If these are not premeditated acts of terror, what is?
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In the past, I looked at the manic search for, and voracious lust over new finds of fossil fuels as if the companies were drug dealers, eager to feed our addiction and with cynical disregard for the consequences. Unfussed whether the prey lives or dies, the pusher is disdainful, contemptuous about the addict's weakness – there’ll always be new markets to feed.
Company as addict?
However this morning I idly wondered what happens if you look at fossil fuel companies as the drug addict, as well as the dealer/pusher. Locked into a spiral of habit and dependence, and not having the will, nor the need to change.
When we feel guilty about our behaviour (even if only in a very small way), or if we're demonised, we become defensive, aggressive and lash out at any critics. We justify the unjustifiable. We see this with addicts. It also seems to fit the behaviour of these companies.
If it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true
Imagine for a moment that the fossil fuel companies and their entablers have unleashed a destructive genie from a bottle. A terrorist in fact.
After a 100 or so years, they’ve discovered that what appeared at first to be an extraordinarily welcome product, of the “WOW, look what we can do with this, it’s too good to be true!” variety, has now been found to literally be too good to be true. This wonder product is part of a package that has morphed into something truly sinister and frightening.
They say they didn't know, and their actions now show they deliberately concealed evidence that the amazing wonder product unleashes terror. They resist change with venom, lies, conspiracy theories and use confusion as a weapon.
(Imagine if they'd been sensible & became broad based energy companies years ago, rather than relying ONLY on fossil fuels.)
Profit with no responsibility for waste
With profits of $375 Million per day, it'd be reassuring to know these companies are paying a fair price to dump their waste. "Alone among businesses, the fossil-fuel industry is allowed to dump its main waste, carbon dioxide, for free. Nobody else gets that break - if you own a restaurant, you have to pay someone to cart away your trash, since piling it in the street would breed rats." (Global Warming's Terrifying New Math)
Fossil fuel companies are shifty, arrogant, brutish, uncaring and aggressive when presented with the destructive results of their product. Unlike the child who is called to account for poor behaviour, or the drug addict who realises their life will come to an abrupt end if they continue their chosen path, they've collectively and consistently avoided responsibility - and got away with it. They don't know any other reality.
To get an idea of where the profits go, Climate Progress is a good place to start. "The entire oil and gas industry spent on average $400,000 each day lobbying senators and representatives to weaken public health safeguards and keep big oil tax breaks, totaling nearly $150 million." (my bold)
A community response?
Perhaps we, as individuals and communities, have a collective interest in supporting change, because no one else seems willing to take up the challenge. I find it impossible to imagine that all fossil fuel companies and their hundreds of thousands of individual employees, their families, friends and communities are proud of what they’ve unleashed. But they haven't spoken out. When will they?
(Edit 2020: we're waiting for any decent employees of the murdoch media to speak out)
Employees should feel uncomfortable with the outcome of repeated "carelessness"; oil spills, unbelievable environmental damage, cruel disregard for native populations. At what stage will these people say “No more”? At what stage will subscribers to superannuation and other funds, both individually and collectively, demand their fund managers act with integrity and invest the funds with a view to a sustainable future?
As Bill McKibben says in Global Warming's Terrifying New Math
international moral outrage and pressure might just help begin a new movement to force change on an industry unwilling to change itself. Movements rarely have predictable outcomes. But any campaign that weakens the fossil-fuel industry's political standing clearly increases the chances of retiring its special breaks. Consider President Obama's signal achievement in the climate fight, the large increase he won in mileage requirements for cars. Scientists, environmentalists and engineers had advocated such policies for decades, but until Detroit came under severe financial pressure, it was politically powerful enough to fend them off. If people come to understand the cold, mathematical truth – that the fossil-fuel industry is systematically undermining the planet's physical systems – it might weaken it enough to matter politically. Exxon and their ilk might drop their opposition to a fee-and-dividend solution; they might even decide to become true energy companies, this time for real.
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| Photos D.Abbott. SA |
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