Why should you care?
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Re: Why should you care?
Mea culpa. I apparently misunderstood your claims about Exxon et al were about blaming those entities for the outcomes they produce.
I am not creative enough to answer your previous charge.
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Re: Why should you care?
Ad hominems do nothing to bolster your argument, Sy.
I said they're not facing an existential threat in the near term. They certainly are facing one in the long term, and would have even if there had been no increase in CO2 emissions since 1900. Go back to the sea level trend line I previously posted. Here's another sea level (NOAA) chart specifically for the Marshall Islands:Your claim that Pacific Islanders are not facing an existential threat is naive. The Marshall islands are sinking. Duh.
Sea levels there are rising ~ 2mm/year, or 0.65ft/century, continuing the trend underway as long as tide gauge records have been kept. They have time to take counter-measures, if that is deemed to be cost-effective. Regular flooding, storm surges, king tides, etc., are nothing new for those atolls.
Fossil fuel companies lobby for their interests, as does every other interest group. Would you expect them to do otherwise? Do all attempts to influence public policy constitute "manipulating," or only those by such "bad guys" as corporations and "the rich"?Your claim that fossil fuel companies are not manipulating the polity with lobbyists and media bias is even more naive.
And, yes, all media organizations have biases. That means you have to take anything they report with a grain of salt, until you can confirm it with original sources.
https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings
Without knowing details of the "subsidies" given by the Australian government, I can't comment. In the US, those "subsidies" are largely tax deductions of various kinds, which are granted to many other industries as well. Governments subsidize any interest group whose votes some politician covets.As for fossil fuel subsidies, they are powering forward:
(Australia Institute report)In 2020-21, Australian Federal and state governments provided a total of $10.3 billion worth of spending and tax breaks to assist fossil fuel
industries. The $7.8 billion cost of the fuel tax rebate alone is more than the budget of the Australian Army. Over the longer term, $8.3 billion is committed to subsidising gas extraction, coal-fired power, coal railways, ports, carbon capture and storage, and other measures.
Yes indeed, it is the masses who are consuming that fuel and releasing those emissions. I should think that glaringly obvious. And no, the fuel companies banks, etc., have no "special" responsibility for it, any more than pharmaceutical companies have a "special" responsibility for opioid overdoses, or MacDonald's has a "special" responsibility for obesity.It must be the masses, right? After all, fossil fuel companies, their lobbyists, their investment banks, their funded media and funded politicians carry no special responsibility, according to you.
Auto manufacturers have no power to limit development of hydrogen-fueled or electric cars. They can only argue for the superiority of their own products. The market --- consumers --- will decide which product best meets their needs.You no doubt see it as the masses' fault that car manufacturers and the oil industry worked so hard last century to limit the development and adoption of electric / hydrogen cars.
Er, yes, the market decides. That is an economic fact, not a "Republican schema." There are excellent, perfectly rational reasons why most people prefer gasoline-powered vehicles to electric ones, or to public transit and other "greenie" alternatives.In your weird Republican schema, the masses are responsible because they kept on buying fossil fuel cars (endorsement!), so manufacturers had no reason to rethink.
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Re: Why should you care?
It should not be controversial to point out that major corporations, especially fossil fuel corporations and their billionaire owners contribute a lion's share to global emissions and that fossil fuel companies have been manipulating the public to act against their own interests. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/ ... ar-1729429
It's like saying that the Earth is round or dogs have fur. It's utterly obvious - at least to those not wearing ideological blinders.
Like I say, I'm done. Your attitudes are not reasonable and you ware wasting my time.
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Re: Why should you care?
I think we've established that to be false. The emissions are produced by those burning the fuel, not those who produce it. You're apparently determined to dismiss or deny that obvious fact.
You tend to do that when you run out of arguments.Like I say, I'm done.
Well, on a philosophy forum the coin of the realm is arguments, not attitudes.Your attitudes are not reasonable and you ware wasting my time.
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Re: Why should you care?
Strange statement! Who are they producing it for? What is a fuel for if not to be burnt?GE Morton wrote: ↑November 10th, 2021, 10:19 pmI think we've established that to be false. The emissions are produced by those burning the fuel, not those who produce it. You're apparently determined to dismiss or deny that obvious fact.
You tend to do that when you run out of arguments.Like I say, I'm done.
Well, on a philosophy forum the coin of the realm is arguments, not attitudes.Your attitudes are not reasonable and you ware wasting my time.
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Re: Why should you care?
Their customers (you and me).
Of course it is to be burned, by you and me, in order to travel, heat our homes and businesses, operate our our refrigerators, teevees, PCs, etc.What is a fuel for if not to be burnt?
What is strange about that statement?
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Re: Why should you care?
Does it really need to be pointed out! It's produced to be consumed, which in turn creates the greenhouse gases. In your response to SyB you separated the two as having no connection.
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Re: Why should you care?
Now, now. I never said there was no connection. The question (at that point) was, Who is responsible for CO2 emissions? The (obvious) answer is, those who burn carbon-containing fuels. That someone or something else is responsible for producing the fuels is irrelevant. Is Mother Nature responsible for the CO2 emitted from woodstoves and campfires, since she produced the fuel?Tegularius wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 8:14 pm
Does it really need to be pointed out! It's produced to be consumed, which in turn creates the greenhouse gases. In your response to SyB you separated the two as having no connection.
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Re: Why should you care?
You're only considering half of the question which cannot supply a complete answer. If consumers weren't dependent on it (whether or not they want to) producers wouldn't produce and spend the many billions required as infrastructure if that investment weren't returned with profit by consumers. Logic, such as yours, which has only ONE condition, is useless in forming a conclusion when more is involved than one factor. Producing without consuming is thoroughly illogical, and yet you divide the two as if both were independent! Separating events in collusion never once yielded a viable conclusion.GE Morton wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 8:23 pm Now, now. I never said there was no connection. The question (at that point) was, Who is responsible for CO2 emissions? The (obvious) answer is, those who burn carbon-containing fuels. That someone or something else is responsible for producing the fuels is irrelevant.
She may have produced it through hundreds of millions of years, but she wasn't the one who purposely extracted it to burn its vast accumulations as fuel within a period of around 150 years. Also, what is emitted from wood stoves and campfires would not amount, even by a minuscule, to the globalization of using oil and natural gas as energy. Nature has been burning forests for many millions of years concomitant with green-house gas emissions while places like the Amazon kept expanding creating its own self-sufficient environment. That's what I call BALANCE!
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Re: Why should you care?
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Re: Why should you care?
The question --- "Who is responsible for CO2 emissions"? --- does not have two parts; there is no "half" of the question. The answer is, "Those who burn carbon-containing fuels." That is a complete answer to the question.Tegularius wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 9:53 pm
You're only considering half of the question which cannot supply a complete answer.
That is perfectly true. Consumer demand drives production. The causal chain between supply and demand is (demand ---> supply). Alfie, in 1908, buys a Ford Model T. He is the first on his block to own one. He thus creates a demand for gasoline. Some oil refiner responds, produces the fuel. His neighbor, Bruno, envious, then also buys a Model T. Demand for fuel doubles, and supply follows. There is no supply until there is a demand, and there are no emissions until Alfie and Bruno start the engines of those Model Ts.If consumers weren't dependent on it (whether or not they want to) producers wouldn't produce and spend the many billions required as infrastructure if that investment weren't returned with profit by consumers.
You seem to be considering the mere availability of fuel as a "factor" in CO2 emissions. It is a necessary condition, of course, but it is not the cause of the emissions, just as the cause of a forest fire is the careless camper who failed to douse his campfire, not Mother Nature who provided the trees.Logic, such as yours, which has only ONE condition, is useless in forming a conclusion when more is involved than one factor.
Ideologues on the Left constant seek to foist blame for every social ill on their favorite whipping boys, corporations and "the rich." In this case, to find the real culprits they need only look in the mirror.
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Re: Why should you care?
Oh, please. Do you really imagine that people buy cars, furnaces, electric lights and appliances, fly on airplanes, etc., because they've been mesmerized by oil company lobbyists?
Really?
- Sy Borg
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Re: Why should you care?
Australian fossil fuel subsidies hit $10.3 billion in 2020-21
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/ ... n-2020-21/
Oil And Gas Giants Spend Millions Lobbying To Block Climate Change Policies
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccar ... 5b9e17c4fb
COP26: Lobbying threat to global climate action
- Lobbyists are pushing the climate to dangerous extremes by blocking or diluting policies that would reduce the burning of fossil fuels.
https://www.dw.com/en/cop26-lobbying-th ... a-59726541
EGEB: Oil and gas lobbyists are trying to stop clean energy with Facebook ads
https://electrek.co/2021/09/30/egeb-oil ... ebook-ads/
Lobbying: Climate change - Beware hot air
“Energy companies relying on fossil fuels aggressively lobby against climate change legislation they perceive as threatening their corporate interests,” says Thomas Holyoke, a professor at California State University at Fresno and author of The Ethical Lobbyist. “This is hardly unexpected, since meaningful climate change legislation has to be detrimental [to them].”
https://www.reutersevents.com/sustainab ... re-hot-air
Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Are Dominating Climate Policy Battles During COVID-19
https://influencemap.org/site/data/000/ ... _FINAL.pdf
How a powerful US lobby group helps big oil to block climate action
- The American Petroleum Institute receives millions from oil companies – and works behinds the scenes to stall or weaken legislation
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -group-api
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Re: Why should you care?
Not just oil company lobbyists. We in 'the West' are raised in a Capitalist system, and given a Capitalist education. E.g. shopping, for its own sake, is seen as an admirable and enjoyable pastime, when (in the light of environmental issues) it should be seen on a par with paedophilia, or something equally unpleasant. Capitalism as a more-or-less-global system acts to maintain itself, and grow. Profit is the aim, and consumption is the thing that delivers it. So we are all unconsciously 'programmed' to consume, from the cradle to the grave.
The lobbyists come from every Capitalist corner of our commercially-controlled societies, not just from fossil fuel companies.
"Who cares, wins"
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