Compelling Moral Behaviour

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.

Did the asbestos industry stop producing and selling its killing products because of people’s buying power?

Did tobacco companies stop selling their poisons to adults, or even to children, because of “buying power”?

No, it required legislation to compel them.

There is no reason to think that oil companies would behave differently. In fact, we have seen them repeatedly working their propaganda arms to persuade people to promote the poisoning of the planet to the detriment of our children and grandchildren.

Remember the idea that GHG emissions can be “clean” through the promotion of “clean coal”?

Why there is no such thing as “clean coal”

Or that burning fossil fuel that produce GHG emissions can “ethical”, if you buy “ethical oil”?

The Fallacy of ‘Ethical Oil’

Some have even argued the fallacy that increasing atmospheric GHGs is a good thing because CO2 is a “plant fertilizer”.

Climate change is hard on plants.

Making long-term commitments to perpetuate the oil and gas industries, whether by state owned Pemex in Mexico and Dos Bocas; by the Canadian government with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion; or buy private corporations is not “clean”, “ethical”, or “fertilizing”. These ideas are the other kind of fertilizer… the kind produced by bulls.