[vegetablepotpie]

> We are essentially all complicit.

With statements like these it’s important to take into account proportionality and scale.

Whereas a member of the public may have been aware of climate change after James Hanson’s congressional testimony in 1988, ExxonMobil had its own climate research division in the ‘70s and knew about the dangers of climate change at-least ten years prior [1]. They sat on these findings and in the ‘90s actively engaged in PR and misinformation campaigns to delay action on climate change. They have been incredibly successful at this and the US has no policies to limit fossil gas extraction or burning.

[1] https://drilled.media/podcasts/drilled

[jl6]

I am aware, and that behavior is despicable, but I still don’t believe that this puts all the responsibility for climate change on oil companies generally or Exxon specifically.

The public at large have known for centuries that burning fossil fuels creates locally systemically significant pollution, and we do it anyway. We have known for decades now that it creates globally systemically significant pollution, and still we burn it anyway.

A few thousand greedy, profiteering, unscrupulous oil bosses would not have gotten away with doing it had there not been a few billion consumers paying them to do it. At some point, the blame must also be treated as systemic.

What happens in the scenario where Exxon is found guilty and given the corporate death penalty that some have asked for? Their assets would be confiscated and passed to some new owner. The government maybe? Whoever gets them, will they shut them down? No, they’ll keep those wells pumping, under some new brand name, because the demand for oil is systemic.

If Exxon is culpable for paying a hacker to commit a crime on their behalf, then the population at large are culpable of paying Exxon to pump oil on our behalf.

[triceratops]

I'd have much more sympathy for this point of view if Exxon and co had loudly shouted about the dangers of climate change from the rooftops and the public at large still ignored them.

They did the opposite of that, in fact, and continue to do. So I have no sympathy for any oil companies if they ever face any punishment. A vanishingly unlikely prospect by the way.

[Wololooo]

> I am aware, and that behavior is despicable, but I still don’t believe that this puts all the responsibility for climate change on oil companies generally or Exxon specifically.

They should pay, they knew what they were selling and were misleading people now we are in a critical situation because of their actions. Individuals can do only so much and most of the people don't even really grasp and understand the implications of their actions, but gets appalled when they do...

You can turn the problem in all directions, the manipulation of public opinion to freeze any attempt at reversing climate change is actually a crime against humanity...

[gruez]

>The government maybe? Whoever gets them, will they shut them down? No, they’ll keep those wells pumping, under some new brand name, because the demand for oil is systemic.

Not to mention a bunch of the biggest oil companies are already government owned:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_co...

top companies in the list are Sinopec, China National Petroleum Corporation, and Saudi Aramco, all state owned.

[artificialLimbs]

And what is the replacement to power and heat and cool people if those companies were shuttered?

[HowardStark]

First: I appreciate the overall tone of your comment. It's a polarizing subject, and I feel this is very much in good faith.

I think there's two important points you made that I'd like to address:

1. Failures to apply meaningful penalties / punishment to transnational corporations

2. Individual culpability for oil consumption

To start, I think it's worth looking at how punishments for corporate wrongdoings might look in a brighter world. Not having faith in the system is _completely_ understandable, and I think it can be easy to forget what it is we _do_ want after being shown what we _don't_ want over and over.

Off-the-cuff, I envision something like the forced closure and seizure of all Exxon assets by the federal government. These assets could be sold off to pay for the settlements of the multiple class-action lawsuits against Exxon focused on public health and environmental wrongdoing[1][2]. I'd love to see criminal charges for those at the top

There are past examples of companies doing wrong and being forced to close "with prejudice", or not being allowed to restructure into another entity with a different name. A famous example is the forced closure of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI)[3]. Another is Purdue Pharmaceuticals, which was restructured into a public beneficiary trust that would administer payouts to "opioid creditors" or people who suffered from the opioid epidemic[4]. And hearteningly, there are also examples of executives facing jail time. Enron[5] is the most famous example, and though there are critiques that it wasn't far enough, Skilling was a fall guy, etc., it serves as a good reminder that even within our system today, there is already precedent. Theranos is another example of criminal proceedings against executives[6].

All this is to emphasize that though pessimism is understandable, optimism can help us push the system in the right direction, and doesn't have to mean having all the answers.

Now we can look at individual culpability.

I wanted to look at this point second because I think it becomes more approachable once we've seen what widespread change can look like. I don't have citations, or evidence to bring here. Just my own experience. I find it much easier to start taking personal responsibility when I know that there is some effort being made to offer me a mode of life where I don't induce second order demand for oil (i.e. I need to buy groceries, those groceries may come packaged in plastic). I find it much easier to take a freezing half-mile walk to the store when I see the companies inducing oil demand many orders of magnitude beyond what I'll ever use or need begin to face consequences.

[1] https://www.legaldive.com/news/816m-exxonmobil-verdict-is-la...

[2] https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2022/12/02/muni...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Credit_and_Commerce_In...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_Pharma#Bankruptcy

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal#Enron

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos#Civil_and_criminal_pr...

[AtlasBarfed]

That Intel board article was great. It named names, responsibilities, some degree of culpability.

There are org charts and paper trails for these corporations. Corporations aren't mechanical automatons. They are made of people that make decisions. Unfortunately, they are rich and influential people.

Between statute of limitations, limited liability corporations, fall guys, unlimited resourced lawyers, and a fundamentally corrupt judiciary when it comes to corporations, there's no justice for the legal immortal invincible personhoods that are corporations.

It is nuts that physical reality is subordinate to the law and even worse, the selective enforcement thereof, but that is the nature of this peculiar filter. What will probably kill humanity? Bureaucracy.

Thanks, that's my TED talk.

[selimthegrim]

Let’s see how long those stay public for pharma and insurance.