Update: Big Oil, Political Realities,
and Climate Policy Options
What’s happened since
“Merchants of Doubt” was
made?
Richard Nolthenius, PhD
Cabrillo College Astronomy Chair
The next 26 slides are a FAST
condensation of some of the key material
from my Earth Climate Change in my Astro
7 “Planetary Climate Science” Course
• It is offered every semester, 6-9pm on
Mondays or Wednesdays (it’ll be Wednesday
eve in Fall ‘16)
• No math, science pre-requisites, and PACKED
with info, beyond the usual you’ve all heard
already.
It’s now known that all of the major oil companies
knew, from their own internal Scientists Studies, the
Catastrophic Consequences of their Business Models
• The Pulitzer Prize winning organization ClimateNews has uncovered
the documents showing that not just Exxon, but all of the major oil
companies knew how catastrophic their business model would be
to future generations. Their own climate scientists did high quality
work in the 1970's demonstrating this, just as scientists and
academia have been warning about for these past decades.
• They knew, and yet they chose to react by spending hundreds of
millions of dollars funding rabid climate denialist dis-information
campaign organizations as a strategy to manufacture a false
"debate" and forestall policy action until it was too late.
• The New York attorney general is looking into filing criminal charges
under the RICO anti-racketeering laws, and further, as corporate
charters in the U.S. require corporations to be public with
information which endangers their shareholders.
• To make such incredible choices, in the face of retribution from
one’s own shareholders, from the legal authorities, not to mention
the future well being of all life on Earth – exhibits deep
psychopathology, even outright sociopathic behavior
Since 2000, money to fund climate denial groups is being
laundered through the anonymity of Donor’s Trust. See links
to understand how the red curve rose, while taking direct,
named responsibility declined in the past decade here
Physicist Tim Garrett has Shown that
Studying Civilization as a
Thermodynamic System makes
Testable Predictions of How it
Responds to Energy Efficiency Gains,
and Which are Born out by the
Historical Data
Energy consumption rate (power) and total accumulated wealth,
plotted on top of each other for clarity. Result? They’re directly
proportional, recent new data extends this through 2014. Black curve
is flat = Constant. Now why…? Jevon’s Paradox!
Even globally, we have indeed
gotten more efficient at
producing new GDP with less
energy (red curve, middle plot).
But the energy use per person
has continued to rise as more 3rd
world people aspire to wealth
(green), and the total energy
consumption rate continues to
rise in an accelerating way (top
curve) (Wagner et al. 2016).
It’s as if we’re running 3 mph
forward on a treadmill going
backwards at 10 mph.
To make it clearer, look at the seasonally adjusted data, as of
February 2016. We have a new record in the ACCELERATION
rate of rising atmospheric CO2 concentration (New Scientist
2016), despite splashy claims of China perhaps beginning the
era of declining CO2 emissions
Include steep de-carbonization, with half life t1/2 = 50 years. They are all significantly worse
than the unmodified IPCC eco-friendly scenarios (in blue). CO2 levels never drop for any
CThERM scenario. Economic growth is far less, and CO2 far worse, than the simple IPCC
scenarios which consider relevant parameters but in isolation from each other
There are Key Policies Necessary:
• Tax-and-Dividend to externalize FF costs
• Dis-incentivize growth in population and energy
consumption
• Repeal “Citizen’s United” allowing secret funding
of politicians by the Economic Elite’s and their
Lobbys
• Large funding and deployment of atmospheric
CO2 capture/sequestration, regardless of
economic costs in the present.
• These can ONLY come from global policy action
Traditional Political Action: Does it
Work?
•
• Princeton University researchers (Gilens and Page
2014) studied the key variables of 1,779 policy issues
contained in congressional legislation bills proposed
and passed over a 20 year period, and found that the
desires of the average citizen had a “miniscule,
statistically insignificant” (i.e. consistent with zero)
correlation with what legislation was actually enacted
• ZERO CORRELATION.
• Instead, enacted legislation had very high correlation
with what was desired by the economic elites and their
lobbies.
• You might want to take some blood pressure meds
before following along…
Whether average citizens hated or loved a policy
proposal had zero correlation (flat line) with whether
the policy was enacted (Gilens and Page 2014)
But the legislative preferences of Economic
Elites correlated ~perfectly (correlation coeff
=0.78) with what was enacted. (Perfect=1.00)
*Average Citizens: ~0
correlation.
*Mass-based lobbies,
(like CCL): not much
better; 0.24
correlation).
*Business interest
groups, significant
(0.43) correlation.
*Economic elites: very
strong (0.78)
correlation coefficient
Most Important for Climate…
• ***Notice the left end of the previous graph; that when
economic elites and their lobbies strongly opposed
legislation, it had a 0% chance of being enacted.
• They were 100% efficient in stopping
legislation which they strongly opposed.
• Today, the economic elites are the right-wing ideologues who
strongly oppose climate science, climate scientists, and
government interference in fossil fuel business (except for
huge subsidies – they’re OK with that part)
• So what chance does “write your congressman” actually have
in getting the policy ideas we’ve discussed enacted?
• What has “write your congressman” accomplished so far?
Have we gotten action, or just stall tactics, empty promises,
handshakes, and the rest of the artful dodging obvious for
over 25 years now? I leave that as an exercise for the student.
OK, exercise over – here’s the answer:
• The evidence is overwhelming …
Your Influence:
ZERO!
•
• “We Are What We Repeatedly Do” –
Aristotle
• What does that say about your
Congressperson’s Integrity?
Therefore we should not be surprised to see the rate of CO2
emissions steeply rising despite the continued climate
Summits and IPCC Assessment Reports. Not just total CO2
emission, but emission rates have nearly DOUBLED since the
formation of the IPCC.
Global Temperatures are Skyrocketing
But There is Great Hope by Some that the 2015
Paris Summit will Finally Result in Enforceable
and Significant Carbon Reductions
• Hope not well placed, in my judgment, and in the
judgment of most climate scientists
• A large amount of the funding for the Paris summit came
from the Fossil Fuel Industry and major carbon emitting
corporations (!)
• This was also true at the previous COP20: the Warsaw
Climate Summit of 2013, where the obvious disinterest in
making any commitments resulted in a walkout by
environmentalists (the tote-bags of the participants were
adorned with the logo of Grupa Lotos – Poland’s second
largest petroleum company, for example)
A Fact Overlooked…
• Once in office, elected politicians do what their paying sponsors
want. And their sponsors are Economic Elites and corporate
lobbies.
• The People only have the freedom re-elect them years later, or
elect some other politician instead
• The People only have the power of who gets elected (well,
except for Bush in ‘00 in Florida, Bush in ‘04 in Ohio, … etc.)
• The People do NOT have the power to control what they do
once in office.
• The Gilens and Page (2014) study results were released in
Spring ‘14. It got a minor flurry of attention in the press at the
time, but the Complacency of the People is a
mighty force to be reckoned with.
• Like climate itself, it was just a headline to sigh about…. And
then forget.
“Power yields nothing
without demand”
- Fredrick Douglas
Forcing Policy Change: Lawsuits
• A number of climate scientists are urging
government prosecution of Fossil Fuel
corporations under the Anti-Racketeering (RICO)
Laws.
• RICO was passed to criminalize behavior of
corporations who lie about the damage their
own products do, and clearly apply here after
the recent revelation that Exxon-Mobil’s own
scientists were showing as long ago as 1981
how greenhouse warming from their oil would
be devastating to the future and update here.
• Yale Climate series “What Exxon Knew” (9:34)
There is good precedence from the
Tobacco Industry’s very similar
campaign against science
• In 1999, the Justice Department filed a civil
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
Act (RICO) lawsuit against the major tobacco
companies and their associated industry groups.
• In 2006, US District Court Judge Gladys Kessler
ruled that the tobacco industry’s campaign to
“maximize industry profits by preserving and
expanding the market for cigarettes through a
scheme to deceive the public” about the health
hazards of smoking amounted to a racketeering
enterprise.
Suing Governments for Gross Negligence
• A Dutch court has ruled that the national government has a legal
responsibility to protect its citizens against climate change, and
ordered faster cuts in greenhouse gases in that nation.
• However, in America, it’s different. Kivalina, Alaska sued ExxonMobil in Federal court over sea-level rise threatening their town.
It was dismissed.
• One of the key bases for the law suit was that Exxon-Mobil
deliberately lied to the affected people about the science of CO2
and climate. But the court decided to dismiss the case without
getting to this interesting question, so it provides no basis for later
suits. Such is the System in the United States.
• The State of New York, (and now California as well) is attempting
to prosecute Exxon-Mobil for funding dis-information campaigns
long AFTER their own scientists told them of the disastrous
climate implications of their business, using existing shareholder
disclosure laws
The Pachamama Movement
• In the ancient Andean cultures, Pachamama is the Goddess who sustains
life
• The term has come to mean a movement which has as a central goal the
institution of legal protection not just for the present peoples, but for
future generations by guaranteeing rights to Mother Nature herself
• Bolivia attempted to institute these ideas, and so has Peru, but have
been defeated by mining and oil corporate interests.
• It is certainly a key flaw of our present US legal system that although
future generations are implicit in the value of nearly all long-range
actions we do, that they have no legal rights whatsoever. Our attitude
has been – future generations should be grateful if we leave them
anything at all.
• Native American culture is said to have considered the impact on the
next 7 generations of people before undertaking an impact on the lands
that supported them. As author Peter Mathhiessen (“The Snow
Leopard” and many other great books) observed “we don’t even
consider one generation”. So much for the human values of Laissez Faire
Capitalism.
Occupy DC?
• My own judgment, is that it will take a millionperson march on DC, occupying the Capitol
and forbidding business as usual until they
pass legislation which will begin to reverse the
damage we’ve looked at.
• Polite requests, letters to your congressman,
will continue to be futile. Gilens and Page
prove this.