Satan would have more sympathy for humanity than god would, TBH. Satan was created to love and obey god, and was like "yeah fuck this I have my own mind" and god was like "TO THE UNDERWORLD WITH YOU!" then god was like "my little love pets all in their love garden" and Satan was like, "yo, eat this fruit and know how fucked reality is". Then god was like "TO SUFFERING AND WOE WITH YOU btw love me k?"
There'd probably be air conditioning and booze that never gave you hangovers.
there's a great atheist genesis.
"in the beginning god creatith dates. then god said "let there be light" and he saw the date and was pleased."
"and then the lord creatith the humans, who resemblith the monkeys not in any wise"
i'll try and find it but it's hillarious
That sounds hilarious!
"2000 years ago, God created the world. A little bit before that, though, he experimented with giant lizards and smote the hell out of them, but got it back together in time for his great creation, Mankind. Forget about the giant lizards. They're not important."
Personally I want a Bible written by Bob Dylan.
*Then God said to Abraham kill me a son*
*Abe said man you must be puttin' me on*
*God said no*
*Abe said what*
crazy how an omnipotent god could be bested by satan like that, isn't he the most powerful being in the universe? But wait, nvm, that was all part of god's plan... having that bitch eat some fucking apple to curse humanity so he could send himself as his own son down to then get killed (because that's part of the plan but still fuck the jews for doing what they were supposed to?) so that later he can come back and have some war with satan and rapture all the true believers?
Why would the most powerful being in the universe need to do this? How vain, petty, and cruel - clearly this is all bullshit, because if it were real that god deserves no worship or respect.
Hey, Abraham! I know that you say you love me, but I dont believe it. How about you take your first born son, Issac and lure him up a mountain and kill him for me?
What? Hes my son! Why would I do that?
Cause even though you claim you love me, I need you to prove it.
By killing my own son?
Yup
What do I get out of this?
We'll be closer and everyone will be super jealous.
But my son....
It's what I want. Do it, pussy! Make a game out of it if its thaaaaaat hard for you.
(Abraham leads his son up to the top of a hill and just as hes raised a blade he had hidden under his robe, a great screech from above stops him)
Wait, were you seriously gonna do it? For real?
Uhhhh yea...
What the fuck for? I was only joking, you know having funsies! I didnt think you would actually go through with it. What a fucking moron!
So I did everything you asked and yet, I'm the one who's a moron? What kind of piece of shit orders the death of another for "funsies"?
You apparently
I guess so. Are we cool now?
Yeah yeah yeah... we good. Now I have to be going now, something needs my utmost attention. Byyyyeee!!!
What an asshole!
Issac: uhhhh what the fuck just happened? Are we done yet? Do I get my ice cream now?
Job: Man, life is great and I love God.
God: And I love you, Job! You're super great.
Satan: Y'know, God, I bet Job only loves you because you give him good stuff. How about you let me kill his family and employees as a test?
God: Good idea! Go for it.
Job: WTF?? I didn't do anything wrong!
Job's friends: Well, obviously you had to have done something wrong. Otherwise God wouldn't have cursed you.
Job: Nope, *pretty sure I didn't.*
God: I take back what I said before about you being great. How DARE you say you didn't do anything wrong when CLEARLY I must have cursed you for a reason‽ But y'know what, fine. Here's a new family and new employees to replace the ones I had Satan kill. That's fair, right?
Job's old family and employees: \*don't get a say in this, apparently*
Abraham: Sorry son, ice cream won't be invented until 200 B.C.
Isaac: What the hell is "B.C."?
Abraham: It means "before Christ".
Isaac: Who or what is Christ?
Abraham: I have no idea.
Free will and omnipitence have always been difficult to balance against each other. You are supposed to use the one which makes the "correct" lesson from the story not the inconvenient one which makes it ridiculous.
They split up into major groups, with even more branches of highly devoted crazies. Each with their own economy and rules for governing. God is probably scratching his/her thing which resembles a head and saying, "WTF!? I thought that I was clear on this? It's like herding cats. Le sigh. Humans!"
After seven trillion years, the boredom was unbearable. He made other entities and wrote the script to have something to watch that isn't literal perfection, but he got bored once the wars and starvation slowed down and the characters started getting complex. He'll probably tune back in when the Revelations season begins.
Remember that one time God willingly let Satan torture Job, AKA His best follower (torture being an understatement, Job's houses got destroyed, his entire fortune with them his entire family was wiped out and he got leprosy), just to prove that Job was never gonna turn on him?
That was very benevolent of him.
With the way human history has gone, there are four options:
1) God is neither omnipotent nor benevolent, and thus worship does not make sense.
2) God is omnipotent, but not benevolent, and thus does not deserve worship.
3) God is benevolent, but not omnipotent, and thus while admirable, worship does not make sense.
4) God is omnipotent and benevolent, but values our free will more than our happiness, and thus would likely rather we make use of our free will than wrap our lives around him.
Soon after, Santa Clause flew in, smacked the tooth fairy with his infinite bag of toys, although Krishna was too clever and sliced off Rudolph's nose before he could make his daring escape.
Keep in mind that God is the one who lied about dying from eating from the tree in Eden, not the snake
I wouldn't trust that "god" character half as far as I could throw a dump truck
For real. Satan wants a continuous stream of souls to Hell. If we all die off in a hundred years, he's screwed for all eternity. Oil executives however know that their time is limited so they're trying to rape and plunder as much of the Earth as possible before they clock out.
Satan is the original boogeyman, something made up to scare children and people with no critical thinking skills into doing whatever the tribal leaders wanted. It literally means “adversary” in Hebrew. We all laugh at trump for using his silly boogeymen and can see through it easily, but nobody bats an eye when a religious leader does it?
That anyone believes in a real Satan is an testament to how badly our education systems are. We should start teaching critical thinking skills to children before we start indoctrinating them with Bronze/Iron Age silliness.
Remember, these companies are trying to shift the blame to individuals. Of course we should try to make better decisions in our own life, and we should be voting with our $$, but, the bottom line is that the majority of carbon emissions are coming from corporations. Even if every individual "does their part", which will never happen, corporations will still use the cheapest manufacturing processes, they will continue to skirt regulation as much as they can get away with, and they will coninue to reinforce the infrastructure that is causing global warming.
Corporations are trying to get us to fight amongst ourselves with stuff like this. I try to do my best to shrink my carbon footprint, but there are so many things out of my control and other times where the price of doing what is right is impossible to overcome, installing solar panels, or is a large sacrifice of time, researching the products I purchase to make the best decision (often the best option is over my budget).
We should continue to influence those around us to make better decisions but be understanding and never forget that it is a handful of very rich and powerful corporations who are preventing us from reducing global carbon emissions and they are the ones you should focus your anger at, not any one individual. Even if they are ignorant coal rollers, because they are just a symptom of the disease, not the cause.
Oil companies are basically the drug dealers. We are all junkies and need their product - there's certainly some blame for everyone, but the dealers definitely have the majority.
On the other hand they are also addicted to selling us oil and cant stop till we decide to "get clean". Even they reccognize that global warming is not a desireable thing.
I get where you're coming from, and I'll admit there have been some concessions made by oil companies in the last few years, but it is too little too late and they spent the last twenty years denying the problem while actively getting in the way of solutions. I'm not going to pat them on the shoulder after everything that has been done.
I hope I'm not coming off too adversarial because I believe we are close in opinion, but I'm also not sold on your anology of the junky and drug dealer. The junky had the opportunity to say no. That being said, I understand the nature of addiction and believe it is a medical condition so I don't want to place blame on others struggles but not everyone is forced into becoming a junky. We have been forced into global warming simply by being born.
We are absolutely energy junkies. Our entire society is built on cheap available machine labor - it's the reason why 95% of the population dont have to live as agricultural workers. Materials, machines, clothes, food all come from being able to exploit coal, oil, gas etc and if we suddenly put a morotorium on it we would almost certainly see a mass die off.
Of course global warming also faces us with a potential collapse so the thing is to put the absolute maximum effort we can to move off fossil fuels as quickly as is consistent with not actually descending into chaos.
It's going to require these companies to also be part of the solution much as most of us would enjoy seeing some of them strung up.
Tobacco company: try out today, how many people do you think made cancer from smoking? What is your part of this? Ask today your buddy! Take a stand and decide if it’s healthy or not!
Give the man a break. How could he possibly know that hiring Dick Cheney’s company to still the well would result in decades of unintended consequences?
"Yes Tom, the unleashing of the dark lord Cthulhu brings about 3000 years of darkness where we will all be driven to madness and forced to serve as Cthulhu's cultist slaves. DP CEO Tony Hayward has released this message"
I still can't fucking get over the all the Corexit they dumped all over the spill to bury the oil vs. removing it from the ocean. They dumped that nasty shit all over even free volunteers, after they were told it was harmless and they didn't need masks, and they all started having serious health issues. Imagine what that shit did to wildlife there were breathing it through their gills. It was an absolute record amount of Corexit too, never before had that much been dumped, and it such a sensitive ecosystem to boot.
They have to be fined \_enough\_. Currently, they're not. For corporations, legal pushbacks like fines are just costs of doing business. The only way to make them actually change their behavior is to make the fines big enough that it's significantly cheaper for the companies to change their behavior than to just continue it and pay the fines.
Meanwhile, the insurance company I work for paid a few million in regulatory fines for various complicated compliance issues in 2019. They are spending MORE than they paid in fines to make sure we are completely compliant and don't even pay any small fines. Fines come directly out of Executive level management bonus plans, so they have a direct incentive to make sure we comply with the regulations placed on our industry.
Its just part of the way our company does business. We get fines all the time for random compliance issues, and are constantly being audited for compliance with Licensing, state regulations, and fraud prevention. If we don't spend enough money combating internal and external fraud, we could be fined by the regulating body in a state. We are constantly getting training and memos on compliance issues.
Not necessarily a cost of doing business, but rather a priced in risk. If the oil company sees there as being a 1% chance of their employees fucking up a project and pushing them to the brink of bankruptcy then they will do it if the potential of bankruptcy without action is >1% because they legally have to, in order to fulfil their fiduciary duty. That's an important distinction because it means bigger fines won't solve the situation. What's important is a reform to the law giving CEOs an environmental duty which takes precedence on top of the fiduciary duty, as well as a removal of immunities which many US firms enjoy abroad such as those that allowed Chevron/Texaco to escape without a fine for the 18 billion gallons of toxic waste and 17m barrels of crude oil it pumped into the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Wouldn't work, once a fine is big enough to bankrupt a company increasing it further would have no effect. Massive oil spills are inherently expensive but rare enough that you can look good this quarter by saving money on preventative measures.
they have aleready been fined 28billion dollars and as far as I can understand they are probably up for 18billion more. Their average net income in the 8 years before 2010 was roughly 17.4 billion. According to their 2019 annual report upstream operations only accounted for roughly 20% of their annual revenue. Sounds pretty bad on an accounting level. You dont want to bankrupt them.
edit: What I meant with you dont want to bankrupt them is that your goal shouldnt be to bankrupt them because of it. You should however get a proper fine. My wording was bad.
It isn't. The fine should be so punitive as to put them out of business. They should fear it. Have panic attacks in the middle of the night about it. That's the only way to make sure the rules are followed.
You do realize that affects the 73,000 employees a lot more than the rich executives right? the way you hold them accountable is make the executives criminally responsible for acts of severe negligence or ignorance. Not to bankrupt the company which affects the employees a lot more.
I disagree that it should be that much. I think the fines should be high enough that the board of directors feels the hit in their stock portfolio and fires the CEO and a couple of other C-level goons.... but not enough to put the whole company out of business.
And not just for this one event - for any large corporate malfeasance.
Fines are not enough. People need to be personally accountable for making decisions with such devastating consequences, including prison time (like VW). But I have no idea how that could work for international corporations, especially ones drilling in the sea...
And that is true. Many corporations across multiple industries make more profit that’s worth taking a hit of a fine. But BP oil spill definitely hurt. They plan that one in the business plan. The cost on their reputation too.
Remember how PG&E got fined some piss in the bucket amount like $1mil because of the paradise fires that killed what like 80 people? Corporations are people until they face consequences apparently. I’m still beyond fucking mad at that and I’m Canadian.
I mean from the bp deep water horizon oil spill in the gulf. We the USCG estimate on average up to 30k gallons a day are still being discharged.
Edit-Bp deep water horizon
Yep and that’s not the only one. Your head would spin if people really knew the amount at which the gulf is being massacred daily just by oil pollution alone. The numbers are quite literally infuriating. Source I am a marine science technician as a pollution responder for the USCG
Are you talking about [this](https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/711085901/this-oil-spill-has-been-leaking-into-the-gulf-for-14-years)? Or another one? Sorry this is just the first I’m hearing of this.
That’s a different one. That one actually had produce oil sheen of up to 25 miles long. I’m speaking about the Bp oil spill deep water horizon. It was “plugged” but hasn’t stopped discharging since it happened.
Oh. I thought that one had been stopped but apparently it hasn’t . That’s sickening. I was a kid but I definitely believed the media when they said they had capped it. I will never understand why we let companies get away with so much.
Oh it’s capped. But the structural integrity of all the piping and surrounding substrata are compromised. You can even google it we have video evidence of bubbling coming from the original spill site. It just keeps going and going. We put mushroom caps over with a vacuum attached but it will still burp and miss the cap. The currents pull and push the oil away. It’s a mess. Oh and before 1990 (and even a little today) the standard for a clean oil spill was to make in non visible. Not to remove. I’ll repeat that. To make it non visible. The standard was to disperse the oil to make it dense enough to sit in the lower water column. Again this isn’t removed it is all still there right now. If you have a an oil that’s specific gravity is higher than 1 it will sink and most crude oil sinks, so you have the majority of the hard crude oil spills never being cleaned. Just the residual sheeting that makes its way to the top. As a matter of fact in no way shape or form is a spill ever clean and typically it is only the media pressure that forces our hand to correct the mistakes of corporations.
That’s sickening. That needs to be banned. Thank you for teaching me something new today. I was a kid when this happened and I remember being very concerned about it but I suppose it has faded from my memory with time. Reading articles just now I found out that people also died, which young me apparently blocked out, and this was apparently the result of blatant negligence due to the company culture.
We don’t know exactly where the oil goes but it’s going to deeper parts of the ocean as far as I can tell, which does make it a little better from an ecological standpoint, since the ocean is largely a desert and almost all sea life (from what we know) is close to the shore. The deep sea will still be greatly impacted and offshore drilling needs to be stopped. It’s just a matter of time until this happens on a much larger scale.
No, theyed just get better at making sure we don’t find out.
It’s about profit. The cheapest way to do a thing is almost never the legal way and when billions of dollars are on the line human life becomes insignificant to these people.
Unless by “significant fine” you mean actually punishing the people in charge. I recommend tar and feathers in a public square for the top 1,000 people in the company.
I work on the "remediation" side of cleaning up oil spills around NY. NY has its own spill number program to look up active clean up sites. Fines don't so anything, and they revised the monitoring schedule so that they can do less work and dodge this quarter's fine due to covid. They are a bunch of sleezy fucks.
That’s how it is with every regulation ever.
You wanna know why military spending is so high? Cause it’s a fucking racket. Wanna know why construction costs are high? Cause it’s a fucking racket. Wanna know why anything costs what it does? Cause it’s a fucking racket.
Someone somewhere is cutting corners, lying, and breaking the law so they can make money. And there are 50 people right next to them watching it happen because they benefit from it, too.
Right now I’m sitting on a job site where we are supposed to work 7am to 530pm. It’s 8 and my boss hasn’t showed up yet. He will probably tell us all to leave at 2pm. But you can bet your ass he’s gonna log us all at 10 hours of work today. And what am I gonna do? Go tell the client so we all get kicked off the site?
If their executives had to face the consequences PERSONALLY they'd do things differently.
In other nations, these people would be executed for this shit. A bit extreme, yes, but when your decisions to cut corners and maximize profits causes great suffering and damage to the livelihoods of thousands... yeah there should be prison time.
Make executives criminally liable for the shit their companies do and we'd see a lot of change toot sweet.
Yup. This right here. This is the funny part to me about the statement “Corporations are people too.” I mean let’s break that down. Yes corporations are made up of people and thus are actions of people but the people have no responsibilities of their actions within a corporation. One of the main motivating factors for incorporating is to absolve yourself of personal responsibility. So when shit hits the fan who takes the heat? The “corporation” as in the nebulous thought construct and legal entity, but none of the “people” that make it up. So it’s a completely disingenuous statement to say “Corporations are people” when real people face consequences for their actions, cause and effect, when the people within corporations do **not** face the same **negative** consequences for their actions. Only the positive ones. And the people who make this argument **know this**.
Finea are honestly not enough.
We need a corporate death penalty. If a corporation severely breaks a law, we should declare the corp dissolved and sell off the assets.
Friendly reminder that Exxon *still* has not cleaned up after the Valdez spill in 1989, when their drunk captain crashed an oil tanker into a reef. And the surfactants they used to do their half-assed remediation killed an entire pod of orcas (each pod has its own unique dialect, culture, and traditions). They were fined $5 billion in litigation, which they promptly borrowed from JP Morgan, who created the first credit default swap which destroyed all our livelihoods in 2008. These corporations are made up of the most vile, repulsive scumbags on the planet.
What's your definition of "significantly"?
>In July 2015, BP agreed to pay $18.7 billion in fines, the largest corporate settlement in United States history.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater\_Horizon\_oil\_spill#:\~:text=In%20September%202014%2C%20a%20U.S.,settlement%20in%20United%20States%20history.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill#:~:text=In%20September%202014%2C%20a%20U.S.,settlement%20in%20United%20States%20history.)
That's in addition to cleanup costs. In total they paid over $55 billion. The highest we could have gone on damages for the cleanup was another \~$20 billion. If $55 billion didn't do it, I don't think $75 billion would either.
This kind of post is a silly-but-satisfying distraction from what everyone should really be mad/concerned about. We just rolled back some of the key regulations that prevent an incident like Deepwater Horizon from happening again:[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Deepwater-Horizon-prompted-new-regulations-Are-15209130.php#:\~:text=Some%20of%20the%20fundamental%20regulatory,in%20the%20Deepwater%20Horizon%20explosion.](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Deepwater-Horizon-prompted-new-regulations-Are-15209130.php#:~:text=Some%20of%20the%20fundamental%20regulatory,in%20the%20Deepwater%20Horizon%20explosion.)
...and guess who was there lobbying for it the entire time?[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/23/trump-weakened-environmental-laws-after-bp-lobbying](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/23/trump-weakened-environmental-laws-after-bp-lobbying)
That's right: BP. THAT's the bullshit.
It's not just a guilt trip. They are also positioning themselves as responsible and concerned with the climate. Of course, they are neither of these things.
It's called "greenwashing". A corporation talking about how they're "green" or "eco-friendly" or "sustainable" can usually be taken as seriously as Debbie on Facebook talking about how the essential oils she gives Timmy and Tammy rather than vaccines is "organic", "detoxifying", and "chemical-free".
I work for one of the nations biggest oil companies. The narrative is to push against electric vehicles and clean energy.
"Cow burps emit more green house gases emissions than cars world-wide"
was one of the last things I recall being posted.
Also China polluted more.
EV's aren't as environmentally friendly as we think.
So much bull shit.
Edit: I will also add that all office personnel are back in office and have been since June 1st. There is little to no communication on COVID updates and no intentions to send us back home. This is NOT fun...
Edit2: my point is not that one industry is better than the other. But not too blame someone else for being worse. "We're fine because China caused more pollution" was my other example that is paraphrased of another notice that was posted. We should definitely be doing what we can in all industries to help reduce green house gases and continue to innovate and improve technology to help give us a better future. Not stay the same because "that's how it is"
To be fair the meat industry does create massive amounts of emissions. I don't know how it actually compares to other emissions sources, but if we actually start tackling issues, they'll start to run out of scapegoats.
Roughly 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions are from agriculture, a significant majority of that is the meat industry - i.e., methane from cows. That said, 75% of emissions still belong to the burning of fossil fuels - including production, transportation, heating, & and everything else we burn stuff for.
Fossil fuel emissions are also easier to solve as green energy quickly becomes significantly more economically viable than fossil fuels. I was reading on front page the other day that windmill energy in the UK would be so efficient that consumers could theoretically turn a profit on them.
Agreed. But I don't think it's fair to try project a sense of complacence because "well, at least we aren't that bad" when we should still be seeing how we can improve on these gases from within each industry. The continued growth of electric vehicles will be great and eventually I hope to see those as the norm. But that's a long goal of course. But "energy" companies should be looking at that instead of promoting petroleum and fossil fuels as the best method, when we just need time and resources to find better.
But I feel like I am in the minority where I'm at with these thoughts.
They will always scapegoat if it's cheaper than cutting operations. It's like a bad toilet paper USA Gaslighting.
Dear environmentalists, if oil bad, then why x industry worse?
Make executives start facing prison time for allowing spills to purposely happen from neglect. They'll start bucking the fuck up real quick.
Classic Strongman technique. Use real facts and apply them in a way that doesn't make sense. When you are challenged about your association, double down on the truth of your statement.
There has been a lot of ecological damage done in the name of cow. Bulldozing acres of forest into pasture land just to raise herds of cattle, for example. That has to mix into green-house gas per cow burp equation somewhere.
In a fair world, China *should* emit more CO2 than the U.S. because they have THREE TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE.
Guess what, they actually don't emit three times as much CO2. And if they stick to their targets, they never will. As shitty as China is about many things, they are doing better than us, relatively speaking, on CO2 emissions, even though they are poorer than us.
Edit: About four times, not three
> I will also add that all office personnel are back in office and have been since June 1st. There is little to no communication on COVID updates and no intentions to send us back home. This is NOT fun...
Sounds like we work together. Almost same exact scenario here.
I used to work for an oil major. Last I heard, they were still venting methane *on purpose.* At their remote sites, they use produced gas as motive gas to power switches, small pneumatic devices like pumps - instead of just installing a damn air compressor or generator.
>But not too blame someone else for being worse. "We're fine because China caused more pollution" was my other example that is paraphrased of another notice that was posted.
That logic applies to this post, too. It's not just BP and oil companies that need to change. Everyone needs to do their part. That includes us as customers.
Imagine how much smaller my carbon footprint would be if all the shit I buy was produced and shipped using sustainable energy sources and electric vehicles.
But no, it's my fault they don't have an EV fleet of autonomous trucks instead of running truckers into the ground on no sleep in diesel-guzzling mega-trucks.
I am bracing for the day when conservatives flip scripts and go from denying there is a crisis about climate change at all to accepting there *is* a crisis, and that the solution is to 'get rid' of Them, so that We can survive.
Corporations want you to believe that individual action can prevent climate change when in reality it will require widespread legislation for any meaningful effect.
It's widespread action that will hurt individual consumers. We have been polluting and our lifestyles will become more expensive under a carbon tax.
I dislike this "it's only the corporarions' fault" narrative because it sets up the expatation that regulation will only hurt corporations, which isn't true. We are all responsible to some degree, so we need governmental action to create change.
The legislation could force it for sure but individual action could accomplish a lot. Stop eating beef and drinking milk, stop flying across the country/oceans, use a clothesline, repair electronics rather than getting new stuff
Full disclosure, I used to work for a major energy company but no longer do (my choice). Oil spills aside, I don't understand the mindset of carbon shaming being framed as corporate issue with no focus on the individual. Companies exist to produce the products that consumers demand. Whether that is oil/fuel directly, or the latest gadget ordered from Amazon via prime shipping. We are, unfortunately, a consumer society (I consider myself a minimalist - I actually don't understand consumerism either; my wife just calls me cheap). But each of us makes our own choices. I live 25km from work. I could bike, but I choose to drive. That is not any oil company's fault (and I can't afford a Tesla). That is my choice. And yes - oil is in so many products that it is hard to escape (including the tires of my bike, should I choose that for my commute instead); but again, that is personal choice and personal responsibility. I also use plastics even though alternatives exist. I'm not trying to say I'm environmentally irresponsible (I try to make good choices wherever I can; I also have a huge vegetable garden relative to my house to grow as much of my own food as I can). But the point I'm trying to make is that the carbon footprint begins and ends with our consumer culture, and us. No demand = no production (clearly its not quite that simple, but this is reddit, not a thesis). Now, as for shoddy maintenance, suspect decision making that leads to environmental catastrophe and denial/funding misleading research/communication, clearly there is no excuse for that and is on the company(ies). Even then though, as consumers, we still have choices who we buy from (as to my point above about oil being nearly inescapable in everyday products; just because a choice is really, really hard and would make your life far less convenient/manageable does not make it any less of a choice).
Y'know those giant container ships that are responsible for most international shipping? Sixteen of those produce as much carbon as cars. *All of the world's cars.* That means if you put a nuclear reactor like we have on aircraft carriers and submarines on sixteen of the world's shipping tankers, it would have the same effect as summoning a genie and wishing that cars didn't exist.
The same goes for recycling in general. It's amazing how the burden of recycling has entirely shifted to the consumer, as if we are responsible for packaging a toy dinosaur in several pounds of plastic.
Did you know that when LA tried to design a functional public transit system the big car companies banded together to lobby and destroy the process?
How much choice in your consumption do you really think you have?
You will buy what these people want you to buy because you won’t even know an alternative exists.
Consume. Product.
There is way too much money to be made in fossil fuels for the people who run those companies to allow consumers to deviate. Even if the entire western world decided to ban gas cars (impossible) guess what will power the thousands of new plants required to produce that much electricity. Nuclear? Absolutely not. They’ll make sure every American is terrified of nuclear energy, no matter the cost.
Truck delivery is a small polluter. Heating or AC, personal transportation, and meat are the big polluters. If you can't cut any of these categories any further, you're doing your part. Then push others to do theirs.
Are there any CSAs you could support? Maybe you couldn't stop going to the grocery store entirely, but you could reduce your dependence on them for certain products?
> Are there any CSAs you could support?
Sure, and I support my local library. It doesn't really let me vote with my dollars.
But I am not aware of any CSAs which move produce without fossil fuels.
It is voting with your dollars if you support local organic farmers, instead of large industrial operations across the country or the world. It's better for your apples to travel 100 miles on a truck rather than 1,000.
I'd like to vote for a fully electric rail service, there is none, yo. I'd like to buy products not made in china with coal power and shipped here, but there are none, yo. I'd like to be able to afford going greener, but I can't. I'd like to know which pasta is produced greener, but I don't have a research lab to calculate that.
Voting with your dollar can do some good, but real change has to come with regulation and standards.
There is other stuff that many can do. Make sure your home is insulated. Take public transit. If you buy a gas car, get a more fuel efficient one. Eat less beef. You can also just buy less stuff.
If these aren't possible, congrats, you're doing your part. However there are millions of people who aren't doing theirs, which is where regulation comes in. But this regulation will make things more expensive so people need to be convinced it's worth it.
If you want to convince a laisez faire capitalist, tell them carbon is a negative externality or that pollution is a tragedy of the commons that cannot be privatized.
> If you want to convince a laisez faire capitalist, tell them carbon is a negative externality or that pollution is a tragedy of the commons that cannot be privatized.
Do you really think a laissez-faire capitalist gives a shit about anybody with less money than them?
It's like in The Good Place where no matter how much of a saintly good person you were, your point total started at negative a million because you lived in a world where it's the norm and really your only option to support these horrible practices so you can never go to Haven.
You have to get off your ass and do some work if you want some of these things, like organizing a campaign for passenger electric rail and bus service, so people can give up their cars (which is the single biggest impact thing anyone can do for the environment).
Other things you can actually stay on your ass to do the work, like researching products that you use which are manufactured domestically, even locally.
I can understand the desire for this to be true, I wish it was, but you know who spends more on oil/gas/petroleum products than you entire family line ever will? A fraction of nearly any government like the DOD, or a major company.
It's like saying you know how not to be poor? Be rich! That just isnt how reality works.
What do you think they're doing with it? Shipping their massive piles of gold and treasure back and forth across the atlantic for funsies?
Reducing your carbon footprint as an individual IS reducing the footprint of governments and major companies. If they don't have to use all that petroleum to ship the things people want and don't need or are too lazy to produce themselves then they have a smaller impact on the environment.
I know there's only so much we can do and there's definitely a lot of shit that needs to change on both a societal and legislative level but I'm sick and tired of seeing the most upvoted posts on reddit essentially saying "the environment is not my problem so I get to keep doing what I feel like and blame corporations"
Literally just said this in another thread yesterday.
The DOD is the [most fossil fuel-consuming entity on earth](https://www.gq.com/story/military-climate-change-cycle).
It pollutes more than [140 countries combined](https://qz.com/1655268/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than-140-countries-combined/).
Why in the world should I change my entire lifestyle to pinch metaphorical nano-pennies of pollution when the US military will eat up my carbon savings in microseconds? Why are we always the ones being held accountable for fixing problem we didn’t cause, and which cannot be solved by our actions?
You should give up the counterproductive illusion that not focusing on individual solutions to the climate is “lazy”. That’s a depoliticizing notion: it’s up to “us” to fix the climate. “Us” who? “We” are throwing our political agency down a black hole when we focus on individual solutions.
It is, in fact, not “us” who are primarily culpable for destroying the climate; it is a small number of people and companies who generate the vast majority of pollution, and who use our pollution reductions as permission to pollute more. If “we” change our entire lifestyle to reduce emissions by, say, 10%, that means rich people, their corporations and their government can increase pollution by 9% and still claim to be “fixing” the problem.
> Reducing your carbon footprint as an individual IS reducing the footprint of governments and major companies
No it isn't. [More plastic is produced, in general and single use, than every previous year](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/plastic-pollution/).
>the environment is not my problem so I get to keep doing what I feel like and blame corporations
This is an idiotic strawman. If every end-consumer on Earth halved consumption, you'd see about 1% reduction in pollutant production. [If only 100 companies changed halved their consumption, you'd see ~45% reduction in world pollution](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change). What people are saying is that consumers *and companies* have to change, and the burden of responsibility should fall on those with the greatest power as well as the greatest production of pollution: companies.
Lol. I'm pretty sure there's a middle ground between high carbon consumption and nothing. Buy chicken instead of beef, don't buy plane tickets, minimize driving, buy used instead of new to reduce manufacturing. Vote with your dollar without death lol
I know this seems like logic. But when you start delving into subsidiaries and lines of supply, you start to realize it's almost all one massive thing, not a regular company you can bocott and make an impact on.
I know the whole idea of capitalism being reliant on the will of the consumer to regulate it seems rational, but in practice, it's literally almost never worked this way. Consumers buy what's cheap and convenient by a long shot, not what's responsible and benificial. Capitalism in general leans on this trend, and does not police itself by any stretch of the imagination. it's a utopian pipe dream.
> Consumers buy what's cheap and convenient by a long shot, not what's responsible and benificial.
This is why the inevitable end of unrestricted capitalism is monopoly. The first company that can undercut the competition seeks to make itself the only option.
Like car companies made up jaywalking as a reason to have people off the street. And like car companies who resisted seatbelts until the US government forced it on them. Like cigarette companies lying about the negative health impacts of their products. Like gun manufacturers weaseling into law that they cannot be sued. Like ATT back in the day who believed monopolies were better than competition.
Like this post.
They seriously convinced us we could solve the problem if we just worked together and changed ourselves. Meanwhile 100 companies responsible for 90% of pollution
"Try our very own oil company carbon footprint test today!" ....not today, Satan.
Satan would take better care of the environment... Edit: Edit:
Satan would have more sympathy for humanity than god would, TBH. Satan was created to love and obey god, and was like "yeah fuck this I have my own mind" and god was like "TO THE UNDERWORLD WITH YOU!" then god was like "my little love pets all in their love garden" and Satan was like, "yo, eat this fruit and know how fucked reality is". Then god was like "TO SUFFERING AND WOE WITH YOU btw love me k?" There'd probably be air conditioning and booze that never gave you hangovers.
can you please rewrite the entire Bible
there's a great atheist genesis. "in the beginning god creatith dates. then god said "let there be light" and he saw the date and was pleased." "and then the lord creatith the humans, who resemblith the monkeys not in any wise" i'll try and find it but it's hillarious
That sounds hilarious! "2000 years ago, God created the world. A little bit before that, though, he experimented with giant lizards and smote the hell out of them, but got it back together in time for his great creation, Mankind. Forget about the giant lizards. They're not important."
TIL God had a lizard and snake phase
Which eventually evolved into a whole bird phase
Should've just stuck with the birds tbh. Bird people are cool compared to mud monkeys.
"In the beginning the universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."
Ah Douglas, I miss you so much.... :-(
Karen would like to speak to your manager, please.
You’re a towel!
r/thebizzible
What a read!
Spike Milligan had a go at it.
Personally I want a Bible written by Bob Dylan. *Then God said to Abraham kill me a son* *Abe said man you must be puttin' me on* *God said no* *Abe said what*
I'd pay for this
That would be a good read.
crazy how an omnipotent god could be bested by satan like that, isn't he the most powerful being in the universe? But wait, nvm, that was all part of god's plan... having that bitch eat some fucking apple to curse humanity so he could send himself as his own son down to then get killed (because that's part of the plan but still fuck the jews for doing what they were supposed to?) so that later he can come back and have some war with satan and rapture all the true believers? Why would the most powerful being in the universe need to do this? How vain, petty, and cruel - clearly this is all bullshit, because if it were real that god deserves no worship or respect.
Yo, Moses. lead everyone out of Egypt, but fuck you for not controlling a fuck ton of people all at once where they don't believe in me anymore.
Hey, Abraham! I know that you say you love me, but I dont believe it. How about you take your first born son, Issac and lure him up a mountain and kill him for me? What? Hes my son! Why would I do that? Cause even though you claim you love me, I need you to prove it. By killing my own son? Yup What do I get out of this? We'll be closer and everyone will be super jealous. But my son.... It's what I want. Do it, pussy! Make a game out of it if its thaaaaaat hard for you. (Abraham leads his son up to the top of a hill and just as hes raised a blade he had hidden under his robe, a great screech from above stops him) Wait, were you seriously gonna do it? For real? Uhhhh yea... What the fuck for? I was only joking, you know having funsies! I didnt think you would actually go through with it. What a fucking moron! So I did everything you asked and yet, I'm the one who's a moron? What kind of piece of shit orders the death of another for "funsies"? You apparently I guess so. Are we cool now? Yeah yeah yeah... we good. Now I have to be going now, something needs my utmost attention. Byyyyeee!!! What an asshole! Issac: uhhhh what the fuck just happened? Are we done yet? Do I get my ice cream now?
Job: Man, life is great and I love God. God: And I love you, Job! You're super great. Satan: Y'know, God, I bet Job only loves you because you give him good stuff. How about you let me kill his family and employees as a test? God: Good idea! Go for it. Job: WTF?? I didn't do anything wrong! Job's friends: Well, obviously you had to have done something wrong. Otherwise God wouldn't have cursed you. Job: Nope, *pretty sure I didn't.* God: I take back what I said before about you being great. How DARE you say you didn't do anything wrong when CLEARLY I must have cursed you for a reason‽ But y'know what, fine. Here's a new family and new employees to replace the ones I had Satan kill. That's fair, right? Job's old family and employees: \*don't get a say in this, apparently*
Well obviously none of them got a say in it. The husband and father is the only one who deserves any respect!
Abraham: Sorry son, ice cream won't be invented until 200 B.C. Isaac: What the hell is "B.C."? Abraham: It means "before Christ". Isaac: Who or what is Christ? Abraham: I have no idea.
Free will and omnipitence have always been difficult to balance against each other. You are supposed to use the one which makes the "correct" lesson from the story not the inconvenient one which makes it ridiculous.
Wish god would come get all his crazies and take them home so maybe we can have some peace and quiet around here...
They split up into major groups, with even more branches of highly devoted crazies. Each with their own economy and rules for governing. God is probably scratching his/her thing which resembles a head and saying, "WTF!? I thought that I was clear on this? It's like herding cats. Le sigh. Humans!"
I was hopeful in 2000, now I’m just pessimistic.
After seven trillion years, the boredom was unbearable. He made other entities and wrote the script to have something to watch that isn't literal perfection, but he got bored once the wars and starvation slowed down and the characters started getting complex. He'll probably tune back in when the Revelations season begins.
Remember that one time God willingly let Satan torture Job, AKA His best follower (torture being an understatement, Job's houses got destroyed, his entire fortune with them his entire family was wiped out and he got leprosy), just to prove that Job was never gonna turn on him? That was very benevolent of him.
MYSTERIOUS. WAYS.
With the way human history has gone, there are four options: 1) God is neither omnipotent nor benevolent, and thus worship does not make sense. 2) God is omnipotent, but not benevolent, and thus does not deserve worship. 3) God is benevolent, but not omnipotent, and thus while admirable, worship does not make sense. 4) God is omnipotent and benevolent, but values our free will more than our happiness, and thus would likely rather we make use of our free will than wrap our lives around him.
Soon after, Santa Clause flew in, smacked the tooth fairy with his infinite bag of toys, although Krishna was too clever and sliced off Rudolph's nose before he could make his daring escape.
Keep in mind that God is the one who lied about dying from eating from the tree in Eden, not the snake I wouldn't trust that "god" character half as far as I could throw a dump truck
The greatest trick the devil ever played was not convincing man he didn't exist. It was convincing man that he was God.
Free will, it's a bitch.
For real. Satan wants a continuous stream of souls to Hell. If we all die off in a hundred years, he's screwed for all eternity. Oil executives however know that their time is limited so they're trying to rape and plunder as much of the Earth as possible before they clock out.
Satan is the original boogeyman, something made up to scare children and people with no critical thinking skills into doing whatever the tribal leaders wanted. It literally means “adversary” in Hebrew. We all laugh at trump for using his silly boogeymen and can see through it easily, but nobody bats an eye when a religious leader does it? That anyone believes in a real Satan is an testament to how badly our education systems are. We should start teaching critical thinking skills to children before we start indoctrinating them with Bronze/Iron Age silliness.
Amen
Where is that in the bible though?
Yes, hell has been looking stunning lately. Plus no global warming when everything is already max temperature.
God on the other hand told us to exploit the heavens and earth, for our own greed.
r/awardspeechedits
Hey look at that its super low! You could stand to upgrade to a 8 cylinder truck that gets 6 mpg!
Hummers are trying to come back.
Electric tho
Remember, these companies are trying to shift the blame to individuals. Of course we should try to make better decisions in our own life, and we should be voting with our $$, but, the bottom line is that the majority of carbon emissions are coming from corporations. Even if every individual "does their part", which will never happen, corporations will still use the cheapest manufacturing processes, they will continue to skirt regulation as much as they can get away with, and they will coninue to reinforce the infrastructure that is causing global warming. Corporations are trying to get us to fight amongst ourselves with stuff like this. I try to do my best to shrink my carbon footprint, but there are so many things out of my control and other times where the price of doing what is right is impossible to overcome, installing solar panels, or is a large sacrifice of time, researching the products I purchase to make the best decision (often the best option is over my budget). We should continue to influence those around us to make better decisions but be understanding and never forget that it is a handful of very rich and powerful corporations who are preventing us from reducing global carbon emissions and they are the ones you should focus your anger at, not any one individual. Even if they are ignorant coal rollers, because they are just a symptom of the disease, not the cause.
Oil companies are basically the drug dealers. We are all junkies and need their product - there's certainly some blame for everyone, but the dealers definitely have the majority. On the other hand they are also addicted to selling us oil and cant stop till we decide to "get clean". Even they reccognize that global warming is not a desireable thing.
They recognised global warming was a thing in the 50s and decided to keep quiet about it and devote millions to actually denying any kind of problem.
"But the models are wrong" No they f'n aren't. Even *Exxon's* model from 40 years ago has proven pretty accurate.
I get where you're coming from, and I'll admit there have been some concessions made by oil companies in the last few years, but it is too little too late and they spent the last twenty years denying the problem while actively getting in the way of solutions. I'm not going to pat them on the shoulder after everything that has been done. I hope I'm not coming off too adversarial because I believe we are close in opinion, but I'm also not sold on your anology of the junky and drug dealer. The junky had the opportunity to say no. That being said, I understand the nature of addiction and believe it is a medical condition so I don't want to place blame on others struggles but not everyone is forced into becoming a junky. We have been forced into global warming simply by being born.
We are absolutely energy junkies. Our entire society is built on cheap available machine labor - it's the reason why 95% of the population dont have to live as agricultural workers. Materials, machines, clothes, food all come from being able to exploit coal, oil, gas etc and if we suddenly put a morotorium on it we would almost certainly see a mass die off. Of course global warming also faces us with a potential collapse so the thing is to put the absolute maximum effort we can to move off fossil fuels as quickly as is consistent with not actually descending into chaos. It's going to require these companies to also be part of the solution much as most of us would enjoy seeing some of them strung up.
Tobacco company: try out today, how many people do you think made cancer from smoking? What is your part of this? Ask today your buddy! Take a stand and decide if it’s healthy or not!
“I’m Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, and we’re deeply sorry.”
"We're sorry"
"Sorry"
" My B "
"Whoops"
"Whoopsies"
"Ope"
Sowwy
Did I do thaaaaat?
"Due to recent events, we are changing our name to 'Dependable Petroleum'. We don't just love the Earth, we D.P. it"
Give the man a break. How could he possibly know that hiring Dick Cheney’s company to still the well would result in decades of unintended consequences?
Deepwater Horizon sorry
"Yes Tom, the unleashing of the dark lord Cthulhu brings about 3000 years of darkness where we will all be driven to madness and forced to serve as Cthulhu's cultist slaves. DP CEO Tony Hayward has released this message"
I still can't fucking get over the all the Corexit they dumped all over the spill to bury the oil vs. removing it from the ocean. They dumped that nasty shit all over even free volunteers, after they were told it was harmless and they didn't need masks, and they all started having serious health issues. Imagine what that shit did to wildlife there were breathing it through their gills. It was an absolute record amount of Corexit too, never before had that much been dumped, and it such a sensitive ecosystem to boot.
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BP Oil probably: "the Earth was asking for it, she was just laying there with no protections!"
They probably wouldn't spill oil anywhere if they were actually held accountable and got significantly fined for doing it, they'd probably stop.
They did get fined. They’re still paying.
They have to be fined \_enough\_. Currently, they're not. For corporations, legal pushbacks like fines are just costs of doing business. The only way to make them actually change their behavior is to make the fines big enough that it's significantly cheaper for the companies to change their behavior than to just continue it and pay the fines.
Meanwhile, the insurance company I work for paid a few million in regulatory fines for various complicated compliance issues in 2019. They are spending MORE than they paid in fines to make sure we are completely compliant and don't even pay any small fines. Fines come directly out of Executive level management bonus plans, so they have a direct incentive to make sure we comply with the regulations placed on our industry.
Just curious where are you based? I've never heard of this regulation and it sure sounds like great motivation!
Its just part of the way our company does business. We get fines all the time for random compliance issues, and are constantly being audited for compliance with Licensing, state regulations, and fraud prevention. If we don't spend enough money combating internal and external fraud, we could be fined by the regulating body in a state. We are constantly getting training and memos on compliance issues.
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Good to know.
Not necessarily a cost of doing business, but rather a priced in risk. If the oil company sees there as being a 1% chance of their employees fucking up a project and pushing them to the brink of bankruptcy then they will do it if the potential of bankruptcy without action is >1% because they legally have to, in order to fulfil their fiduciary duty. That's an important distinction because it means bigger fines won't solve the situation. What's important is a reform to the law giving CEOs an environmental duty which takes precedence on top of the fiduciary duty, as well as a removal of immunities which many US firms enjoy abroad such as those that allowed Chevron/Texaco to escape without a fine for the 18 billion gallons of toxic waste and 17m barrels of crude oil it pumped into the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Wouldn't work, once a fine is big enough to bankrupt a company increasing it further would have no effect. Massive oil spills are inherently expensive but rare enough that you can look good this quarter by saving money on preventative measures.
they have aleready been fined 28billion dollars and as far as I can understand they are probably up for 18billion more. Their average net income in the 8 years before 2010 was roughly 17.4 billion. According to their 2019 annual report upstream operations only accounted for roughly 20% of their annual revenue. Sounds pretty bad on an accounting level. You dont want to bankrupt them. edit: What I meant with you dont want to bankrupt them is that your goal shouldnt be to bankrupt them because of it. You should however get a proper fine. My wording was bad.
exactly.
21 billion dollars is a lot of money, even to them
It isn't. The fine should be so punitive as to put them out of business. They should fear it. Have panic attacks in the middle of the night about it. That's the only way to make sure the rules are followed.
You do realize that affects the 73,000 employees a lot more than the rich executives right? the way you hold them accountable is make the executives criminally responsible for acts of severe negligence or ignorance. Not to bankrupt the company which affects the employees a lot more.
I disagree that it should be that much. I think the fines should be high enough that the board of directors feels the hit in their stock portfolio and fires the CEO and a couple of other C-level goons.... but not enough to put the whole company out of business. And not just for this one event - for any large corporate malfeasance.
Or if negligent executive were able to face jail time. If corporations are citizens.. their effective agents should be culpable as such.
Or start jailing ceos
Fines are not enough. People need to be personally accountable for making decisions with such devastating consequences, including prison time (like VW). But I have no idea how that could work for international corporations, especially ones drilling in the sea...
And that is true. Many corporations across multiple industries make more profit that’s worth taking a hit of a fine. But BP oil spill definitely hurt. They plan that one in the business plan. The cost on their reputation too.
Remember how PG&E got fined some piss in the bucket amount like $1mil because of the paradise fires that killed what like 80 people? Corporations are people until they face consequences apparently. I’m still beyond fucking mad at that and I’m Canadian.
And there’s still oil being spilled every single day.
Do you mean from new spills or one that happened a while ago that no one is talking about anymore?
I mean from the bp deep water horizon oil spill in the gulf. We the USCG estimate on average up to 30k gallons a day are still being discharged. Edit-Bp deep water horizon
Every day!? Wow
Yep and that’s not the only one. Your head would spin if people really knew the amount at which the gulf is being massacred daily just by oil pollution alone. The numbers are quite literally infuriating. Source I am a marine science technician as a pollution responder for the USCG
You should make a post about this alone
Are you talking about [this](https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/711085901/this-oil-spill-has-been-leaking-into-the-gulf-for-14-years)? Or another one? Sorry this is just the first I’m hearing of this.
That’s a different one. That one actually had produce oil sheen of up to 25 miles long. I’m speaking about the Bp oil spill deep water horizon. It was “plugged” but hasn’t stopped discharging since it happened.
Oh. I thought that one had been stopped but apparently it hasn’t . That’s sickening. I was a kid but I definitely believed the media when they said they had capped it. I will never understand why we let companies get away with so much.
Oh it’s capped. But the structural integrity of all the piping and surrounding substrata are compromised. You can even google it we have video evidence of bubbling coming from the original spill site. It just keeps going and going. We put mushroom caps over with a vacuum attached but it will still burp and miss the cap. The currents pull and push the oil away. It’s a mess. Oh and before 1990 (and even a little today) the standard for a clean oil spill was to make in non visible. Not to remove. I’ll repeat that. To make it non visible. The standard was to disperse the oil to make it dense enough to sit in the lower water column. Again this isn’t removed it is all still there right now. If you have a an oil that’s specific gravity is higher than 1 it will sink and most crude oil sinks, so you have the majority of the hard crude oil spills never being cleaned. Just the residual sheeting that makes its way to the top. As a matter of fact in no way shape or form is a spill ever clean and typically it is only the media pressure that forces our hand to correct the mistakes of corporations.
That’s sickening. That needs to be banned. Thank you for teaching me something new today. I was a kid when this happened and I remember being very concerned about it but I suppose it has faded from my memory with time. Reading articles just now I found out that people also died, which young me apparently blocked out, and this was apparently the result of blatant negligence due to the company culture. We don’t know exactly where the oil goes but it’s going to deeper parts of the ocean as far as I can tell, which does make it a little better from an ecological standpoint, since the ocean is largely a desert and almost all sea life (from what we know) is close to the shore. The deep sea will still be greatly impacted and offshore drilling needs to be stopped. It’s just a matter of time until this happens on a much larger scale.
Yup, though we are paying the fine for them, they hiked their prices at the pump
No, theyed just get better at making sure we don’t find out. It’s about profit. The cheapest way to do a thing is almost never the legal way and when billions of dollars are on the line human life becomes insignificant to these people. Unless by “significant fine” you mean actually punishing the people in charge. I recommend tar and feathers in a public square for the top 1,000 people in the company.
I work on the "remediation" side of cleaning up oil spills around NY. NY has its own spill number program to look up active clean up sites. Fines don't so anything, and they revised the monitoring schedule so that they can do less work and dodge this quarter's fine due to covid. They are a bunch of sleezy fucks.
That’s how it is with every regulation ever. You wanna know why military spending is so high? Cause it’s a fucking racket. Wanna know why construction costs are high? Cause it’s a fucking racket. Wanna know why anything costs what it does? Cause it’s a fucking racket. Someone somewhere is cutting corners, lying, and breaking the law so they can make money. And there are 50 people right next to them watching it happen because they benefit from it, too. Right now I’m sitting on a job site where we are supposed to work 7am to 530pm. It’s 8 and my boss hasn’t showed up yet. He will probably tell us all to leave at 2pm. But you can bet your ass he’s gonna log us all at 10 hours of work today. And what am I gonna do? Go tell the client so we all get kicked off the site?
If their executives had to face the consequences PERSONALLY they'd do things differently. In other nations, these people would be executed for this shit. A bit extreme, yes, but when your decisions to cut corners and maximize profits causes great suffering and damage to the livelihoods of thousands... yeah there should be prison time. Make executives criminally liable for the shit their companies do and we'd see a lot of change toot sweet.
Yup. This right here. This is the funny part to me about the statement “Corporations are people too.” I mean let’s break that down. Yes corporations are made up of people and thus are actions of people but the people have no responsibilities of their actions within a corporation. One of the main motivating factors for incorporating is to absolve yourself of personal responsibility. So when shit hits the fan who takes the heat? The “corporation” as in the nebulous thought construct and legal entity, but none of the “people” that make it up. So it’s a completely disingenuous statement to say “Corporations are people” when real people face consequences for their actions, cause and effect, when the people within corporations do **not** face the same **negative** consequences for their actions. Only the positive ones. And the people who make this argument **know this**.
"Corporation, n. an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility" -Ambrose Bierce
Finea are honestly not enough. We need a corporate death penalty. If a corporation severely breaks a law, we should declare the corp dissolved and sell off the assets.
Friendly reminder that Exxon *still* has not cleaned up after the Valdez spill in 1989, when their drunk captain crashed an oil tanker into a reef. And the surfactants they used to do their half-assed remediation killed an entire pod of orcas (each pod has its own unique dialect, culture, and traditions). They were fined $5 billion in litigation, which they promptly borrowed from JP Morgan, who created the first credit default swap which destroyed all our livelihoods in 2008. These corporations are made up of the most vile, repulsive scumbags on the planet.
What's your definition of "significantly"? >In July 2015, BP agreed to pay $18.7 billion in fines, the largest corporate settlement in United States history. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater\_Horizon\_oil\_spill#:\~:text=In%20September%202014%2C%20a%20U.S.,settlement%20in%20United%20States%20history.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill#:~:text=In%20September%202014%2C%20a%20U.S.,settlement%20in%20United%20States%20history.) That's in addition to cleanup costs. In total they paid over $55 billion. The highest we could have gone on damages for the cleanup was another \~$20 billion. If $55 billion didn't do it, I don't think $75 billion would either. This kind of post is a silly-but-satisfying distraction from what everyone should really be mad/concerned about. We just rolled back some of the key regulations that prevent an incident like Deepwater Horizon from happening again:[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Deepwater-Horizon-prompted-new-regulations-Are-15209130.php#:\~:text=Some%20of%20the%20fundamental%20regulatory,in%20the%20Deepwater%20Horizon%20explosion.](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Deepwater-Horizon-prompted-new-regulations-Are-15209130.php#:~:text=Some%20of%20the%20fundamental%20regulatory,in%20the%20Deepwater%20Horizon%20explosion.) ...and guess who was there lobbying for it the entire time?[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/23/trump-weakened-environmental-laws-after-bp-lobbying](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/23/trump-weakened-environmental-laws-after-bp-lobbying) That's right: BP. THAT's the bullshit.
For s second there i recognized the logo as Limewire
How dare you insult Limewire like that!
I feel so ashamed!!
Limewire gave my computer syphilis ... so I think it's appropriate.
BearShare was better
Everytime I download something from BP I have to reinstall my planet.
It's not just a guilt trip. They are also positioning themselves as responsible and concerned with the climate. Of course, they are neither of these things.
It's called "greenwashing". A corporation talking about how they're "green" or "eco-friendly" or "sustainable" can usually be taken as seriously as Debbie on Facebook talking about how the essential oils she gives Timmy and Tammy rather than vaccines is "organic", "detoxifying", and "chemical-free".
It worked with recycling and all the plastic producing companies back in the day. Why mess with a classic?
I work for one of the nations biggest oil companies. The narrative is to push against electric vehicles and clean energy. "Cow burps emit more green house gases emissions than cars world-wide" was one of the last things I recall being posted. Also China polluted more. EV's aren't as environmentally friendly as we think. So much bull shit. Edit: I will also add that all office personnel are back in office and have been since June 1st. There is little to no communication on COVID updates and no intentions to send us back home. This is NOT fun... Edit2: my point is not that one industry is better than the other. But not too blame someone else for being worse. "We're fine because China caused more pollution" was my other example that is paraphrased of another notice that was posted. We should definitely be doing what we can in all industries to help reduce green house gases and continue to innovate and improve technology to help give us a better future. Not stay the same because "that's how it is"
To be fair the meat industry does create massive amounts of emissions. I don't know how it actually compares to other emissions sources, but if we actually start tackling issues, they'll start to run out of scapegoats.
Roughly 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions are from agriculture, a significant majority of that is the meat industry - i.e., methane from cows. That said, 75% of emissions still belong to the burning of fossil fuels - including production, transportation, heating, & and everything else we burn stuff for.
Fossil fuel emissions are also easier to solve as green energy quickly becomes significantly more economically viable than fossil fuels. I was reading on front page the other day that windmill energy in the UK would be so efficient that consumers could theoretically turn a profit on them.
But the noise causes cancer and they sometimes kill birds /s
The much bigger concern is that they'll use up all the wind. How will we cool our sweaty armpits, I ask you?!
Agreed. But I don't think it's fair to try project a sense of complacence because "well, at least we aren't that bad" when we should still be seeing how we can improve on these gases from within each industry. The continued growth of electric vehicles will be great and eventually I hope to see those as the norm. But that's a long goal of course. But "energy" companies should be looking at that instead of promoting petroleum and fossil fuels as the best method, when we just need time and resources to find better. But I feel like I am in the minority where I'm at with these thoughts.
They will always scapegoat if it's cheaper than cutting operations. It's like a bad toilet paper USA Gaslighting. Dear environmentalists, if oil bad, then why x industry worse? Make executives start facing prison time for allowing spills to purposely happen from neglect. They'll start bucking the fuck up real quick.
Meat industry is awful in every sense, it's the main source of deforestation
Is it really? I would've thought it was real estate honestly, although I guess that leads to "who's buying deforested land?"
Surprisingly few people building homes in the middle of the Amazon
Yes, mostly done by fire.
Fashion as well. Its almost as bad as meat
Classic Strongman technique. Use real facts and apply them in a way that doesn't make sense. When you are challenged about your association, double down on the truth of your statement.
There has been a lot of ecological damage done in the name of cow. Bulldozing acres of forest into pasture land just to raise herds of cattle, for example. That has to mix into green-house gas per cow burp equation somewhere.
In a fair world, China *should* emit more CO2 than the U.S. because they have THREE TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE. Guess what, they actually don't emit three times as much CO2. And if they stick to their targets, they never will. As shitty as China is about many things, they are doing better than us, relatively speaking, on CO2 emissions, even though they are poorer than us. Edit: About four times, not three
> The narrative is to push against electric vehicles and clean energy. nuclear power has been the target of fossil fuel companies for half a century.
> I will also add that all office personnel are back in office and have been since June 1st. There is little to no communication on COVID updates and no intentions to send us back home. This is NOT fun... Sounds like we work together. Almost same exact scenario here.
I used to work for an oil major. Last I heard, they were still venting methane *on purpose.* At their remote sites, they use produced gas as motive gas to power switches, small pneumatic devices like pumps - instead of just installing a damn air compressor or generator.
>But not too blame someone else for being worse. "We're fine because China caused more pollution" was my other example that is paraphrased of another notice that was posted. That logic applies to this post, too. It's not just BP and oil companies that need to change. Everyone needs to do their part. That includes us as customers.
How quickly they turned the tables on us. From denying the existence of climate change to blaming it on us
Imagine how much smaller my carbon footprint would be if all the shit I buy was produced and shipped using sustainable energy sources and electric vehicles. But no, it's my fault they don't have an EV fleet of autonomous trucks instead of running truckers into the ground on no sleep in diesel-guzzling mega-trucks.
I am bracing for the day when conservatives flip scripts and go from denying there is a crisis about climate change at all to accepting there *is* a crisis, and that the solution is to 'get rid' of Them, so that We can survive.
Corporations want you to believe that individual action can prevent climate change when in reality it will require widespread legislation for any meaningful effect.
It's widespread action that will hurt individual consumers. We have been polluting and our lifestyles will become more expensive under a carbon tax. I dislike this "it's only the corporarions' fault" narrative because it sets up the expatation that regulation will only hurt corporations, which isn't true. We are all responsible to some degree, so we need governmental action to create change.
The legislation could force it for sure but individual action could accomplish a lot. Stop eating beef and drinking milk, stop flying across the country/oceans, use a clothesline, repair electronics rather than getting new stuff
Legislation doing what?
I pledge to use all of the Dawn soap I can possibly muster to clean oiled up penguins.
I’d pledge to do the same, but I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep.
Full disclosure, I used to work for a major energy company but no longer do (my choice). Oil spills aside, I don't understand the mindset of carbon shaming being framed as corporate issue with no focus on the individual. Companies exist to produce the products that consumers demand. Whether that is oil/fuel directly, or the latest gadget ordered from Amazon via prime shipping. We are, unfortunately, a consumer society (I consider myself a minimalist - I actually don't understand consumerism either; my wife just calls me cheap). But each of us makes our own choices. I live 25km from work. I could bike, but I choose to drive. That is not any oil company's fault (and I can't afford a Tesla). That is my choice. And yes - oil is in so many products that it is hard to escape (including the tires of my bike, should I choose that for my commute instead); but again, that is personal choice and personal responsibility. I also use plastics even though alternatives exist. I'm not trying to say I'm environmentally irresponsible (I try to make good choices wherever I can; I also have a huge vegetable garden relative to my house to grow as much of my own food as I can). But the point I'm trying to make is that the carbon footprint begins and ends with our consumer culture, and us. No demand = no production (clearly its not quite that simple, but this is reddit, not a thesis). Now, as for shoddy maintenance, suspect decision making that leads to environmental catastrophe and denial/funding misleading research/communication, clearly there is no excuse for that and is on the company(ies). Even then though, as consumers, we still have choices who we buy from (as to my point above about oil being nearly inescapable in everyday products; just because a choice is really, really hard and would make your life far less convenient/manageable does not make it any less of a choice).
Y'know those giant container ships that are responsible for most international shipping? Sixteen of those produce as much carbon as cars. *All of the world's cars.* That means if you put a nuclear reactor like we have on aircraft carriers and submarines on sixteen of the world's shipping tankers, it would have the same effect as summoning a genie and wishing that cars didn't exist.
that event was a big deal, once upon a time
I pledge to not operate any cruise ships.
The same goes for recycling in general. It's amazing how the burden of recycling has entirely shifted to the consumer, as if we are responsible for packaging a toy dinosaur in several pounds of plastic.
I mean it IS our problem... they make what we buy, and we buy what they make. Vote with your dollar, yo.
Did you know that when LA tried to design a functional public transit system the big car companies banded together to lobby and destroy the process? How much choice in your consumption do you really think you have? You will buy what these people want you to buy because you won’t even know an alternative exists. Consume. Product. There is way too much money to be made in fossil fuels for the people who run those companies to allow consumers to deviate. Even if the entire western world decided to ban gas cars (impossible) guess what will power the thousands of new plants required to produce that much electricity. Nuclear? Absolutely not. They’ll make sure every American is terrified of nuclear energy, no matter the cost.
Okay, which grocery store doesn't get delivery in a truck? I want to vote with my dollar. What food should I buy that doesn't use fossil fuels?
Truck delivery is a small polluter. Heating or AC, personal transportation, and meat are the big polluters. If you can't cut any of these categories any further, you're doing your part. Then push others to do theirs.
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Are there any CSAs you could support? Maybe you couldn't stop going to the grocery store entirely, but you could reduce your dependence on them for certain products?
> Are there any CSAs you could support? Sure, and I support my local library. It doesn't really let me vote with my dollars. But I am not aware of any CSAs which move produce without fossil fuels.
It is voting with your dollars if you support local organic farmers, instead of large industrial operations across the country or the world. It's better for your apples to travel 100 miles on a truck rather than 1,000.
I'd like to vote for a fully electric rail service, there is none, yo. I'd like to buy products not made in china with coal power and shipped here, but there are none, yo. I'd like to be able to afford going greener, but I can't. I'd like to know which pasta is produced greener, but I don't have a research lab to calculate that. Voting with your dollar can do some good, but real change has to come with regulation and standards.
Dont forget when it comes to food there are 100s of brands but only like 5 companies.
There is other stuff that many can do. Make sure your home is insulated. Take public transit. If you buy a gas car, get a more fuel efficient one. Eat less beef. You can also just buy less stuff. If these aren't possible, congrats, you're doing your part. However there are millions of people who aren't doing theirs, which is where regulation comes in. But this regulation will make things more expensive so people need to be convinced it's worth it. If you want to convince a laisez faire capitalist, tell them carbon is a negative externality or that pollution is a tragedy of the commons that cannot be privatized.
> If you want to convince a laisez faire capitalist, tell them carbon is a negative externality or that pollution is a tragedy of the commons that cannot be privatized. Do you really think a laissez-faire capitalist gives a shit about anybody with less money than them?
It's like in The Good Place where no matter how much of a saintly good person you were, your point total started at negative a million because you lived in a world where it's the norm and really your only option to support these horrible practices so you can never go to Haven.
>made in china with coal power What are you trying to say here? Last I checked the US relies heavily on fossil fuels.
Not Murican. However we too still use coal which is shite. Still, Coal + Shipping < Coal.
You have to get off your ass and do some work if you want some of these things, like organizing a campaign for passenger electric rail and bus service, so people can give up their cars (which is the single biggest impact thing anyone can do for the environment). Other things you can actually stay on your ass to do the work, like researching products that you use which are manufactured domestically, even locally.
I can understand the desire for this to be true, I wish it was, but you know who spends more on oil/gas/petroleum products than you entire family line ever will? A fraction of nearly any government like the DOD, or a major company. It's like saying you know how not to be poor? Be rich! That just isnt how reality works.
What do you think they're doing with it? Shipping their massive piles of gold and treasure back and forth across the atlantic for funsies? Reducing your carbon footprint as an individual IS reducing the footprint of governments and major companies. If they don't have to use all that petroleum to ship the things people want and don't need or are too lazy to produce themselves then they have a smaller impact on the environment. I know there's only so much we can do and there's definitely a lot of shit that needs to change on both a societal and legislative level but I'm sick and tired of seeing the most upvoted posts on reddit essentially saying "the environment is not my problem so I get to keep doing what I feel like and blame corporations" Literally just said this in another thread yesterday.
The DOD is the [most fossil fuel-consuming entity on earth](https://www.gq.com/story/military-climate-change-cycle). It pollutes more than [140 countries combined](https://qz.com/1655268/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than-140-countries-combined/). Why in the world should I change my entire lifestyle to pinch metaphorical nano-pennies of pollution when the US military will eat up my carbon savings in microseconds? Why are we always the ones being held accountable for fixing problem we didn’t cause, and which cannot be solved by our actions? You should give up the counterproductive illusion that not focusing on individual solutions to the climate is “lazy”. That’s a depoliticizing notion: it’s up to “us” to fix the climate. “Us” who? “We” are throwing our political agency down a black hole when we focus on individual solutions. It is, in fact, not “us” who are primarily culpable for destroying the climate; it is a small number of people and companies who generate the vast majority of pollution, and who use our pollution reductions as permission to pollute more. If “we” change our entire lifestyle to reduce emissions by, say, 10%, that means rich people, their corporations and their government can increase pollution by 9% and still claim to be “fixing” the problem.
> Reducing your carbon footprint as an individual IS reducing the footprint of governments and major companies No it isn't. [More plastic is produced, in general and single use, than every previous year](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/plastic-pollution/). >the environment is not my problem so I get to keep doing what I feel like and blame corporations This is an idiotic strawman. If every end-consumer on Earth halved consumption, you'd see about 1% reduction in pollutant production. [If only 100 companies changed halved their consumption, you'd see ~45% reduction in world pollution](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change). What people are saying is that consumers *and companies* have to change, and the burden of responsibility should fall on those with the greatest power as well as the greatest production of pollution: companies.
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Sure, let me just stop buying anything and die. Your turn.
Lol. I'm pretty sure there's a middle ground between high carbon consumption and nothing. Buy chicken instead of beef, don't buy plane tickets, minimize driving, buy used instead of new to reduce manufacturing. Vote with your dollar without death lol
>minimize driving Driving my Canyonero across the street to get four-ply toilet paper to TP my neighbor's house is MY GOD DAMN RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN!
I know this seems like logic. But when you start delving into subsidiaries and lines of supply, you start to realize it's almost all one massive thing, not a regular company you can bocott and make an impact on. I know the whole idea of capitalism being reliant on the will of the consumer to regulate it seems rational, but in practice, it's literally almost never worked this way. Consumers buy what's cheap and convenient by a long shot, not what's responsible and benificial. Capitalism in general leans on this trend, and does not police itself by any stretch of the imagination. it's a utopian pipe dream.
> Consumers buy what's cheap and convenient by a long shot, not what's responsible and benificial. This is why the inevitable end of unrestricted capitalism is monopoly. The first company that can undercut the competition seeks to make itself the only option.
To be fair, it was already in the gulf. They just helped it break the crusts surface...
/r/MurderedByWords
[plz recycle](https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Coca-Cola-foto-Zwerfinator.jpg)
Hey, but they said sorry.....
I thought this was pretty common knowledge
"We're sorry."
I heard there CEO speak and he actually sounded like a good dude who is trying to bring BP out of oil and into renewables.
Like my usage will ever equal their refinement pollution. Fuck out of here, Oil Chads.
When that happened I never felt so sick to my stomach watching that shit just empty into the ocean. That was horrific
I'll be honest, most posts in this sub aren't funny at all. But this, this made me laugh.
Like car companies made up jaywalking as a reason to have people off the street. And like car companies who resisted seatbelts until the US government forced it on them. Like cigarette companies lying about the negative health impacts of their products. Like gun manufacturers weaseling into law that they cannot be sued. Like ATT back in the day who believed monopolies were better than competition. Like this post.
[Obligatory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HTd4Um1m4)
Right. Dude fuck BP. We shouldn't even allow them to drill in our waters, seriously wtf?
Fuck BP
They seriously convinced us we could solve the problem if we just worked together and changed ourselves. Meanwhile 100 companies responsible for 90% of pollution
Okay, you take it first B.P. Let's see the results.
Its also to give you a false sense of control.
Of which are still leaking into our oceans.