“Big Oil”, Lions, and Us

No doubt you have watched “The Corporation, but for others, I recommend it.

“The documentary shows the development of the contemporary business corporation, from a legal entity that originated as a government-chartered institution meant to affect specific public functions, to the rise of the modern commercial institution entitled to most of the legal rights of a person. The documentary concentrates mostly upon corporations in North America, especially in the United States. One theme is its assessment of corporate personhood, as a result of an 1886 case in the Supreme Court of the United States in which a statement by Chief Justice Morrison Waite led to corporations as "persons" having the same rights as human beings, based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film)

Unfortunately, while corporations have personhood in terms of rights, they do not face the same penalties as persons. If that were the case, we would see corporations in prison.

Milton Friedman, one of the gods in the capitalist pantheon, is perhaps the foundational proponent of the putting of profit above all else.

Friedman introduced the theory in a 1970 essay for The New York Times titled "A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits". In it, he argued that a company has no social responsibility to the public or society; its only responsibility is to its shareholders.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine

(As an aside, the novel “American Gods” missed the mark. The real gods of America are people like Friedman.)

You, or I, or AMLO, can “urge”, corporations to do what we consider to be right. We will be like those who urge sexual abstinence. Our “urges” will not be as powerful as the other urges. Those corporations will continue to pillage as long as governments permit or promote that pillaging.

Capitalism needs to be constrained by government, or as Americans like to say, by “We the people…”.

And governments need to adopt and promote what they believe in. So far, it seems that the governments in Mexico, Canada, and the USA believe in fossil fuel profits more than in eliminating GHG emissions.

I could post information about Canadian and American promotion of oil & gas, but let’s consider Mexican dependence.

The petroleum sector is crucial to the Mexican economy; while its oil production has fallen in recent years, oil revenues still generate over 10% of Mexico's export earnings. High taxes on the revenues of Pemex provide about a third of all the tax revenues collected by the Mexican government.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Mexico

I hope to be corrected, but it seems to me that AMLO is as tied to the promotion of oil & gas as other North American governments.

And sadly, based on individual behaviour, it seem that most Mexicans, Canadians, and Americans believe in GHG convenience for short term pleasures more than the well-being of their grandchildren.

I believe people, not governments, do better at bringing about change in corporate habits with their buying power. But first they must be informed and second they must be motivated. Governments are unfortunately too beholden to the money corporations donate to candidates and campaigns. In Mexico it's less obvious than in the USA, where corruption is simply legal in too many forms, but kickbacks have the same function everywhere.

AMLO has made it one of his administration's goals to try to make Mexico oil independent. That means Mexico will no longer be sending its oil to Venezuela or the USA for refining and buying it back at inflated prices. That's the purpose of Dos Bocas in Tabasco and Deer Park in Texas. By cracking down on theft of petroleum products and corruption within Pemex, more funds have become available to carry out his administration's goals.

As for GHG, Mexico is already a society where mass transit is used by a larger percent of its population than the USA or Canada. Mexico has a reforestation campaign that's already planted more than a million trees and is quite popular with rural communities and ejidos.

I personally believe the EVs are not the solution many people believe they are until solar- and wind-powered charging stations are the norm and plentiful, lithium can be mined without the use of toxic chemicals and excessive amounts of water, and spent lithium batteries can be safely and economically disposed of.

AMLO's government together with the Congreso Nacional has already been working for years on moralizing or improving the socially responsible practices of corporations in Mexico. Laws in Mexico are changing the behavior of the businesses that operate here. Surely you've already seen that with the warning labels on foods and drinks that are changing the way Mexicans eat. The problem is there is so much to do that progress easily goes unnoticed. But it's a topic that he has long championed.