Big Oil's decades-long gaslighting campaign - Velshi - MSNBC

[Rhiannon12866]

As the globe bakes under some of the longest, hottest heat waves in recorded history, reducing emissions to curb climate change is clearly an existential imperative. But climate change driven by human activity and the burning of fossil fuels has been in the news for more than 110 years. By the 1980’s, Congress was already seriously discussing the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

So what happened? Since then, the fossil fuel industry has set out to reshape the narrative surrounding climate change, global warming, and the consequences of burning fossil fuels. It's a decades-long, multi-billion dollar campaign to influence our politics, gaslight people to question scientific consensus, and maintain our addiction to fossil fuels. - Aired on 07/22/2023.

[Duppers]

1. Many have sounded the warning; most notably AL GORE.

Rhiannon, thank you so much for this video. Folks need to listen!!

[Rhiannon12866]

2. I've thought so often about where we'd be now if Jimmy Carter had served a second term, followed by

Two terms of President Gore.

[Duppers]

3. Indeed!

I've posted about Al tonight!

[Hugh_Lebowski]

4. I can simultaneously believe that big FF is an evil industry that's gaslighted and lied this whole

freaking time ... while simultaneously believing that even if they hadn't done so, very little would be different.

Ultimately, it's the consumer's fault, it's the politicians fault, and it's the industries fault. We're all responsible. We all wanted to leverage the bounty of energy stored from 10's of millions of years of ancient sunlight hitting our planet and being stored underground to make our lives easier, safer, longer and more comfortable.

We wanted (and still want) goods from all over the world on the shelves of stores right down the street. We want powerful vehicles, we want A/C and heating. We want more housing to be built for more people. We want to allow refugees from 2nd/3rd world countries to come to our 1st world countries, where they will have larger carbon footprints than they would if they'd stayed put. In so many ways, we want, want, want, despite the consequences.

The fossil fuel industry has simply fed our collective addiction for more, more, more.

I'm not trying to absolve them entirely, not by any means ... but the info about what was going to happen has been out there for a long time despite big FF's efforts.

Damn near all of us are guilty. Putting it all on big FF conspiracies is disingenuous, and just makes us feel better cause then we transfer our culpability onto 'greedy giant corporations'.

It also (falsely IMHO) makes us think that there are still 'solutions' if we could just break big FF's stranglehold on the narrative.

Again, MHO, there aren't. It's too late. Humanity has fucked up and no amount of wishful thinking or blame is going to change it at this VERY LATE stage.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. And it's not only us, the entire world would have to cooperate.

But, like I said above, it would certainly have helped if we'd had leaders like Jimmy Carter and Al Gore to develop the right environmental polices back in the day.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

6. It might've helped very small bit, esp. 8 years of Al Gore (a dude I LOVE).

But there probably would've only been 4 years of Gore had he REALLY tried to act. Cause guess what? People like cheap energy. Period.

There's nothing as cheap as putting a straw in the ground and slurping up 10,000 years worth of solar power, in portable solid/liquid/gas form, every single freaking day, as we've been doing. This bounty will not be matched, and it cannot be matched by any known technology that can be scaled up to support 8B humans at anything like its current standard of living.

IMHO it would've taken way, way more than any given US President could've ever done ... to have averted this situation.

And while supporting universal health care feels good to us as a political position, in terms of climate change? It's the worst position. If you're actually serious about combatting global warming, the only logical positions, in fact, involve there being less people, living shorter lives.

I think the best thing any single country ever did ... was China's 1-child policy. Sure maybe it's biting them in the butt now because the young people can't support the old people, but guess what? Not supporting people living to be really old? Is exactly what needs to happen, if we're going to real about the situation.

[Think. Again.]

7. Thank you for posting this....

I had a discussion on another thread yesterday about this very same topic.

Here are some reference links I posted in that discussion:

Climate change disinformation poses increasing threat, says WMU history professor
https://wmich.edu/news/2022/01/66880

How decades of disinformation about fossil fuels halted U.S. climate policy
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/27/1047583610/once-again-the-u-s-has-failed-to-take-sweeping-climate-action-heres-why

Expert Panel Warns Journalists of Coordinated Climate Disinformation Campaigns
https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/07/18/expert-panel-warns-journalists-of-coordinated-climate-disinformation-campaigns/

[Rhiannon12866]

8. Wow! Great finds! Thanks so much!

[BigmanPigman]

9. When I was watching the film Network

again earlier tonight I thought of the time frame, almost 50 years ago the oil companies, governments, etc have been screwing us. And I decided that 50 years from now humans will remain the same. I am a realist and sometimes that is perceived as being negative.

[Rhiannon12866]

10. And I completely agree with you - even now when the weather is breaking news, is anyone changing

Anything? People are still driving, using A/C and whatever energy that they need. And that's just in this country. But has any other country made big changes - even now??

[BigmanPigman]

12. I watched two videos last night about climate change and

They both said the same thing....people will have to "adapt". That costs money and takes time. Migration has already started as more people are unable to live and work it the same places and ways their families have for years and years. I do not like the word "adapt". To me it means we have given up on trying to reverse the pattern. I guess I have to accept that "adapt" is the more realistic outcome and reversing the situation is not likely since it is a long term problem.

[czarjak]

11. We just need to relax and enjoy it.