Thank you so much Bill for your tireless efforts to help the world see the light. In a world of gaslighting and misinformation, you are a beacon of truth and hope.
Another great piece, Bill. I'm glad you keep calling them out. Exxon is like a serial abuser who brutally beats and starves their victim, then tells them: "It's all your fault!" That's what gaslighting is for: keeping society powerless. ThirdAct and other groups in the growing climate action movement have had enough!
While working in Accra, Ghana, I was able to visit two slave castles along the coast. In the Elmina slave castle, there is a small church located within the courtyard, moved there by the Portuguese to protect it from attacks. Just a few feet below this "Christian" church were the most horrific dungeons imaginable, where scores of human beings were caged like sardines for weeks or months with no sanitation facilities or fresh running water.
A few meters away from this church was an inner courtyard with a balcony around it. Several young slave girls would be chained to a cannon ball embedded in the concrete, to be inspected by visiting ship captains or dignitaries. Once a choice was made, the girl was brought to the guest quarters to be raped at will, as a special favor to the visitor. Refusal on the part of the girls would result in their being placed into a solitary dungeon with no food or water until they either submitted or died.
An inscription in the courtyard praised one of the commanders of the fort for his integrity and compassion.
I didn't think hypocrisy could get any more blatant or outrageous than that until I read this article. The suffering and mayhem that have already occurred and will continue to occur as the result of these decisions to increase profit at the expense of human suffering - when these executives knew exactly how devastating these results would be - far surpasses even those four centuries of the transatlantic slave trade.
But, yeah - go ahead and brag about “Not just being honest and ethical, but being intellectually honest and saying the hard things.” You folks are clearly paragons of virtue - just like the folks singing praises to Jesus just a few feet above the chained slaves.
The calls for "compromise" with the oil and coal industries - "go ahead, do your green thing, but protect our profits above all!" - strikes me as having a lot in common with other major, and not obviously related issues. On the California coast, recent storms have underlined the perilous existence of all those beachfront mansions. Of course, plenty of millionaires are demanding that their third vacation home must be protected at all costs, but as nature continues not to listen, some are grudgingly accepting that time is almost up - with one condition: someone, whether insurance companies, the state or impoverished local towns, must buy out their crumbling mansion at full market rate. Meanwhile, having run out its time in the American attention span, Ukraine is floundering. Many are insisting that it's now "time to negotiate." Dig down into what that means, and they suggest Ukraine sacrifice half its territory to the Russian invaders and call it a win. Of course if the US were ever invaded, we'd gladly give away Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas rather than fight, right? Compromise is always best.
It strikes me that the more that renewable companies have muscled in on what the fossil fuel giants traditionally controlled such as home heating and transport etc, the more the likes of Exxon will source the military as a logical alternative for using up all those reserves. War is profitable with crude prices up. So now in the midst of all this geopolitical uncertainty, with so many ‘enemies’ to suddenly ‘defend’ ourselves against, maybe it’s time we followed the money trail a little more closely.
“because the sun and the wind deliver the energy for free, and all you need is some equipment to turn it into electrons”
This is a ridiculous statement. The energy is not free. Nor is it benign. The equipment you mention isn’t laying around ready to install, it has to be designed, transported and installed. Metal, silicon, plastics (from oil), copper, aluminum, steel and a host of other materials need to be procured, smelted, refined and fabricated. The infrastructure needed to integrate solar into the grid is mind-boggling. This sort of fantastical thinking begets a believe that EVs are non-polluting, which is emphatically not true. The pollution occurs at the source of power generation, often in another state. Out of sight, out of mind.
Solar and wind technology is relatively short lived - 10 to 20 years. Where are discarded wind turbine blades going to be disposed of for “free”. How about the obsolete solar panels?
Solar and wind itself uses an extraordinary amount of natural resources to generate a single amp of electricity. EVs are one of the most environmentally destructive products ever conceived.
Without tax subsidies solar and wind wouldn’t pencil as investments. Do the tax incentives count as “free” money?
There is nothing “free” about solar or wind power. If this is a foundational premise of your thesis, you have built on quicksand.
One of your funders, probably during your trees as biofuels phase, was the Rockefellers. No surprise that here you are looking after some old friends. The Rockefeller shift to environmental champions, former owners of Exxon, is truly remarkable
Many corporations in the age of Citizens United are truly malignant insects. They use their outrageous subsidized profits to keep the Washington bribe addicts addicted and in turn ensure the grift. Here it is from the BOD and execs: We know climate change is real. Shit, we knew it a long time ago but we are going to cash out as much as we can. We don’t give a shit about your future or your kids future, only about ours. Where we live there is not much impact. Washington has been turned into Whoretown because of the nice little law that Alito set up for us in 2010. So we’ll just keep thwarting any sustainable energy development. The average person is an idiot anyway. We like high prices. Screw em.
Why is this not the number one issue in our election? It is so disgraceful that Exxon and other big players have held up progress at the expense of every living species on our planet. Now they are poised to control the industry conversion to carbon removal, if they get their way, as soon as they finish bleeding us for everything they can. Fortunately, even though they have given carbon removal a bad name due to their antics and abuse, there are other methods coming on board that can make a difference in removing green house gases from our atmosphere. We must invest in R&D of other sources that will lead us to restoring our atmosphere to a pre-industrial state, in ways that will benefit the whole. A great read is Climate Restoration—
The Only Future That Will Sustain the Human Race, that outlines a way forward. Go to https://www.peterfiekowsky.com/ to find out more.
Thank you so much Bill for your tireless efforts to help the world see the light. In a world of gaslighting and misinformation, you are a beacon of truth and hope.
Another great piece, Bill. I'm glad you keep calling them out. Exxon is like a serial abuser who brutally beats and starves their victim, then tells them: "It's all your fault!" That's what gaslighting is for: keeping society powerless. ThirdAct and other groups in the growing climate action movement have had enough!
Serial abusers indeed…outrageous arrogance. A 3rd-act friend
While working in Accra, Ghana, I was able to visit two slave castles along the coast. In the Elmina slave castle, there is a small church located within the courtyard, moved there by the Portuguese to protect it from attacks. Just a few feet below this "Christian" church were the most horrific dungeons imaginable, where scores of human beings were caged like sardines for weeks or months with no sanitation facilities or fresh running water.
A few meters away from this church was an inner courtyard with a balcony around it. Several young slave girls would be chained to a cannon ball embedded in the concrete, to be inspected by visiting ship captains or dignitaries. Once a choice was made, the girl was brought to the guest quarters to be raped at will, as a special favor to the visitor. Refusal on the part of the girls would result in their being placed into a solitary dungeon with no food or water until they either submitted or died.
An inscription in the courtyard praised one of the commanders of the fort for his integrity and compassion.
I didn't think hypocrisy could get any more blatant or outrageous than that until I read this article. The suffering and mayhem that have already occurred and will continue to occur as the result of these decisions to increase profit at the expense of human suffering - when these executives knew exactly how devastating these results would be - far surpasses even those four centuries of the transatlantic slave trade.
But, yeah - go ahead and brag about “Not just being honest and ethical, but being intellectually honest and saying the hard things.” You folks are clearly paragons of virtue - just like the folks singing praises to Jesus just a few feet above the chained slaves.
Thank you for your efforts to cut off the gas on the gaslighters.
The calls for "compromise" with the oil and coal industries - "go ahead, do your green thing, but protect our profits above all!" - strikes me as having a lot in common with other major, and not obviously related issues. On the California coast, recent storms have underlined the perilous existence of all those beachfront mansions. Of course, plenty of millionaires are demanding that their third vacation home must be protected at all costs, but as nature continues not to listen, some are grudgingly accepting that time is almost up - with one condition: someone, whether insurance companies, the state or impoverished local towns, must buy out their crumbling mansion at full market rate. Meanwhile, having run out its time in the American attention span, Ukraine is floundering. Many are insisting that it's now "time to negotiate." Dig down into what that means, and they suggest Ukraine sacrifice half its territory to the Russian invaders and call it a win. Of course if the US were ever invaded, we'd gladly give away Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas rather than fight, right? Compromise is always best.
It strikes me that the more that renewable companies have muscled in on what the fossil fuel giants traditionally controlled such as home heating and transport etc, the more the likes of Exxon will source the military as a logical alternative for using up all those reserves. War is profitable with crude prices up. So now in the midst of all this geopolitical uncertainty, with so many ‘enemies’ to suddenly ‘defend’ ourselves against, maybe it’s time we followed the money trail a little more closely.
When I clicked the link to take me to Zeke Hausfather's Substack on geoengineering, I was taken to "The Coal Hard Truth" website. Oops. The link to Dr. Hausfather's essay is https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/the-geoengineering-question
thank you!
Words..
are all we have to express a simmering, Coltrane-controlled OUTRAGE!
(Last week, I, belatedly connected the words OUTRAGE and OUTRAGEOUS.)
Your words captured the OUTRAGEOUSNESS of Exxon’s denial and deflection…until….
I listened to their new ad: Not So Fast.
Now..
My own simmering OUTRAGE can’t be controlled, understood,or contained.
This polished Not So Fast prevarication has made me sick…I want to throw up!
No, when I’m truly OUTRAGED I want to scream, but I shake and cry instead.
So what will I do? The only thing I know: I turn to words.
The Exxon CEO is OUTRAGEOUS in his insulting disregard for our intelligence. That he cares more about profit than people or planet is OUTRAGEOUS.
I am OUTRAGED!
I will send him my OUTRAGE when I find a way.
“because the sun and the wind deliver the energy for free, and all you need is some equipment to turn it into electrons”
This is a ridiculous statement. The energy is not free. Nor is it benign. The equipment you mention isn’t laying around ready to install, it has to be designed, transported and installed. Metal, silicon, plastics (from oil), copper, aluminum, steel and a host of other materials need to be procured, smelted, refined and fabricated. The infrastructure needed to integrate solar into the grid is mind-boggling. This sort of fantastical thinking begets a believe that EVs are non-polluting, which is emphatically not true. The pollution occurs at the source of power generation, often in another state. Out of sight, out of mind.
Solar and wind technology is relatively short lived - 10 to 20 years. Where are discarded wind turbine blades going to be disposed of for “free”. How about the obsolete solar panels?
Solar and wind itself uses an extraordinary amount of natural resources to generate a single amp of electricity. EVs are one of the most environmentally destructive products ever conceived.
Without tax subsidies solar and wind wouldn’t pencil as investments. Do the tax incentives count as “free” money?
There is nothing “free” about solar or wind power. If this is a foundational premise of your thesis, you have built on quicksand.
Not just the oil companies, but everyone is going to have to "slow down," a book written by Kohei Saito (Japanese), elegantly reveals via the degrowth manifesto: https://astrapublishinghouse.com/product/slow-down-9781662602351/
One of your funders, probably during your trees as biofuels phase, was the Rockefellers. No surprise that here you are looking after some old friends. The Rockefeller shift to environmental champions, former owners of Exxon, is truly remarkable
Thanks Bill. For your persistence and leadership. Here's my take in 2019 of fossil fuel companies helping in the transition from 2019. https://skywaterearth.com/2019/02/07/can-big-oil-and-utilities-help-in-the-transition-from-carbon/
Many corporations in the age of Citizens United are truly malignant insects. They use their outrageous subsidized profits to keep the Washington bribe addicts addicted and in turn ensure the grift. Here it is from the BOD and execs: We know climate change is real. Shit, we knew it a long time ago but we are going to cash out as much as we can. We don’t give a shit about your future or your kids future, only about ours. Where we live there is not much impact. Washington has been turned into Whoretown because of the nice little law that Alito set up for us in 2010. So we’ll just keep thwarting any sustainable energy development. The average person is an idiot anyway. We like high prices. Screw em.
About sums it up?
Thanks Bill
Thank you Bill. Keep going!
Why is this not the number one issue in our election? It is so disgraceful that Exxon and other big players have held up progress at the expense of every living species on our planet. Now they are poised to control the industry conversion to carbon removal, if they get their way, as soon as they finish bleeding us for everything they can. Fortunately, even though they have given carbon removal a bad name due to their antics and abuse, there are other methods coming on board that can make a difference in removing green house gases from our atmosphere. We must invest in R&D of other sources that will lead us to restoring our atmosphere to a pre-industrial state, in ways that will benefit the whole. A great read is Climate Restoration—
The Only Future That Will Sustain the Human Race, that outlines a way forward. Go to https://www.peterfiekowsky.com/ to find out more.