Fossil Fuel Companies

Decades ago, oil company researchers reported to company executives that pollution would damage the atmosphere.

“By the time the global warming becomes detectable it could be too late…”

Never-the-less, it was decided to continue selling as much oil as before, and to keep the research findings a secret.

Concern for humans is not the industry’s #1 priority:

• “They base everything on risk. ‘How many lives can we…lose before we…deal with this’?”

• Exxon “knowingly…supported … military forces who tortured, killed and sexually assaulted…”

• " ‘They pledge repeatedly to run a safer operation, yet they continue to cut costs’ ."

 

Maybe a government can step in to penalize criminal behavior?

• “Executives…can engage in blatant fraud, get caught, and suffer almost no consequences.”

• “Executives who oversaw this fraud kept the money they were paid.”

Koch Industries plays the extractive game. How do they do it?

    “Koch employees calculated…the…cost of…safety …‘It would take away from our profit margin’.”

What have timber, coal, gas, and oil companies learned from their misdeeds?

• “Saddling taxpayers with cleanup costs after pocketing the profits would be outrageous, yet many oil producers have done just that, walking away from millions of wells.”

• “The industry has a history of…abandoning projects that are no longer economically viable, or using the bankruptcy process to abandon the assets.”

Can we look forward to corporate responsibility in the future?

• “Exxon…has been planning to increase annual carbon-dioxide emissions”

• “The fossil fuel industry is banking on plastic…to be their new growth sector.”

• “Amazon, Google, and Microsoft…all struck lucrative arrangements…[with Big Oil] and…are actively pursuing more.”

• “Chinese companies have been building hundreds of coal plants.”