By Keanu Arpels-Josiah
Internal emails, recently unearthed by the US House Committee on Oversight and Reform, show none other than a media lead for Shell, wishing “bedbugs” upon us, youth climate activists from the Sunrise Movement. And we’re not surprised.
The history of the fossil fuel industry is a history of lying and colonialism. As far back as 1979, Exxon knew their continued exploitation of fossil fuels would cause unparalleled damage to the climate, to the environment, and to all life on this planet. They responded with a multi-year cover-up, hiding their research. Once the reality of the crisis came to light, they ran enormous advertisement campaigns claiming the science was “unsettled” and exclaiming “who told you the earth was warming.” A new publication assessing fossil fuel companies’ climate projections confirms that what Exxon claimed publicly “contradicted its own scientific data.”
In fact, our world is warming—and at a catastrophic rate, with pollution from burning fossil fuels causing more than 21,000 deaths every day and climate-caused disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts killing millions more every year. After seeding doubt around the science, and thus blockading the necessary timely action, major companies like British Petroleum and Chevron shifted to a “greenwashing” business model: outwardly claiming they were “green” companies and attempting to shift the blame of the climate crisis onto individuals while continuing the exploitation leading us toward apocalyptical disaster.
However, the fossil fuel industry is not simply destroying the planet, not simply destroying humanity, but is full of deceitful and depraved companies acting against the interests of humanity.
Fossil fuel companies continue to bring in record profits. In just three months, Shell raked in $9.45 billion in profit and Exxon Mobil brought in $19.7 billion while working Americans were paying a sky-high price of gas at the pump. Their profits come at the expense of us who must pay that price. They consistently take the actions that will best protect their profits without any regard for their customers’ lives, from pipelines built through ‘vulnerable’ communities to illegally dumping pollution or poising the water of multitudes of communities nationwide. The fossil fuel industry cares unduly about their profit and power.
And they’re willing to lie for it.
In response to the mass climate strikes of 2019, many companies, like British Petroleum, announced pledges to reduce their emissions to meet a crucial goal of net-zero by 2050. These pledges were just words, with no plan to actualize them. British Petroleum rebranded itself “Beyond Petroleum” yet internal documents found by the US House Oversight Committee on Sept. 14, 2022 highlighted how this campaign could, in truth, “enable the full use of fossil fuels across the energy transition and beyond.”
This strategy, practiced by fossil fuel companies, is inspired largely by the tobacco industry. Fossil fuel companies employ the same researchers used by tobacco to inform their greenwashing campaigns. They also use the same tactics: pouring money into universities researching the climate crisis and, as the committee says, trying “to create the impression that they are taking ambitious steps to reduce emissions—without actually doing so,” exactly tobacco’s approach toward the deadly risks associated with their products.
The tobacco industry’s greed and willingness to lie led to a 40-year delay in action and a role in tens of millions of tobacco-caused deaths. The fossil fuel and tobacco industries may each be responsible for as many as one-fifth of deaths each year; it is horrifying to think what the final cost of the fossil fuel industry’s utilization of tobacco’s murderous tactics will be.
Fossil fuel executives often justify their actions by saying they are taken in order to enrich shareholders via dividends. In truth, this is not justification at all. Shareholders are not representative of the general public; in 2021, the top 10 percent of shareholders owned 89 percent of all stocks. The fossil fuel industry’s true constituents should be its customers, most of whom cannot hold significant shares in the company.
When the fossil fuel industry’s greed causes high prices, lying, or pipelines through sacrifice zones, it is always their customers, the people they are supposed to be serving, who are harmed.
Let it be crystal clear: the fossil fuel industry does not hold the answer to the climate crisis. These companies will not leave behind the fossil fuels that have brought them outsized profit and power while dragging us toward disaster.
The answer to the climate crisis is to fight the fossil fuel industry—we are not going down without a fight, and this is a fight we must win.
President Biden, who ran promising to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable, now continues to bail out the industry with government subsidies, insisting upon a continued need for fossil fuels. New York State, a state framed as a climate leader, in reality, only 6% of its energy is from wind and solar sources—less than Texas. There still remains no seriously funded climate law statewide. The city’s climate law, LL97, is under continued attack from Mayor Adams. We need people in power who not only believe in the reality of the climate crisis but will fight for action and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable.
On Friday, March 3rd, we went on strike to demand this. It can’t end there. Call your legislators. Demand an end to fossil finance and, instead, Climate, Jobs, & Justice. Bold governmental action is necessary to stop the deadly, deceptive, and bedbug-wishing companies that are known as the fossil fuel industry.