Chevron boss says the $300 billion oil giant has changed life on Earth for the better: ‘We’re not selling a product that is evil’
Chevron boss says the $300 billion oil giant has changed life on Earth for the better: ‘We’re not selling a product that is evil’
Mike Wirth, an industry veteran, even described Chevron as “grounded in integrity and a deep belief in doing the right thing” before brushing off Big Oil critics and making a “real-world” case for fossil fuels.
Says exec of company that has objectively caused more environmental harm to the world than any others
Petrochemicals and the energy from fossil fuels did provide the needed food and energy to boost our standard of living.
HOWEVER
By the time we knew they were affecting the climate, we had the technology to move off of them and didn't because of assholes like this.
The sad part is that he may be right because the urgency to transition off fossils is lost in our desire not to be inconvenienced. Don’t mention the bribes (some call them donations) to political parties, candidates and Supreme Court judges.
we had the technology to move off of them
We still don't have the technology to move of them. Energy storage is severely lacking.
We had the technology to start. Photovoltaic panels, windmills, etc aren't new technology; the Carter administration actually installed photovoltaics on the white house and they stayed there until three guesses which president (yep, Reagan) took them down. Florida voted to start building a high speed rail project in their state (which would have decreased interstate and short-haul airline dependency, thereby decreasing oil dependency) and it was going to happen until Mr. State's Rights himself, Ronald Reagan, blocked any state from launching a high speed rail initiative. More people believed in global warming and climate change in the 90's than now, but in the 2000's, the small government W Bush administration forbade government officials from talking about climate change, gutted government research on climate change, and collaborated with big oil lobbyists on pivoting to using softer, more nebulous terms to address global warming (this is actually where the widespread use of 'climate change' comes from). We've basically kicked the can down the road for forty years and only started taking it kinda seriously in the last ten or fifteen. If we'd been developing and implementing these technologies gradually over the last fifty years, it would have been a lot less painful and we'd have made a lot more progress for a lot more value on the money spent. Since we're trying to speedrun the last fifty years of implementation and development into the last decade or so, that's going to be really economically painful and not nearly as smooth as it would have been under the long implementation. But, it's gotta get done, or we're going to keep fucking up the same ecology we depend on to stay alive, getting in endless wars, and giving money to jackass countries to feed our voluntary fossil fuel addiction.
As for storage, that's not an unsolvable problem. Probably the most practical solution is a nuclear fission backbone, imo, but there's several approaches that are in various stages of development and viability.
They're not selling a product that's evil - they are evil.
Petrochemicals lack the agency required for moral culpability.
we're not selling a product that is evil
Oh I get it. The oil isn't inherently evil. You are, both as a CEO and as a company! I agree, in fact. If we left the oil safely in the earth, there'd be nothing evil about it.
Plastic in the oceans, Co2 and heavy metals in the air, war, and above all: Wednesday morning traffic (worst day where I am due to WFH rules still being decently widespread).
Looks like someone needs a bullet.
Hello users of Lemmy 👋 I'm a Brand Ambassador of Chevron corporate and would like to clear up this misunderstanding about our brand. Chevron provides oil, diesel and hot gas to millions of people worldwide. Although our brand has had setbacks, the utility we bring to millions of users every day has been overwhelmingly positive.
I hope this clears up any tensions and we hope to continue providing quality products to our clients in the future. Cheers
Why do you troll?
“We’re not selling an evil product, we’re just running a multibillion dollar cartel in an evil way. That’s totally different.”
We don't profit off of suffering, we provide it for free!
You're selling Earth blood that makes the sky melt.
That's pretty fucking evil.
Don't forget the brown people that die in the name of oil or propping up dictatorships like Saudi Arabia
Well I for one want to know how my oil got under their land. Why is no one asking these important questions?
Permanently Deleted
I'd like to present a beautiful Czech tradition called defenestrations. We should do more.
Oil isn't evil. Oil has many uses outside of being burned for energy, and once we transition away from fossil fuels entirely there will still be a place for oil companies.
This isn't what he meant, of course, but hopefully his successor will understand that and make the pivots necessary for the company to survive.
So basically fraud in service of destroying our only planet on the way to making a gajillion dollars. Fair enough, so we extract enough of that money to reverse the catastrophic harm they have done.
I hope you’re right but I fear it may be a Humpty Dumpty situation.
Let's eat him
I bet we don't even have to baste him he's so greasy
Well yeah - it's not an evil product. As an inanimate object, it can't possess a moral quality.
Moral qualities are only rightly assigned to conscious beings - like, for example, corporate CEOs.
Nice mental gymnastics. That’s the name of the game.
lmao
Gosh, these guys really are following the big tobacco playbook, huh?
"Oil isn't evil, it's just a material, it doesn't have will or consciousness."
He's right of course, the oil itself isn't forcing anyone to use it. It's the decades of collaboration between the fossil fuel lobby and the government that's entrenched our fossil fuel dependent infrastructure, along with the resolute refusal of all fossil fuels companies to turn their backs on making as much money as they possibly can right this instant (because smart long term growth is illegal, brain dead quarterly growth is now my friend) and make good on their promises to pivot their energy portfolios.
In so many words, oil isn't evil, but the people running the oil companies are.
At this point, now that their are viable alternatives (Renewables, Geothermal, Nuclear) and ways to drastically reduce their usage (War on Cars), oil should be a niche product for airplanes and construction vehicles. Large ocean cargo ships could be nuclear powered, although it would probably raise the cost of building the ships and the crew. As far as ships go, not everything needs to be shipped from the other side of the world.
By better you mean aiding in killing off most higher life forms and ocean life?
