Outrage is not the answer, if you live in OECD countries you have a massive footprint that rivals villages of developing countries. So do something about it. No, your pre-order of Model 3 that is going to come 3 years down the pike, does not put a dent in your carbon footprint. It is one small step, the roads your Tesla drives on needs petro-chemicals, so do those perfectly manicured french fries. Oil industry is greedy and entrenched, and do not expect some sort of Egalitarian enlightenment not from them, Nor from SV companies that colluded to screw their employees by forming a Cartel. Understand human nature, and it will help you trying to see the problems through caricatures and hopefully to work towards solution.<p>Here is the hard truth, We are a fossil fuel civilization. The problems are complex, we can green wash and eat some organic pop corn, but that does not help.<p>edit: there are some serious people trying to bring real solutions, I find Vaclav Smil, taking it to the next level of thinking instead of the constant greenwashing marketing campaigns.
The key document given in this article is the Robinson report of 1968. Looking at the excerpts given, this report made a prediction for CO2 level rise that can be tested: it predicted about 400 ppm by the year 2000 (from a value of about 320 in 1968). This was an overestimate: the actual level in 2000 (using the Mauna Loa measurements, which seem to be the key reference relied on in the report) was about 375.<p>This enables us to test a second prediction made by the report: the temperature increase caused by C02 level rise. The report gives a very wide range for this: 1.1 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the humidity change. The usual baseline assumption about humidity is that relative humidity will remain constant, and the report notes that that assumption leads to the larger prediction--7 degrees F--for temperature rise by the year 2000. That is about 4 degrees Celsius.<p>Even if we correct for the actual CO2 level rise vs. predicted--about a 20% increase vs. 25% predicted--that still gives about a 3 degree Celsius predicted temperature rise by the year 2000, as compared to 1968. The actual rise was about 0.5 degrees Celsius.<p>The report does say that the estimating method it uses likely overestimates temperature rise; but it does not, as far as I can see, consider the possibility that it might overestimate temperature rise by so much. So as far as I can see, the oil industry's decision to treat this information as much more uncertain than its authors claimed was reasonable.
Not divulging their internal research cannot be a crime because industries conduct private research for all kinds of competitive reasons. But the funding of false propaganda campaigns that they know are the opposite of their research should definitely be illegal, probably under fraud legislation I think. The problem is you can't find out that their propaganda campaigns are knowingly false because the research is secret. Though, as with the tobacco industry, the research does seem to leak out eventually, but it can take decades after all the original criminals are dead.
> When do we hold someone responsible for a harm? What if the harm is climate change?<p>We all burned oil in our cars. We didn't make an effort to carpool because it wasn't convenient. Skipped days riding our bike to work because it's too cold, etc.<p>To me holding the blame entirely on the oil industry is akin to persecuting prostitutes for sex crime.
how about we start considering every single corporation above certain size/revenue not as an altruistic setup but rather ruthless gain-at-almost-all-costs oriented businesses and deal with them accordingly. and it would be their responsibility to prove state and public otherwise. something along presumed guilty until proven innocent.<p>I know, naive and with many holes, but imagine it for a moment...
Even if you took all the oil industry executives and board members and brutally murdered them on live television, leaving their corpses to hang from trees by their disemboweled entrails, it would not change anything. Others would take their place, doing the same thing. We all enable this by creating the demand.
Is the industry or us evil? most of us have big suv's that we drive alone and the only thing we care about oil is the price.<p>Some will look worried, chat on forums about these stuff but continue to do nothing because "there is nothing we can do".
The harder problem to solve is social, I think. The planet is literally unable to support 7 billion people living a USA/Western Europe lifestyle. Who's going to be the one to tell all the people in developing economies, "Sorry, but you can't have those things that we have."