Fossil Fuel Industry Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds

The fossil fuel industry is run by duplicitous hypocrites who prioritize their financial interests at the expense of both people and the planet. Although they have known about the adverse impacts of burning hydrocarbons for decades, they have used their immense wealth and power to manipulate public opinion through clever disinformation campaigns. They buy politicians who help them to sew doubt by questioning good science simply to cast aspersions on its veracity.

Their hypocrisy is evident in their false allegation that climate science is produced for the money rather than as a part of scientific inquiry. Although this allegation was debunked in a New York Times article it is an effective albeit devious disinformation strategy.

It is the height of hypocrisy to discredit climate scientists by suggesting that the results they
generate are driven by money when this is precisely what the fossil fuel industry does. The American Petroleum Institute (API) and fossil fuel companies have paid scientists to produce reports that attribute global warming to sources other than the fossil fuel industry. One example is the work of Willie Soon who falsely claimed that solar cycles are responsible for climate change.Between 2003 and 2015 Soon’s research received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from API and oil companies like ExxonMobil, the Charles Koch Foundation and the Southern Company.

ExxonMobil has engaged in a number of legal challenges that have attempted to hide its history of covering up what it knew about the role of fossil fuels as a cause of climate change. This includes efforts to prevent Massachusetts attorney general’s office from accessing millions of records relating to its 1980s research.

An even more egregious act of hypocrisy is their use of the courts to try deny people the right to protect themselves against the climate crisis. The fossil fuel industry created the problem and they then proceed to challenge people’s right to defend themselves. This is unconscionable, even by the standards of the industry.

As explored by Triple Pundit’s Jan Lee last year, ExxonMobil was planning to sue communities in California, Massachusetts and New York for trying to hold the industry accountable.

The industry that created the climate crisis and then covered up its existence is now asking tax payers to finance a barrier to protect them from climate related extreme weather and sea level rise Although the industry receives massive subsidies they are nonetheless asking for more tax payer dollars. This is hypocrisy at its best, they refuse to take responsibility for the problem they created but they will take public money.

As reported by CBS, these powerful purveyors of climate denial are asking a climate denying federal government to build 60 miles of concrete seawalls, earthen barriers, floating gates and steel levees to protect petrochemical facilities along the Texas Gulf Coast. The government has already fast-tracked an initial $3.9 billion of the $12 billion that Texas is seeking to build the sea walls.

They hide the truth and obscure the facts, they cast doubt on good science and demean good scientists. Together these observations lead to the inescapable conclusion that the hypocrisy of the fossil fuel industry knows no bounds.