Pirate's Cove

Why, yes, the Credentialed Media, dupes of the Cult of Climastrology, are going full bore cultist with the same old talking points about Hurricane Ida, but, nah, I just don’t feel like spending time doing that same old thing. More importantly, people shouldn’t worry about their carbon footprints!

Worrying About Your Carbon Footprint Is Exactly What Big Oil Wants You to Do

Everybody’s going carbon neutral these days, from the big boys — Amazon, Microsoft, Unilever, Starbucks, JetBlue — to your favorite outdoor brand, even ski resorts. Probably your neighborhood coffee roaster, too.

Yeah, all those brands are pretending to Do Something, sucking in the weak minded climate cultists.

What’s not to like? Becoming carbon neutral means cutting greenhouse gas emissions as much as you can, then offsetting what you can’t avoid with measures like tree planting. Seems admirable.

Well, not exactly. Carbon neutrality doesn’t achieve any sort of systemic change. A coal-powered business could be entirely carbon neutral as long it stops some landfill gas in Malaysia from entering the atmosphere equal to the emissions it’s still releasing. American fossil fuel dependence would remain intact, and planet-warming emissions would continue to rise. The only way to fix that is through politics, policymakers and legislation. But distressingly, most businesses don’t want to play in that arena.

Instead, they’re doing exactly what the fossil fuel industry wants: staying in their lane, accepting some blame for a global problem and maintaining the dominance of fossil fuels. They’re well intentioned, sure, but also clueless, even complicit.

If Big Oil is so Evil, why have so few Warmists given up their own use of fossil fuels? Has the NY Times, which published this op-ed, stopped using fossil fuels for their operations?

Imagine if businesses put as much effort into climate lobbying as climate neutrality. Corporations wield tremendous influence over the political system. But on climate, most corporations have decided to sit this one out. Notably, the five biggest tech corporations — Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Alphabet and Amazon — spend only 4 percent of their lobbying dollars on climate, according to Influence Map.

Imagine if these corporations, which are typically called evil by Leftists because of their influence and for simply being Big Companies, minded their own damned business and didn’t try to get government to force compliance on other companies and citizens.

We need more of that approach — citizens, businesses and governments working together to address this crisis. It might result in policy solutions like government regulation, effective carbon taxes, national standards for renewable energy and electrification, the elimination of legacy subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, strict auto emission standards and new national building codes. All of these approaches threaten fossil fuel’s business model and, not coincidentally, would help to slow the warming of the planet.

In other words, force everyone to comply with the beliefs of a doomsday cult, beliefs that few act on on their own.

What do fossil fuel companies prefer? They like consumers and corporations to do anything and everything as long as they stay out of the companies’ way and avoid doing anything that could actually make a difference.

And most Americans are just fine with that, since fossil fuels are cheap, reliable, and readily available. You darned sure weren’t getting people out of New Orleans with electric vehicles, especially not when stuck in traffic.

Tragically, the overwhelming majority of American businesses are on a path of complicity. Their climate strategy avoids conflict and generates great P.R. Unfortunately, it also allows fossil fuel interests to monetize their remaining assets unhindered, ensuring catastrophe for all.

That’s because Doing Something is popular in theory, not practice. Including for most climate cultists. And what started out as making Excuses as to why Warmists shouldn’t make any changes in their own lives turned into Government force.