“Big Oil”, Lions, and Us

All because we couldn't wean ourselves from petroleum products even though we've known this was coming for at least 60 years. And Big Oil is still all in on continuing to elevate production and use of its petroleum products in spite of their misleading propaganda to the contrary.

I suggest it isn’t just what “Big Oil” has been doing. It is what senior governments have been doing or not doing. It is about what local governments have been doing or not doing. It is about what each of us as individuals have been doing or not doing.

Corporations, including “Big Oil” will try to maximize profits despite the adverse effects on others. A role of government is to constrain that greed. Some believe in “limited government” and that “the invisible hand” of the marketplace will take care of problems. I say that is balderdash. In Mexico, the US, and Canada, governments have actively promoted the long term destruction of our environment for short term profits.

But we as individuals also bear responsibility. We elect governments. We buy fossil fuel powered vehicles. In cool areas we heat our homes with fossil fuels. In warm areas, we use electricity to cool our homes with much of the electricity being produced by fossil fuels. We fly on airplanes. We build with cement and concrete that are both very high GHG building materials.

Try to buy and operate a battery electric vehicle in Guerrero. It is almost impossible. The federal government offers no financial incentives. The state government does nothing to support charging infrastructure. The CFE actually penalizes EV usage through tier-based escalating rates.

It is comforting to blame others like “Big Oil” for pursuing profits, but it makes as much sense as blaming a lion for killing and eating a gazelle. That is what lions do; that is what businesses do.

It is more difficult to challenge ourselves through individual behaviour change and though political change.

Since corporations are "people", too, then just like individuals I submit that they are responsible for their own behavior. Like Mexico's president, I urge people to reward moral capitalism and to punish the current profit-at-any-cost greed-oriented form of capitalism that dominates too much of the world. Capitalism needs to evolve. Or we will soon all be extinct.