The climate crisis of the 21st century has been caused largely by just 90 companies, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the industrial age, new research suggests.
The companies range from investor-owned firms – household names such as Chevron, Exxon and BP – to state-owned and government-run firms.
Gargantually stupid pissantry.
The fault is not in the companies but in us the consumers. Not one single one of the fuckers would have dug up or pumped a single kilo of carbon if we hadn’t wanted to use it.
We have been warm, well fed and mobile for a century because of fossil fuels. We wanted it, we enjoyed it and if there is any blame to be passed around then it is to us, the people who enjoyed the products of which the emissions are a by product.
The analysis, which was welcomed by the former vice-president Al Gore as a “crucial step forward”
Wonder if Occidental oil is on the list. That company that Gore used to have a decent stake in?
I agree. And if SB hadn’t been down yesterday I’d have said so already. As it is I’ll have to live with being at the end of a long line…
Fine.
Step 1: Let’s get a list of signatures, names and addresses of the great and the good in favour of shutting these companies down.
Step 2: shut them down.
Step 3: said names on said list get lynched by the People in the anarchy and desperation which follows Step 2.
Step 4: start them up again.
What climate crisis would that be then?
Tim, you misunderstand the lefty view. Us consumers are the unwashed ignorant masses who cannot make informed choices and are led astray by the evil genius at the big corps. We need the enlightened lefties in their ivory towers to direct us in our lives. There’s no such thing as personal responsibility.
Al Gore… he’s just the Occidental Tourist
If these energy companies didn’t use slick marketing to push their products like light or heat onto us, we wouldn’t even notice they weren’t there.
I demand plain packaging for energy.
Rob wins.
I wonder what the “climate denial movement” is.
Communist China generated 26.7% of world CO2 production in 2012 and accounted for 54% of the increase since 1987. Coal is the dirtiest major energy source and worst in terms of contributing to greenhouse gases: China consumed over 50% of coal burned in 2012 and accounts for over 90% of the increase in coal consumption in the last 25 years.
NO it is not companies – it is the Chinese state and a couple of other states that are to blame. US consumers share the blame but the net effect of the USA is reduced by its vast forests and agriculture which absorb CO2.
UK has *reduced* CO2 production since 1987 and now accounts for only 1.5% of world production.
I should take my share of the blame but I am getting more and more disinclined to take umpteen times my share especially as someone supplied data a bit ago that showed that Al Gore consumes more energy in a week than my family does in a year.
I’ve yet to be convinced that this ‘saving the planet’ malarkey is worth bothering with. The planet has only got to last another 50 or so years and I’ll be done with it.
John77:
I’m not sure that that’s entirely correct: isn’t the carbon released again after the agricultural and forestry production is consumed? It isn’t locked up for ever in shaker kitchens and cornflakes.
@ The Meissen Bison
Firstly not all the forest is consumed and the amount of wood in use in buildings, furniture etc increases nearly as fast the world’s population, also a lot of forest products end in landfill rather than being burned, and secondly the USA is frequently the world’s largest agricultural exporter so CO2 is absorbed in the USA and released when the food is consumed in other countries so should be included in those countries’ CO2 production not that of the USA. I do not believe anyone makes that adjustment to the published figures that are based on consumption of fossil fuels.
NB I said reduced – the US consumers are still among the worst in the world but China with a smaller GDP than the USA generates 60% more CO2 even before adjustment.
What if all the consumers had all of the knowledge and facts about where their consumables came from?
Arnald…would they still buy the burgers you flip?
What if all the consumers had all of the knowledge and facts about where their consumables came from?
In the context of oil production, they’d put a stop to overseas aid for a start.
Arnald:
As with the health warning on a packet of cigarettes, they would ignore it because they would sooner follow their own desires than absorb someone else’s wisdom.
The difficulty for the prodnose will always be to get the pleb to pay attention.
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