots of examples of others doing different things without catastrophe. What’s the solution with fossil fuel use? It’s not like Exxon can respond to divestment by ending it’s nefarious practices.

Because I think the energy could be spent so much better elsewhere.

Look, I’m with you on the need to reduce fossil fuels. I walk to work most days, and try to ride my bike for in-town errands. My wife and I are trying to figure out how to structure our lives so we can go down to one car between us. I want a carbon tax. I think we should stop subsidizing cars and roads and electricity use. But this divestment plan is just window dressing that makes people feel good about doing something but doesn’t accomplish anything.

And that’s a real problem. Because if people think that they’re making a real impact with this silliness, then perhaps they don’t actually do the things that really matter. You know those studies that show that people who buy organic food show less empathy? That sort of effect could easily happen here.

You think that this sort of thing is raising awareness and creating a groundswell of support, and that complaints about it are attempting to derail the greater goal. I think that this sort of thing is misdirected and uses up valuable attention.

I mentioned them before, but you didn’t comment on them then, so I’ll ask directly: Do you think that the various attempts to have people not buy gas on a particular day are effective mobilizations to raise awareness and are a small part of the solution, or do you think that they’re silly and misguided, since they don’t actually address any of the problem?

Obviously, I think the latter. And I think divestment is more of the same.

If you think the “don’t-buy-gas” days are useful and effective, then I think we’ll have to just agree to disagree. If you think they’re not, but divestment is, I’d be interested to hear why there’s a difference.

22

Easy and obvious? I have to disagree on that, if it was so their demise would had been easier, and I already pointed out that it is by exaggerating on the costs of the changes we have to do is an old contrarian strategy.

Again, the effort does look like an attempt at making a targeted effort into a useless one by ignoring that the target of divesting is not what you are referring to, and even those points are weak too.

As I pointed before with examples, even your complaints here are coming from contrarians, they are not progressing at all.

The focus, as the attempt to avoid it continues, is that most of humanity and even in the USA do think that this issue should be taken care of, the few remaining ones that are not are extreme conservatives, republican politicians and a lot of the corporate media. An effort like the one we are seeing from the Rockefellers is indeed making those specific contrarians (that have a lot of power) to look foolish as they thought that the wealthy groups that butter their bread were also supporting the “fairness” that they offer to the deniers vs the ones that do follow the advice of the science.

Back in the days of apartheid there was a resort called Sun City, American artists did the silly and misguided thing and with songs like this one convinced many of their fellow artists to stop going to South Africa as if everything was normal.

It worked by raising awareness in their small but a bit influential way.

And one result was to also find that the corporations in the USA needed to be dealt with too, the song was not played in many markets as many wealthy owners to their everlasting shame did not wanted to deal with the controversy.

So it is with the Rockefeller foundation efforts, we have to learn who is really the weakest link on the way to progress.

Nah, I do think that that is very weak sauce as the very point I made was missed: I do think that shaming the users first is silly, the ones with power and influence need to be the main focus, the rest will follow.

23

Ran out of edit time, I wanted to add that: Making those groups (Specially the politicians and corporate media) aware that they do not need to fear the backlash from what is really a minority of the public or that corporations are indeed now on the boat supporting change is a big deal IMHO.

24

I’m having a lot of trouble following your argument.

What? The only thing I’m getting here is “fossil fuel usage is a problem”, which I don’t disagree with. What does that have to do with the efficacy of the policy we’re discussing?

No, it worked because there was an actual economic impact! They chose not to spend money in South Africa. This is the sort of thing I’m in favor of, and it’s totally different than divestment. By all means, let’s buy less oil. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that moving investment money around has any effect on oil usage.

I don’t understand what your are saying here, or how it addresses my question. Are you saying that my question about “don’t-buy-gas” days is misleading? Are you not going to answer it? Is this an answer to it, and I don’t understand it?

25

It is what you and the writer you quoted miss, a majority of Americans do want this issue to be deal with, and once again users are important, but looking at examples in Europe it is clear that the ones doing the denying and stopping concerted efforts are the groups mentioned. And my experience tells me that they assume that there is a valid controversy with the science and regarding the need for change. Republican politicians and corporate media need to be made aware that their equivalence is a false one and what the Rockefeller group and Google are doing is part of the effort to make them change their tune.

And I did not, but you are resorting to a lot of straw now. My point, and this was explained early, is that this item of divestment is more geared to the hearts and minds of the powers that are preventing change in the USA.

I don’t agree with it for different reasons, because it is mostly an attempt at shaming the users, as pointed many times before it is not the main ones that need to be shamed. Nor the main targets of the divestment efforts IMHO.

26

Just to comment on this one point. I’ve suggested some reasons that divestment may have some effect, depending on its magnitude and the timeframe in question. I could very well be wrong. I still don’t see a problem with grant foundations, university endowment funds, and similar institutions that are supposed to be enlightened models of integrity showing some moral leadership. Shouldn’t we support them on that basis? Isn’t that one way – as someone already said – to build public awareness, win hearts and minds and shift the culture of fossil fuels? And it’s not as if they’re sacrificing obvious financial gains in doing this; they may well be executing a winning financial strategy as well as a commendable moral one.

27

Again, I think the danger is that people will focus too much on ineffectual feel-good ideas like this, and not enough on effectual policy changes.

I keep bringing up the “don’t-buy-gas” day thing because I think it’s a perfect example of this sort of thinking. I had friends who spent a lot of energy promoting this, and as far as I can tell they thought it would really be a blow to the oil companies. But it was all just nonsense. And most people are innumerate enough to not know the difference.

28

And indeed, sources that I use do comment that the symbolism is important in a subject where change has stalled thanks to powerful fossil fuel groups, Republican politicians and corporate media. We need the other giants to pressure them to change.

What is intersting to notice is how even the ones that approved of the divesting efforts against apartheid are also in favor of the same effort being done to the fossil fuel companies.

It is like iamthewalrus(:3= is attempting to teach good old Tutu on how to suck eggs. :slight_smile: Or that he is “innumerate” too. The focus of divesting is not what some like the walrus think it is.

29

I don’t see why it’s a “danger”. That sounds like the argumentative fallacy of “either-or”. There’s no displacement cost to other, parallel opportunities for organizations to take this step, which at the very least has a moral justification and sends the message that the fossil fuel industry is a concern. The real danger seems to me to be the opposite, such as wondering why I should work against the interests of Exxon or Shell or BP or my local coal mine when my alma mater endowment fund is a major shareholder.

One could equally ask why anyone would ever work against the interests of such companies if they themselves, their pension fund, or their mutual funds or other direct financial interests were shareholders in those companies. And typically of course, if it was perceived to affect them financially, they would not. With enough at stake they might even become active denialists.

30

We all have a finite amount of time and energy to put into causes we care about. So, I think someone who cares about global warming and fossil fuels should focus their efforts elsewhere, in a more effective way.

My friends who spent time promoting the “don’t-buy-gas” day would have had a bigger impact if they had promoted a “ride your bike to work day”. I know that it’s possible to have both ride to work day and don’t buy gas day movements. They’re not exclusive in a fundamental way. But someone spends time promoting and publicizing them, and the people who participate spend their limited willpower and moral consideration to think about and join them. So there really is a cost to promoting a policy that’s ineffective, which is that it means less energy is going toward actual effective policies. That’s all I’m arguing.

That’s a very good point.

31

Interesting article about the psychology behind public apathy toward climate change. This is the part that struck me as very relevant to this discussion: