About this latest Senate hearing on holding the FF industry accountable for its decades long & continuing campaign of deception... The evidence is clear and it is certainly useful to bring strong light on industry practices intended to undermine efforts to find remedies for carbon pollution. No one has done more than Sen. Whitehouse to d…
About this latest Senate hearing on holding the FF industry accountable for its decades long & continuing campaign of deception... The evidence is clear and it is certainly useful to bring strong light on industry practices intended to undermine efforts to find remedies for carbon pollution. No one has done more than Sen. Whitehouse to do so.
But at the end of Rep. Raskin's testimony, Sen. Whitehouse concluded by saying that he looked forward to working with Raskin "in the years ahead" to delve further into the issue, e.g. challenging Exxon's supposed privilege to redact & withhold documents, and preparing for expected court cases to force industry to acknowledge wrongdoing.
But I am not looking forward to deeper dives and further hearings on the issue. I think the ground has been covered and the case sufficiently proven. Dotting the "I"s & crossing the "T"s "in the years ahead" is a logical, inevitable pursuit, but implies a) that we have years to complete said inquiry, and b) that doing so has importance for climate mitigation. (It does not, IMO).
The question I did not hear asked: What does industry accountability mean in terms of consequences for climate & energy policy? I think the answer is – very little. That's because energy policy is not driven by climate science or public perception, but by deep dependence on FFs as the foundation of the global economy. No politician is going to suggest the kinds of radical interventions necessary to reduce emissions because every part of the economic system (including the renewables sector) depends on continuous flow of oil, gas & coal to meet rising energy demand. That is the inscrutable predicament that should be the issue in the next Senate hearing on climate.
Draconian regulation to limit FF extraction? Capping industry production and consumption? Actually *reducing* energy use to lower emissions, thereby undermining economic growth and the power of energy corporations and investors? These positions are DOA in government ad every corner of society.
About this latest Senate hearing on holding the FF industry accountable for its decades long & continuing campaign of deception... The evidence is clear and it is certainly useful to bring strong light on industry practices intended to undermine efforts to find remedies for carbon pollution. No one has done more than Sen. Whitehouse to do so.
But at the end of Rep. Raskin's testimony, Sen. Whitehouse concluded by saying that he looked forward to working with Raskin "in the years ahead" to delve further into the issue, e.g. challenging Exxon's supposed privilege to redact & withhold documents, and preparing for expected court cases to force industry to acknowledge wrongdoing.
But I am not looking forward to deeper dives and further hearings on the issue. I think the ground has been covered and the case sufficiently proven. Dotting the "I"s & crossing the "T"s "in the years ahead" is a logical, inevitable pursuit, but implies a) that we have years to complete said inquiry, and b) that doing so has importance for climate mitigation. (It does not, IMO).
The question I did not hear asked: What does industry accountability mean in terms of consequences for climate & energy policy? I think the answer is – very little. That's because energy policy is not driven by climate science or public perception, but by deep dependence on FFs as the foundation of the global economy. No politician is going to suggest the kinds of radical interventions necessary to reduce emissions because every part of the economic system (including the renewables sector) depends on continuous flow of oil, gas & coal to meet rising energy demand. That is the inscrutable predicament that should be the issue in the next Senate hearing on climate.
Draconian regulation to limit FF extraction? Capping industry production and consumption? Actually *reducing* energy use to lower emissions, thereby undermining economic growth and the power of energy corporations and investors? These positions are DOA in government ad every corner of society.