What role do fossil fuel companies play in the climate crisis? Accountability? Responsibility?
The global communmity relies on fossil fuels for energy and seems destined to do so for many years ahead. Every nation is (and will continue to do so) experiencing the impacts of GHGs. Many fossil fuel executives and lobbyists were at COP 29 in Baku. Do fossil fuel companies bear significant responsbility for the climate crisis, and if not, who does? And if so, what does that responsbility mean? Here are some interesting articles...
https://apple.news/AQx-6z0NCTOSD5qJ86mg2bA
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2024/nov/15/cop29-live-day-five-begins-with-demands-for-change-to-way-summits-are-run?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/16/trump-administration-chris-wright-energy-secretary?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Hi Dr. Walker, I do believe that fossil fuel companies bear responsibility for the climate crisis. Burning gas, oil, and coal generates almost 90% of the carbon emissions that are driving climate change. These companies also have a moral responsibility to pay for these damages. According to Marco Grasso, a professor of political geography at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy, fossil fuel companies have "long known about the relationship between the burning of their products and the impacts on the climate system." If this is the case, then these companies need to start owning up to it and making a change for the better.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dw.com/en/should-major-fossil-fuel-companies-pay-for-climate-damage/a-70646285
I agree that the fossil fuel companies have a responsibility in climate change. However, I think that this responsibility extends beyond a moral responsibility to do so, and that they should be forced to make amends. As they have shown for the past 50 years in which they have known about the potential impacts on the climate and ignored them for the sake of profit, they will never take action in support of the climate unless they are forced to. They need to be help responsible by the public and by policies that have the power to do so, especially considering that they have known for a significant period of time how their fossil fuel products could impact the climate.
Deletehttps://www.ucsusa.org/climate/accountability
I disagree that companies should be forced into amends. However great that could be for our environment, companies tend to have the greatest weight in the world. I don't believe this is something that can be forced out of large oil companies, plus any likely solution provided for amends would not likely benefit the company and therefore they will come up with loopholes to avoid it, or to make a minimum effort. The market for oil is a big place, if someone wants to change it, they may just end up with no oil instead of improving the world.
DeleteI believe that fossil fuel companies are significate source related to the climate crises we are experiencing due to the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are created when extracting and producing fossil fuels. In relation to their responsibility, the practices they use for extraction along with hiding information related to their impact on the environment in an attempt to look good to the public has caused significant harms.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Although there are other factors, I think the burning of fossil fuels are one of the main ideas when it comes to climate change. When looking at how this impacts society and the world, I think it is very important to also include other factors such as taking too much land, cutting down rainforests, etc.
DeleteFossil fuel companies have large contributions to climate change, mostly due to the greenhouse gasses that they emit (such as carbon dioxide, methane, sulfur dioxides, etc.). Greenhouse gasses trap heat in the lower layers of the atmosphere, and cause warming. Unfortunately, as it stands, the world relies heavily on the production of energy from fossil fuels. They are easy to produce energy from through combustion, and they don't require specific conditions to operate (as needed for clean sources like solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, etc.). I believe that the solution to this is to integrate more and more clean sources of energy into the energy-production landscape. Increasing reliance on cleaner energy and substituting out fossil fuels would help reduce the increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures. Here is a source that outlines the different types of energies and the reliance on them in the US: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/what-is-energy/sources-of-energy.php
ReplyDeleteI believe that fossil fuel companies are a root cause of climate change, however, I think that most of the blame should be placed on the lack of regulations. I am a big advocate for tightening up the United States regulations, as it feels like our government lets fossil fuel companies to get away with great amounts of pollution. Although I would like to believe that fossil fuel executives have the moral belief that we need to save the environment, I'm afraid that when people are presented with the opportunity to gain immense wealth, they will take it, whether it is unethical or not. That is why I believe those making the regulations bear the blame, since they have specifically been put in charge of stopping exploitation of the citizens and our home. One of the most impactful sources I have read about the impact fossil fuels have on climate change and the disinformation they operate under is Geoffery Supran's testimony in from of the US Senate about Big Oil. I found it here: https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/mrgeoffreysupranphdtestimonysenatebudgetcommittee.pdf. I would really recommend it!
ReplyDeleteI believe that fossil fuel companies bear a significant responsibility for the climate crisis. According to NASA, the significant increase in burning fossil fuels has increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is a GHG that traps heat in the atmosphere. We live in such a capitalistic society that these companies have known the huge impacts of fossil fuels since the 1950s and chose to ignore it to make profit. If these companies chose to ignore the science and facts behind the harms that they are producing, they bear the responsibility of finding and implementing a solution to try and help fix what they have harmed. According to the first article that was linked, the top US fossil fuel lobby groups did not want to comment on this issue, most likely because there is no good way for them to talk about this issue. They are the largest contributors to GHG's and there is nothing they can say that does not make their company look bad. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/causes/
ReplyDeleteI wouldn’t necessarily say that fossil fuel companies bear significant responsibility, though, they definitely bear some. While misinformation and exploitation is a different story, I don’t see how otherwise you can blame the oil companies. Their business is subsidized; the government pays for them to produce fuels and in effect pay them to emit. Furthermore, producing fuels and emissions as a fossil fuel company is not illegal. They are operating legally (at least they are not being prosecuted) and are encouraged by the government to continue operating. I believe that the primary responsibility lies on the shoulders of those who allow the companies to run as they do and even pay them to do so indefinitely. Despite the fossil fuel companies not being primarily responsible for the effects they cause, they are definitely not innocent. They misinform the public and have shady practices. Fossil fuel companies do bear full responsibility in these instances. With this consideration, perhaps they bear more responsibility than I previously mentioned. If the companies are able to unethically sway public opinion, then laws against their practices are less likely to arise and subsidies are more likely to be accepted. Therefore, through this lens, they are solely responsible for their emissions, misinformation, and other ill practices. Still, it would be naive to say that government officials are not aware of the effects of fossil fuel companies despite misinformation. In the end, it is a mixed bag. Fossil fuel companies mislead so that they can continue to pollute with mitigated protest, yet government jurisdictions still have a duty to take responsibility for the behaviors they allow (even if they shouldn’t be allowed).
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reuters.com/sustainability/trillion-dollar-question-fossil-fuel-subsidies-2024-11-15/
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/maine-sues-oil-companies-over-impact-fossil-fuels-climate-2024-11-26/
https://www.ucsusa.org/climate/accountability
Hello Dr. Walker, while I believe that some blame should be put on the individual for contributing to the climate change crisis, more if not all the blame should be put on the fossil fuel companies. According to the Colombia Center on Sustainable Investment it is, "estimated the global carbon footprint of the oil refining and petroleum sales sectors from 1980 to 2019 for the 83 countries that jointly accounted for 93% of the global crude oil refining throughput in 2015." This stat demonstrates that a majority of the world, not just the US, relies on oil for energy supply. This means that the amount of carbon footprint we leave on the earth will be significant. In fact, the Colombia Center on Sustainable Investment found that when combining all the major oil companies, they together contribute to 23% of the "cumulative global carbon footprint of the oil refining sector", or in other words, 23% of the exports of these oil companies contribute to the climate change issue. The impact this is causing is a rise in temperatures globally/the ozone layer getting thinner, the Earth can only handle so much CO2 in the air, and with how the production is going, the impacts are already being seen. The arctic caps are melting, floods/hurricanes are becoming more extreme, and it is staying hotter longer during the summer/fall time. Therefore, fossil fuel companies need to be held accountable and find better ways to manufacture energy in a way that protects the Earth and its people from the rapid climate change.https://ccsi.columbia.edu/content/oil-supermajors-carbon-footprint-refining-sales-climate-change
ReplyDeleteI believe that Climate change is a problem that needs to be addressed by the whole world. According to the United Nations Climate Action, the "causes of climate change [are] Generating power... Manufacturing goods... Cutting down forests... Using transportation... producing food... Powering buildings... [and] Consuming too much" (United Nations). All of this sources of carbon are things that our society needs (other than consuming too much) the main things is that we have to be smart with how we do those things and how we can improve them. By investing more funding into these resources we can find more carbon neutral ways to do each one of these things. The Fossil fuel companies however are capitalizing on the opportunities that they were given because of our large dependency on them "For more than a century, burning fossil fuels has generated most of the energy required to propel our cars, power our businesses, and keep the lights on in our homes. Even today, oil, coal, and gas serve about 80 percent of our energy needs, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration" (Melissa Denchak, 2022). This means that they are partly too blame because they are such a large part of our energy needs. This needs to change, but it can't change over night. We as individuals are responsible, and we need to let our political representatives know so they can change policies so that we don't rely on fossil fuels for our energy needs. It will make a cleaner atmosphere, and even if the fossil fuel companies are to blame you are too. As a person in the US, you use these resources that they provide and you rely on them for your daily life. You can help make a stand. Everyone is to blame for this, but we can fix it.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change#:~:text=Fossil%20fuels%20%E2%80%93%20coal%2C%20oil%20and,of%20all%20carbon%20dioxide%20emissions.
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/fossil-fuels-dirty-facts#sec-examples
I believe that fossil fuel companies do need to take accountability for the climate crisis since they are one of the main promoters and producers of gas emissions. Even if what they are doing is totally within legal parameters, it does not excuse the impact of their actions. However, there is also an argument to be made that the government's lack of regulations towards fossil fuel consumption and failure to provide significant efforts into creating cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels. As such, it should probably fall on both our government and fossil fuel companies to mitigate the amount of damage being done through fossil fuel consumption.
ReplyDeleteI agree, fossil fuel companies need to take responsibility for the harms that they have done to the Earth, but regulations need to be increased so that they don't have the power to do those things in the first place, rather than even being encouraged by members of Congress. However, America is so polarized that it will be a miracle if we can ever get there, and even more of a miracle for the Republicans to not undo all of the legislature put in place. Nevertheless, fossil fuel companies are an important obstacle to combat to deal with climate change.
DeleteHi Dr. Walker. I generally associate fossil fuels with personal transportation. In the U.S. especially it seems people are reliant on fossil fuels to commute to school, work, stores, and many other necessary places. While regulating fossil fuel companies can help to reduce their negative contributions to climate change, I think that creating better modes of transportation systems is also a helpful solution. By creating easier to use and more accessible public transportation in the form of trains, busses, and subways, people would still have the option for personal cars but wouldn't be reliant on it, which could reduce the amount of fossil fuels needed. A short video essay I like explains more about public transportation in the U.S. as opposed to other countries and how it can be improved https://youtu.be/-cjfTG8DbwA?feature=shared.
ReplyDeleteHi Dr. Walker. I personally believe that this is a complex issue and the blame cannot be placed purely on one source. We as a society (government, companies, and the people) have not done enough to push for the necessary changes to fight against the use of fossil fuels. With that said, some are making more improvements than others, and Big Oil is far on the other end of the spectrum. They continue to push for the expansion of fossil fuels despite the known harms. On top of this, they use other manipulation techniques either through media or the social system to take eyes off of what they are doing. Although I don't believe that fossil fuel companies should be held entirely liable, I think they (especially those that are performing malicious actions for profit) should be punished in some way. This is just one article about the bad stuff Big Oil be doing https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/who-is-responsible-for-climate-change/
ReplyDeleteHello Thomas. I agree that this is a complex issue and that we as a society are not doing enough to push for change, but I would like to ask, that if you believe Big Oil is actively causing harm by pushing for the expansion of fossil fuels, especially in the shady ways that you highlighted in your argument, why you believe that fossil fuel companies shouldn't be held entirely liable. I think that fossil fuel companies have way too much power currently, especially relating to this article: https://thebulletin.org/2016/10/just-90-companies-are-accountable-for-more-than-60-percent-of-greenhouse-gases/#:~:text=Just%2090%20companies%20are%20accountable%20for%20more%20than%2060%20percent%20of%20greenhouse%20gases,-By%20Dan%20Drollette&text=There's%20a%20tendency%20to%20think,no%20one%20is%20to%20blame. The fact that only a small number of companies can cause such a great impact to the planet is a scary thing to think about.
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