
How the oil industry made us doubt climate change - daedalus_f
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53640382
======
shakezula
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was getting the average person to
blame themselves and not corporations for climate change.

The numbers simply don’t add up for a consumer oriented solution to make any
sense.

~~~
djohnston
I mean, who is consuming the products built with these resources? The
corporations aren't building them for fun, or each other.

~~~
Teever
corporations are building these products and then paying other corporations to
convince people that they need to buy these disposable products made from
nonrenewable and unsustainable resources.

We wouldn't buy the dumb shit that we use if we weren't convinced that we
needed it by marketers.

~~~
tengbretson
It seems that you have become quite aware of the people that are trying to
convince you to buy all these things. Now that you know this, are there steps
you are taking to become less convincable?

~~~
xg15
You're pivoting right back to blaming the individual.

Why is it my responsibility to not be convinced - but if those companies are
bombarding me with propaganda each day, backed by state-of-the-art psychology,
that's perfectly fine?

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ncmncm
All those tobacco, oil and paint executives retired with their $millions
untouched, despite millions of deaths laid right at their doorsteps.

Shoot up a Walmart, though, or crash one plane, and the nation goes on a
rampage.

Laws already on the books allow those executives to be charged personally. I
want a Justice Department that will use the law to take on the killers of
millions.

~~~
danans
> Shoot up a Walmart ... and the nation goes on a rampage.

And rightly so. The most prominent recent example of that was motivated by
racism against Hispanics. It was terrorism.

Using that as a foil for real crimes by those industry executives (whom I
agree in a better society should be held to justice for their actions) reads
like an apologism of one type of mass murder for another.

There are far lesser crimes - like selling crack - that are far better
examples of the unequal application of justice.

~~~
ncmncm
Stay with me here: killing thousands or millions of people, by slow death from
cancer, is _strictly worse_ than killing tens at your local retailer.

Has even a single tobacco or coal executive been arraigned for murder?

Is killing millions for profit less bad than killing tens for bigotry?

~~~
danans
> Is killing millions for profit less bad than killing tens for bigotry?

I'm saying it's a pointless comparison. They're both horrendous crimes and
should both be punished and justice pursued for their victims. I agree with
you that it's a crying shame that killing millions for profit does not get
punished.

A much better for foil to make your point - which I agree is a valid one -
would be the number of people in prisons for nonviolent offenses thanks to
things like 3-strikes laws, not bigoted murderers.

~~~
ncmncm
That is avoiding the issue. Avoiding is exactly how we got here.

~~~
danans
Are you advocating that we treat bigotry-motivated mass murder as occurred at
the El Paso Walmart more leniently (as a society and in the justice system),
just because we are failing to hold the even greater crimes accountable? That
is the implied subtext of your original comment, at least as I read it.

If that's not what you are advocating, then I'd argue the Walmart shooter is a
poorly chosen example, and that we are in agreement about the overall issue
(lack of accountability for very wealthy executives whose businesses have
caused the death of tons of people).

~~~
ncmncm
I said not one word about El Paso. Inventing leniency advocacy is not honest.

Still, the whole scene was entirely within the capabilities of the El Paso PD.
You know about it only because it was lurid, not because it had any effect on
you at all (presuming you don't shop at that Walmart).

A million cancer cases for corporate profit are not lurid enough, evidently.

A national response to cases _like_ El Paso would crack down on right-wing
nutjobs, but that (too) is absolutely not happening. That is a problem with
the FBI, not the DoJ, and is another worthy topic, but not this one.

The DoJ already have all they need to empanel grand juries and issue
indictments.

~~~
danans
> You know about it only because it was lurid, not because it had any effect
> on you at all (presuming you don't shop at that Walmart).

As someone who has on many occasions been the recipient of physical
intimidation and harassment by white supremacists, I assure you it affects me
when it happens to others, in whatever degree.

> A national response to cases like El Paso would crack down on right-wing
> nutjobs, but that (too) is absolutely not happening. That is a problem with
> the FBI

The FBI are getting a little bit of pushback on that from DoJ's boss:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/us/politics/fbi-
russia.ht...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/us/politics/fbi-russia.html)

There is an active whistleblower complaint from within DHS that the
administration-appointed heads of that department are trying to suppress
release of assessments of the white supremacist threat:

[https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/homeland-security-
whi...](https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/homeland-security-
whistleblower/0819ec9ee29306a5/full.pdf)

------
mavelikara
Dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24535374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24535374)

------
rdlecler1
The number one problem with climate science is that it’s not falsifiable in
the same way that physics or biology is falsifiable.

~~~
tasty_freeze
That seems unsupportable. Climate models make predictions and those
predictions can be checked later. In fact the results are in, and despite what
deniers claim, the models are not overstating the problem. If you doubt that,
watch this video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugwqXKHLrGk&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugwqXKHLrGk&t=2s)

"Gah, just another youtube idiot", I can hear you say. But here is the
difference. The guy is a geologist by degree and spent his career as a science
reporter. He repeatedly says: don't believe me, just like you shouldn't
believe the press reporting on it (which is always prone to simplistic
summaries and hyperbole). What sets him apart, besides his level tone, is he
reads primary sources (and encourages you to do so too) and cites all of his
sources, unlike just about every denialist. If he later finds out he has some
fact wrong, he happily admits it and posts the correction prominently in the
video description.

As far as physics and biology ... those are very broad fields and some of it
is falsifiable and some not.

~~~
rdlecler1
Please read Popper.

