Corporate Endangering Environment Provokes Sanctions

The political climate could not be more important now and into the election in November. It is a good time to revisit one development we know about, but tend to forget that only intensive readers and students of events and facts are really aware of it. That is the rightwing campaign to mislead the public by inventing its own version of fact that is at distinct variance with actual fact.

THIRTY YEARS AGO, the notion that corporations ought to sponsor think tanks that directly support their own political goals—rather than merely fund disinterested research—was far more controversial. But then, in 1977, an associate of the AEI (which was founded as a business association in 1943) came to industry’s rescue. In an essay published in the Wall Street Journal, the influential neoconservative Irving Kristol memorably counseled that “corporate philanthropy should not be, and cannot be, disinterested,” but should serve as a means “to shape or reshape the climate of public opinion.”

Kristol’s advice was heeded, and today many businesses give to public policy groups that support a laissez-faire, antiregulatory agenda. In its giving report, ExxonMobil says it supports public policy groups that are “dedicated to researching free market solutions to policy problems.” What the company doesn’t say is that beyond merely challenging the Kyoto Protocol or the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act on economic grounds, many of these groups explicitly dispute the science of climate change. Generally eschewing peer-reviewed journals, these groups make their challenges in far less stringent arenas, such as the media and public forums.

During the Rovian leadership of White House political skullduggery, there was an intense retreat from facts, headlined by the refusal to acknowledge global warming until recently. The cretin in chief evidently realized - probably under pressure from the demoralized minions in his party - that denial of facts was not sustainable. Even choosing an anti-science stance that pleased the extremists in the right wing had not insulated the occupied White House from rational bases for action.

The oil industry stands almost alone now in a world of rational forces in turning its back on factual bases for behavior. Its huge profits are creating a climate in which its dominance financially is crippling all other industry and beggaring families trying to make their way while wages stay stagnant but all prices rise in consonance with oil.

According to executives of major oil companies, the planet has plenty of oil to feed growing demand for energy. It's just getting more difficult and more expensive to produce the oil that's left.

So difficult, in fact, that the head of Hess Corp. predicts the globe could face shortages, price spikes and maybe even political instability in the next decade or so.

"An oil crisis is coming, and sooner than most people think," Hess chief executive John Hess said during a panel discussion at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates annual conference.
(snip)
"We cannot afford to abandon fossil fuels and still deliver the volume of energy needed to sustain the world's economic and social level, to alleviate global poverty," he said.

"Alternatives are simply not ready to shoulder the load. Nor will they be in a position to do so any time soon."

The men didn't predict future oil prices.

Mr. Hess spoke of "healthy" oil prices – that is, price levels to support enough production to meet demand. (Emphasis added.)

The concept of pushing for increased oil revenues is beyond irresponsible, and needs to be corrected if need be by penalties for companies that abuse the environment and that refuse to correct action that undermines environmental concerns.

Destruction of the world around them needs not only criticism, but prevention. We impose embargoes on nations that are brutal and abuse their own citizens. It's time we impose sanctions on activity that abuses and endangers us all.

Our world can't survive rewarding destructive activity with financial rewards. Words won't do what we need, it will take action.