LETTER

Reply to R. Lefebvre, who is not giving up on oil (13/11/19) 

The “Market is an economic system” producing what “Consumers” want (writes Mr Lefebvre). Yes, but it is obvious that the “economic system” of oil companies shows no concern for how they provide for Consumers’ wants and needs apart from making as much money as they can. 

The “Market” cares not for the grim outcome, of which they have been aware for 40 years. The “Market” will use any means to evade progress and liability at every turn. To blame the “Consumer” for the choices made by these “economic systems” is misguided. 

When “Consumers” ask for heat, it is not their fault for accepting fossil fuel because they often have little or no choice. When looking for options, “Consumers” were not informed of the future disaster being willingly perpetrated by the “economic system” of oil companies. For this reason oil companies have chosen to continue pushing oil, knowing full well for decades that this path leads to climate change and liabilities. Climate change has arrived and cannot be denied, and there are many lawsuits in the works right now. 

Worse still, many oil companies have made as much money as they could from their dirty enterprise, and then just walked away leaving communities polluted to a point where they will have to spend tens of millions of dollars to clean up these absconders’ mess. You can’t blame the “Consumer” for the criminal “economic systems” of corporations.

In 1996, the first mass-produced electric car (GM-EV1) was a lease-only in California and Arizona. The “Consumers” were very positive about this car but GM felt they would not make enough money, so they self-sabotaged the EV1 and deflected blame to the oil companies. By 2002, GM had revoked all leases and crushed all EV1’s. The only remaining intact EV1 was donated by Jay Leno to the Smithsonian Institution! “Consumers” made plenty of pleas for the EV1 but were ignored by the “Market” that had not a care about what the “Consumer” wanted nor did they care about the destructiveness of these actions. To blame the “Consumer” is misguided and just what big business loves to see.

To think that we just haven’t found viable alternatives is a blinkered view of reality and doesn’t take into account the decades of misinformation and lies by oil companies which have harmed our chance at success in achieving what the “Consumer” actually wants. Oil companies are yearly subsidized tens of billions of dollars in the US and about half a trillion dollars per year globally. So $3 trillion invested in 20 years of research for alternate forms of energy is dwarfed by the $10 trillion in subsidies to oil companies for those same 20 years –  and explains why 80% of our energy still comes from hydrocarbons.

To blame the “Consumer” for the dastardly actions of the “Market economic system” of the oil industry and giant corporations sounds like a sound bite from oil lobbyists and multi-millionaire CEO’s who, I presume, like Mr Lefebvre, do not want to give up this dirty source of wealth regardless of “Consumer” wants and needs, nor their growing human cost.

Ronald Temchuk, 

Aylmer