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Shopping Differently Won't Solve the Climate Crisis, So What Should We Do Instead?
Large companies like BP have taught us to track what we buy, and take responsibility for what we do with the stuff we buy, so that they won’t have to stop making and selling the stuff we buy from them or deal with laws regulating how they do it.
Sep 26, 2025
This article has been adapted from Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change (The MIT Press, September 16, 2025) by Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly. It is taken from Chapter 1: “You Do You: The Misdirected Individualist History of Climate Activism,” and is provided courtesy of the publisher.
Your Footprint, Your Responsibility
The more recent notion of everyone having a “personal carbon footprint” has similar roots in the dark arts of corporate PR. The oil giant BP popularized the term and bent it to its own purposes.
BP worked from the same playbook as the Ad Council. After acknowledging that climate change exists, the company makes you feel responsible for it. And then they give you something to do that helps you feel like you're part of the solution. Meanwhile, BP continues pumping away, enjoying massive federal subsidies and outlandish profits while avoiding any new, restrictive regulations.
The strategy was popular. One analysis of decades of ExxonMobil’s public communications found that the corporation framed climate change in terms of consumer energy demand when speaking publicly. But in internal company documents, ExxonMobil recognized that it could not continue to supply fossil fuels without disastrous consequences to the environment. They knew they were causing the problem (supply) but put the blame on us (consumer demand).
The general template should sound familiar. What causes climate change? We do. How? Driving gas guzzlers, leaving on the lights, and buying unrecyclable plastic. What’s the solution? Stop doing these things. Consume better.
ExxonMobil even conducted its own secret research on climate change in the 1970s. The results were consistent with scientific predictions. The corporation's in-house models predicted that global temperatures would rise to within 0.2°C of what they have in fact risen to since. While it publicly claimed in 1997 that “some of today’s prophets of doom from global warming were predicting the coming of a new ice age,” in the 1970s, Exxon’s own scientists had privately been in agreement all along with the overwhelming majority of published science on climate forecasting.
Once you know what to look for, you start to see the message of personal responsibility everywhere. Worried about retirement? Start saving more. Have a gambling problem? Exercise some willpower and stay away from the casino. Worried about obesity? Fix your lifestyle. From 2008 to 2010, 87 percent of all alcohol ads in magazines told consumers to “drink responsibly.”
While it was becoming clearer that Americans consume too much sugar, Coca-Cola fought back by subsidizing research arguing that the problem was not calories in but calories out: “Americans are overly fixated on how much they eat and drink while not paying enough attention to exercise.” The central plank of the food industry’s lobbying has been to frame discussions about eating habits in terms of personal responsibility (e.g., “portion control”).
What these messages minimize are all the social, structural, and systemic drivers of health problems like diabetes. In one New York Times article, Dr.Dean Schillinger explained how “our entire society is perfectly designed to create Type 2 diabetes.” There is no amount of scolding about sugary foods and exercise, he explains, and “no device, no drug powerful enough to counter the effects of poverty, pollution, stress, a broken food system, cities that are hard to navigate on foot, and inequitable access to healthcare, particularly in minority communities.”
Yet these companies have devoted enormous amounts of money to teaching the public to focus on the symptoms rather than the underlying system. They have taught us to track what we buy, and take responsibility for what we do with the stuff we buy, so that they won’t have to stop making and selling the stuff we buy from them or deal with laws regulating how they do it.
A Too-Convenient Model for Facing Inconvenient Truths
Whole social movements have been built around this individualist, little-things-add-up ethos. An iconic poster from the early days of the modern environmental movement mirrors the Ad Council’s claim that personal choices are both the cause of and the solution to pollution. This individualist thinking prevailed all the way from the 1970s environmental movement to May 2006, which marks one of the biggest box office events in documentary history: the release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. The documentary reached millions of people around the world. Its vivid depictions of solar rays pelting the atmosphere and glaciers melting raised public awareness of climate change to new heights and ignited collective fervor about the environment like never before. It demanded action.
Widely and deservedly lauded, An Inconvenient Truth presented the facts in a way that was hard to argue with. It also presented solutions:
Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive; we can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands, we just have to have the determination to make it happen. We have everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will. But in America, the will to act is a renewable resource.
The general template should sound familiar. What causes climate change? We do. How? Driving gas guzzlers, leaving on the lights, and buying unrecyclable plastic. What’s the solution? Stop doing these things. Consume better. This is another effect of the long history of corporate-funded individualist messaging: the first thing that comes to mind for many of us when we ask “what can I do?” is a series of thoughts about stuff. What should I buy? Where should I buy it from? What should I do with it? Even leaders in the fight against climate change have perpetuated our preoccupation with consumption.
As the credits of An Inconvenient Truth roll, the film offers concrete suggestions for how to make a difference, stating, “The climate crisis can be solved. Here’s how to start.” Here are the first five items in the list:
- Buy energy-efficient appliances + lightbulbs.
- Change your thermostat . . . to reduce energy for heating + cooling.
- Weatherize your house, increase insulation, get an energy audit.
- Recycle.
- If you can, buy a hybrid car.
These are good things to do, though energy-inefficient incandescent bulbs are basically illegal now and hybrid cars may be on their way to being old news. But An Inconvenient Truth exemplifies a whole world of books, TV, and academic research that looks at climate change through the lens of our personal consumer choices. Even academics have gotten in on the act. One widely cited study examined and ranked nearly 150 personal lifestyle choices by their effectiveness in reducing personal carbon footprints. The four most impactful options, it found, are having one child, living car-free, flying less, and eating a plant-based diet. Eventually, further down the list of action items, An Inconvenient Truth also tells viewers to do the following:
- Vote for leaders who pledge to solve this crisis.
- Write to congress.
- If they don’t listen, run for congress
- Speak up in your community.
- Insist that America freeze CO2 emissions + join international efforts to stop global warming.
These suggestions head in a different direction, away from what we buy. They gesture toward our political choices and our communities’ values. This is promising, and we’ll talk a lot more about why in the coming chapters. For now, notice how vague they are. “Speak up in your community” sounds empowering, but what does it really mean? Speak up to whom? Say what? “Join international efforts” sounds good too. But your average moviegoer may be forgiven for thinking, “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.” Most viewers likely walked out feeling alarmed, maybe intending to buy better lightbulbs. After all, lightbulbs were first on the list!
It turns out audiences did become both more knowledgeable and more concerned about the climate crisis. But this new found knowledge and concern doesn’t appear to have amounted to much, at least in the short term. One study found that a month after seeing the film, viewers had done next to nothing to put their newfound climate knowledge into action. Not one of them had examined their carbon footprint or written a letter to their senator.
Another study found that framing solutions in terms of individual consumer choices decreases people's willingness to take other forms of action to fight climate change. Maybe people feel like they’re being blamed for a global crisis beyond their control. Maybe they resent being asked to respond with what to them looks like merely symbolic, even futile, changes to their personal behavior. The danger, then, is not just that such messages don’t help. It’s that they might be making things worse.
System Change, Not Climate Change
Some people have started to get wise to this long history of corporations laying problems at the feet of individuals. The backlash it’s helped create has produced slogans now found on fridge magnets, protest posters, and newspaper headlines. The most common ones suggest a different kind of thing to do: stop worrying about personal choices, and start focusing on changing the system. The news site Vox published an article in 2019 whose headline perfectly expresses this idea: “I Work in the Environmental Movement. I Don’t Care If You Recycle.”
The Sunrise Movement, a decentralized, youth-led group at the forefront of progressive climate politics, advocates system change: “to abolish or reimagine institutions that degrade our communities and our climate.” This marks a generational sea change in climate activism. Abolishing or reimagining institutions was most certainly not on An Inconvenient Truth’s list. Writing for the New Yorker, Andrew Marantz recounts a telling experience with a Sunrise group in Philadelphia:
The organizers were scanning the menu of a Middle Eastern restaurant on Uber Eats. Aru Shiney-Ajay, Sunrise’s training director, sat at a laptop, taking orders. “Can you get me a beef kebab?” Dejah Powell, an organizer from Chicago, said. “Or, no. Beef is the worst, right? Maybe chicken. Or falafel?”
“Dejah,” an activist named John Paul Mejia said, in a mock-scolding tone. He started reciting a movement adage, using the singsong rhythm of a call-and-response: “The biggest driver of emissions is . . .” The others joined him, in unison: “. . . the political power of the fossil-fuel industry, not individual behavior.” In other words, if you want the beef, get the beef.
One way to think about Sunrise’s system-over-individual logic is to recall Iron Eyes Cody. We called him a fraud, but looked at another way, his personal deception obscures the bigger story. A first-generation Sicilian American was able to play some of the most iconic Native American roles in Hollywood because the movie industry excluded actual Native Americans from taking those roles. The biases woven into cultural norms and movie business practices allowed, and incentivized, Cody’s personal fraud. Too much focus on what he should or shouldn’t have done, as a single person, makes it easy to overlook the system that structured his options and made his personal choices possible in the first place. Coming to appreciate the significance of systems can be disorienting, but keeping that significance firmly in view is crucial to understanding the bigger picture. The little-things-add-up take on individual responsibility is too easily weaponized by corporations advancing their own interests. When it comes to climate change, they have long pushed a picture where “taking action” means tweaking our shopping choices. It’s this history that Sunrise and other progressive climate activists are rightly standing at war, yelling stop.
But even if we accept this change in perspective, it’s not at all obvious what we should do next. To take that step, we’ll look at another area of life where a loud chorus is rightly demanding structural change.
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Lingering Poison: My Witness to Deepwater Horizon’s Legacy on the Gulf Coast
Fifteen years after the oil spill, the legacy of Corexit dispersants continues to manifest in the broken bodies and shattered lives of those who were exposed, including those who spoke out to save future generations.
Apr 20, 2025
As the mother of a childhood cancer survivor from a coastal Alabama cluster, I reflect on the 15th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster with anger and frustration at the countless lives needlessly destroyed by the spill and its “cleanup.” But more than anything, I am afraid… I am afraid because the same chemicals that wrought havoc on Gulf communities aren’t being disposed of—they are being rebranded to be reused.
During my seven years of assisting cleanup workers at a Miami-based law firm and Government Accountability Project, I saw the stuff of medical nightmares manifest in real life as I came face-to-face with an innocuously named monster: Corexit. Corexit is a chemical oil dispersant that was used liberally in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster to break up oil slicks into smaller droplets that can be submerged underwater. While Corexit was once described as being “as safe as dish soap” by a BP executive, the final chapter of its use in the Deepwater Horizon disaster was not to be told via feel-good commercials of freshly cleaned ducklings. It is still being written by outsiders documenting the broken lives of the men and women who can no longer speak for themselves after volunteering to clean the Gulf.
Many of the men and women who volunteered to clean the Gulf, a body of water that bound together their communities, jobs, and very way of life, died in the months and years after exposure to Corexit, often from serious diseases including blood and pancreatic cancers—silencing their voices long before justice could be served. I personally knew dozens who were exposed and subsequently left the Earth far too soon.
The corporate shell game of rebranding these toxic chemicals under new names must not distract us from the fundamental truth that these dispersants should never be used again in our waters.
I still think about Captain Bill, who came to us when Stage 4 colon cancer appeared after running a supply boat to the sinking Deepwater Horizon rig. He did not believe all the hype from environmentalists about the dangers of dispersants until he got crop-dusted with them. He developed softball sized cysts all over his body filled with bacteria and was left with just months to live. He left behind a wife and three children, including a young son with autism.
I remember Sandra, a woman who always exuded joy during the 20 years I’d known her. Her job for BP required her to hop on and off oil-contaminated boats; she tragically developed a rare myeloproliferative disorder that ended her life at age 60. She left behind a husband who missed her so profoundly that he lasted only a few months without her.
Corexit has been proven to have deadly side effects within humans, but that won’t stop corporate greed from slapping a new label on it and sending it to a different country. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was in the process of finalizing new rules and regulations governing the usage of oil dispersants. Right before the rules were set to be finalized, the manufacturer of Corexit abruptly discontinued its product line which constituted over 45% of globally stockpiled dispersants. This was likely not coincidental; the new EPA rules require manufacturers to truthfully report known or anticipated harm to human health and wildlife from their products. Corexit’s parent company chose to withdraw from the U.S. market while re-registering the same toxic products in the United Kingdom and Brazil in 2024, with France also considering approval.
People and communities were falsely reassured about the safety of the working conditions, as BP told workers personal protective gear was unnecessary when dealing with the chemicals. Now, with the risks and threats of exposure known, the protective gear could have saved hundreds of lives and communities from devastation.
Fifteen years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the legacy of Corexit dispersants continues to manifest in the broken bodies and shattered lives of those who were exposed, including those who spoke out to save future generations. The corporate shell game of rebranding these toxic chemicals under new names must not distract us from the fundamental truth that these dispersants should never be used again in our waters. The time has come to close this dark chapter in our history and commit to solutions that truly protect both our coasts and the people who call them home.
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'Obscene': BP Has Paid Out $27 Billion to Shareholders Since Russia Invaded Ukraine
"Instead of helping to rebuild Ukraine, ease the burden of high bills, or support countries suffering from the climate crisis, BP is making the rich richer," one campaigner said.
May 07, 2024
Oil major BP has paid out $27.4 billion to shareholders since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Global Witness found in an analysis published Tuesday.
The environmental justice group released its calculations one day after BP announced its profits for the first quarter of 2024: The company made a total of $2.7 billion and spent $1.75 billion—more than half that amount—on share buybacks.
"It's obscene that anyone would profit from the Ukraine war, the energy crisis, or the climate crisis, but that's what's happening," Alice Harrison, head of fossil fuel campaigns at Global Witness, said in a statement. "With the biggest spoils going to one of the richest, most destructive industries in the world—the fossil fuel industry."
"Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, [oil companies] are seen as providing countries with energy security rather than being terrible companies polluting the world—and they have used that to their advantage."
BP's first-quarter profit announcement came one day after the Financial Times reported that shareholders expected the company to relax its plans to reduce oil and gas production. The company is currently the only major player in the industry that has committed to actually curbing production, with a reduction target of 25% of 2019 levels by 2030. That target, set in 2023, was already a scaling back of its 2020 goal to cut production by 40% by the end of the decade.
However, in January, Murray Auchincloss replaced Bernard Looney as BP's CEO, and shareholders say he has different priorities.
"Murray is saying outwardly that there's no change, but behind the scenes he's being a lot more pragmatic, returns-focused, and hard-nosed about it," one anonymous investor told FT. "We'd all love them to build more in renewables but from a shareholder point of view, returns are not there."
Shareholders also spoke candidly about how Russia's invasion of Ukraine had impacted the industry.
"Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, [oil companies] are seen as providing countries with energy security rather than being terrible companies polluting the world—and they have used that to their advantage," one said.
Another speculated that BP's rumored change in strategy was "partly a response to market pricing" as higher interest rates made renewable energy projects more expensive while the Ukraine war raised oil prices.
In a recent letter to BP's board, activist shareholder Bluebell Capital Partners said that if the company was planning to raise production, as it had suggested privately to shareholders, then that "should be reflected in BP's official communication and targets."
However, a U.S. Senate hearing last week focusing on major oil companies including BP revealed that the industry has a history of saying one thing and doing another when it comes to climate targets. For example, while BP has committed to the Paris climate agreement on its website, in internal emails shared at the hearing, the company admitted that "no one is committed to anything, other than to stay in the game."
In response to BP's quarterly profits, Oxfam argued that oil and gas companies cannot be trusted to regulate themselves.
"With BP's earnings once again in the billions and its oil production higher than the last quarter, we clearly cannot rely on fossil fuel companies to lead us out of the escalating climate crisis," Oxfam Great Britain's senior climate justice policy adviser, Chiara Ligouri, said in a statement. "The buck must stop with the government. Instead of adding fuel to the fire by allowing new oil and gas licenses, they can and should be taxing fossil fuel companies like BP more to ensure they pay their fair share for damage caused by their activities."
"We need faster and fairer action to support people living in poverty—in the U.K. and globally—who did the least to cause the crisis but who are now suffering the most, and fossil fuel companies should foot the bill," Ligouri added.
Harrison of Global Witness also called for a transition to renewable energy.
"Instead of helping to rebuild Ukraine, ease the burden of high bills, or support countries suffering from the climate crisis, BP is making the rich richer," Harrison said. "And this will continue to be the case until we make the urgent switch to a clean energy system."
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Heatwave Chevron? As US Bakes, Former Meteorologist Names Heatwaves After Oil Companies
Guy Walton said he chose the naming system "to shame them in the process and to identify culprits that are exacerbating these deadly systems."
Jul 20, 2023
As more than a fifth of the U.S. population braces for air temperatures or heat indices of more than 105°F this weekend, one former meteorologist has an idea for how to remind the public who is to blame: name major heatwaves after fossil fuel companies.
Guy Walton, who once worked for The Weather Channel, now runs a blog dedicated to monitoring extreme weather. He has dubbed the heatwave that began over California in early July and has now stretched all the way to the southeast Heatwave Chevron.
"I'm naming heatwaves to highlight this worsening climate problem and perhaps save lives by getting the public to focus on this weather threat," he wrote in an April blog post. "This year I'm naming major heatwaves after oil companies to shame them in the process and to identify culprits that are exacerbating these deadly systems."
"Heat extremes have increased in likelihood and intensity worldwide due to climate change, with tens of thousands of deaths directly attributable."
Heatwaves are the deadliest type of extreme weather event in the U.S., according to The Weather Channel, killing more people on average each year than tornadoes or hurricanes put together. Yet they do not receive names like hurricanes or wildfires, and some experts have argued that changing this might help people take them more seriously and save lives. For example, the city of Seville, Spain, has become one of the first to start ranking and naming heatwaves with a view toward encouraging the public to take greater precautions.
"It seems to be working as we intended from last year—and has actually started to change some behavior," Kurt Shickman, director of Arsht-Rock's heat initiative, told E&E New in June.
Heatwaves are also the extreme weather event most clearly attributable to the climate crisis caused primarily by the burning of oil, gas, and coal, a 2022 study found.
"Heat extremes have increased in likelihood and intensity worldwide due to climate change, with tens of thousands of deaths directly attributable," the study authors wrote.
So far this year, Walton has named three U.S. heatwaves after fossil fuel companies, moving down a list he proposed in April, along with Category 1 to 5 ranking system modeled after the Saffir-Simpson scale for hurricanes.
The first, Heatwave Amoco in the Pacific Northwest, briefly reached Category 3 status in May and damaged Canadian oil and gas production by igniting wildfires.
"Perhaps Mother Nature is trying to tell us go leave fossil fuels in the ground, otherwise heatwaves like Amoco or worse with more smoke choking wildfires will be an end result," Walton wrote at the time.
Next came Heatwave British Petroleum, which reached Category 4 status and baked Texas, parts of the Southwest, and Mexico in June. The heatwave was made at least five times more likely by the climate crisis, Climate Central calculated.
Heatwave Chevron has also reached Category 4 status—which Walton defines as breaking several all-time records and causing 100 to 1,000 deaths. One concern about the heatwave is that it has continued to stretch on and on.
"One reason why the thing is historic and likely to be blamed for more than 100 deaths is it's persistence," he wrote.
One Wednesday, the city of Phoenix, Arizona, reported its 20th day in a row of temperatures 110°F, as well as its highest all-time daily average temperature at 108°F, according to the local branch of the National Weather Service (NWS). Tucson, Arizona, also broke a record for the number of days over 110°F in a year, at 11.
"Will we break this record again tomorrow?" NWS Tucson asked.
On the same day, the NWS Austin/San Antonio announced that Austin, Texas, had hit its 10th day in a row of temperatures 105°F or higher for the first time on record.
Also on Wednesday, the cities of Miami, Florida; El Paso, Texas; and Las Cruces, New Mexico, all broke records for the number of days in a row with a heat index of 100°F or higher at 38 days, 33 days, and 17 days respectively, ABC News reported.
All of this heat has taken a toll on human health. At least 18 people have died because of heat in Arizona's Maricopa County alone, though authorities are investigating another 69 deaths. A 71-year-old man also died in California's Death Valley National Park Tuesday, most likely after hiking in 121°F heat.
And relief is not in sight. As of Thursday morning, around 115 million people were under heat alerts in more than 12 states, Axios reported. Over the weekend, more than 20% of the U.S. population, or 80 million people, could face either an air temperature or heat index higher than 105°F. A heat index is how the air feels on the skin when heat combines with humidity, and a heat index of 103°F or higher can cause dangerous health complications.
"Take the heat seriously and avoid extended time outdoors," the NWS cautioned, as Axios reported. "Temperatures and heat indices will reach levels that would pose a health risk, and be potentially deadly, to anyone without effective cooling and/or adequate hydration."
Walton said that Heatwave Chevron could reduce its range next week and shrink back to the West, but later, it could again extend north and east, where it could "make life miserable for the Midwest, which is one of the few areas across the Northern Hemisphere that has seen below average temperatures this summer."
As the nation continues to bake, does Walton think naming heatwaves after fossil fuel companies might catch on? Walton told The Guardian he would like to see newscasters name major heatwaves, but thought it was unlikely they would adopt his naming method.
"I'm trying to be a bug in the ear of my compatriots to take what I'm doing and run with it," he said. "I realize what I'm doing is controversial and corporate media will want to steer clear of it, but people need to be riled up. I don't think we need to pull any punches. If it causes consternation, so be it."
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In Another Blow to Big Oil, US Supreme Court Rejects Effort to Kill Climate Suits
"The Supreme Court's decision brings the people of Delaware and Hoboken one step closer to putting these polluters on trial and making them pay for their climate deception."
May 15, 2023
On the heels of similar decisions last month, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday delivered "another win for climate accountability," rejecting fossil fuel corporations' attempt to quash lawsuits filed by the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, and the state of Delaware.
Both filed in September 2020, the suits from Hoboken and Delaware—like those filed by dozens of other municipalities and states—take aim at companies including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell for fueling the climate emergency. The fossil fuel industry has repeatedly tried to evade accountability by shifting such cases from state to federal court.
"We appreciate and agree with the court's order denying the fossil fuel companies' petition, which aligns with dozens of decisions in federal courts here in Delaware and across the country," said Democratic Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings in response to Monday's decision.
The Supreme Court's decision means that both of these cases will now move forward in state court.
Jennings on Monday cited an opinion piece she wrote for Delaware Online with Shawn Garvin, secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, back when they launched the legal effort in 2020:
As we stated at the time of filing this case almost three years ago: "It didn't have to be this way. The fossil fuel industry knew for decades that their products would lead to climate change with potentially 'severe' and even 'catastrophic' consequences—their words, not ours. But they didn't clean up their practices or warn anyone to minimize the peril they were creating. Instead, they spent decades deliberately and systematically deceiving the nation about what they knew would happen if they carried on with business as usual."
Building on revelations from the past decade that have bolstered climate liability lawsuits, peer-reviewed research published in January shows that ExxonMobil accurately predicted global heating decades ago, while documents released in early April make clear that Shell knew about the impact of fossil fuels even earlier than previously thought.
"Imagine how far along we might be in the transition to a low-carbon economy today if not for their deception," Jennings said. "That's why we filed our lawsuit, and today's order moves Delawareans one step closer to the justice and economic relief that we deserve."
For Hoboken and Delaware, the high court denied fossil fuel companies' challenge to decision last year from a panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which wrote in part that "our federal system trusts state courts to hear most cases—even big, important ones that raise federal defenses. Plaintiffs choose which claims to file, in which court, and under which law. Defendants may prefer federal court, but they may not remove their cases to federal court unless federal laws let them. Here, they do not."
Center for Climate Integrity president Richard Wiles noted Monday that "Big Oil companies keep fighting to avoid trials in state courts, where they will be forced to defend their record of climate lies and destruction in front of juries, but federal courts at every level keep rejecting their efforts."
"The Supreme Court's decision brings the people of Delaware and Hoboken one step closer to putting these polluters on trial and making them pay for their climate deception," Wiles added. "Fossil fuel companies must be held accountable for the damages they knowingly caused."
After the high court's April decisions—which involved cases brought by the state of Rhode Island as well as municipalities across California, Colorado, Hawaii, and Maryland—Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media said, "This should open the floodgates for more lawsuits that could make polluters pay!"
There were no noted dissensions on Monday. However, like last month, Justice Samuel Alito, who owns stock in some fossil fuel companies, did not participate in the decision about these two cases—but Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whose father spent nearly three decades as an attorney for Shell, did.
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'Festival of Climate Resistance': Tens of Thousands Celebrate 'The Big One' in UK on Earth Day
"As the government continues to fan the flames of the climate and biodiversity crisis it's clear that only a collective effort can put it out," said the head of Greenpeace UK.
Apr 22, 2023
Tens of thousands demonstrated with a defiant yet jubilant spirit in London on Saturday to mark the second day of 'The Big One' climate protests aimed at getting the U.K. government to finally take bold action on the planetary emergency of greenhouse gas emissions.
A nonviolent die-in action was held outside Parliament, but the day of demonstration was billed as a "family-friendly" day of action meant to foster inclusion and participation as opposed to disruption or civil disobedience.
The coalition behind 'The Big One' events includes Extinction Rebellion UK (XR), Greenpeace UK, War Without Want, Global Justice Now, Women's Climate Strike, and dozens of others have warned that if the government does not respond to their urgent, collective set of demands, they will begin escalating their direct actions.
"As the government continues to fan the flames of the climate and biodiversity crisis it's clear that only a collective effort can put it out," said Areeba Hamid, Greenpeace UK's executive director, on Saturday.
"We will either win as a movement or lose as individual organizations," Hamid added. "And through bringing together groups from across civil society, The Big One will act as the catalyst of a new united fight against the vested interests putting profits over people and the planet."
In addition to unity across the movement, urgency was a main theme of the event.
"The climate and ecological crisis isn't something that is going to happen in the future, it is already here, we can see it with the noticeable lack of insects and wildlife every spring and summer," said Zoe Cohen, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion. "It's time that the government took this seriously and listened to the people here and the many not present who are represented by the organizations here."
On the ground in London, writer and activist James Marriot said the attendees—estimates ranged from 30,000 to 60,000 or more—came with diverse voices but shared a "vibrant" mood as they expressed extreme displeasure with the Tory-controlled government's refusal to act.
Saturday's event, said Marriot, is the "culmination of at least a year if not more of campaigning and preparation by XR and many other organizations across the UK to create a festival of climate resistance in London, the heart of government and bureaucracy—a festival that says, 'We are here. This is what we stand for.' It's not so much a protest, nor is it an obstruction, but a statement of existence. A statement that says we are here and we want action."
Marriott said those participating are demanding a "change to the structures of government and the structures of the energy system" and to "make them change as swiftly as possible."
In a Metro op-ed on Friday, Green MP Caroline Lucas, who is speaking at various 'Big One' events, said the driving purpose for the U.K. climate movement is to create the necessary momentum for the "wholesale, societal change" to adequately address the climate emergency unleashed by the burning of fossil fuels and other highly-polluting industrial processes of the 20th and 21st centuries.
"How did we end up here?" Lucas asks. "I believe it's because climate and nature crimes are being committed with impunity right across the country and the world. Fossil fuel giants like BP and Shell are drilling the North Sea, polluting our planet and reaping record profits. And private water companies are dumping sewage in our waterways on a daily basis, all while returning billions in profits to their shareholders."
But instead of taking action to avert the destruction, she continues, the Tory government led by U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunal is "aiding and abetting" it.
"Despite the stark warnings of 'act now, or it will be too late' from the global scientific community just this week," said Mel Evans, the climate lead for Greenpeace UK, the government refuses to act.
"The U.K. government is failing to deliver the kind of wholesale action needed to avoid full-blown climate breakdown," Evans said.
The coalition behind "The Big One"—which will continue into next week—is demanding that the U.K. government "end all new licenses, approvals, and funding for fossil fuel projects as we begin a transition to a fair society centered on reparatory justice for all life on earth."
"This is a transformative moment in history, and we will accept nothing less than immediate and decisive action from the U.K. government," the alliance wrote. "The people of this country have the courage and power, and it is our responsibility to safeguard our own future by taking action where politics has let us down with apathy and dangerous false solutions."
Extinction Rebellion's Cohen said, "So far the atmosphere has been amazing and it's been great to see so many people from different organizations come together for the first time. There is a very clear desire from the public to discuss climate solutions together and build something different."
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The End of Gas Starts in Vienna
A way out of the energy crisis and toward energy security won't be achieved, now nor in the long term, by investing in new "natural" gas infrastructure. There is no energy security in a world of climate chaos.
Mar 18, 2023
Near the end of this month, from March 27 to 28, the European Gas Conference (EGC) organized by Energy Council takes place in Vienna. This conference brings together Europe's main gas suppliers to discuss "the security of supply and the new role for LNG on the continent" and how to "diversify supply and decarbonize supply chains to future-proof gas' role in the energy mix."
Total, Equinor, BP, BlackRock, and RWE are just some of the companies who will be represented in Vienna. These are also some of the companies who have registered record profits over the last year, mostly due to skyrocketing gas and oil prices. These are some of the companies whose conscious actions have pushed millions into energy poverty this winter, while pushing us all to climate collapse.
After their windfall profits, both Shell and BP have announced that they are slowing their energy transition. British Petroleum (BP) for example, is planning to invest $8 billion of their profits in fossil fuels, while also reducing their carbon reduction targets from 40% to 20% by 2030.
While announcing new investments in fossil fuels to secure the interests of profit-eager shareholders, these companies are smart enough to understand that they also need to secure their control over the renewable sector, and take advantage of the funding opportunities for the energy transition. This demands some social and greenwashing from their side.
That is why they organize conferences like the one I attended last January. I will try to give you a glimpse of the narratives and discourses that they are putting forward that expose greenwashing for what it is.
The conference in January—titled "Just Transition for the Gas Sector and its Workers"—organized by EuroGas saw the expression "social dialogue" repeated over and over throughout. As an activist with the Climate Jobs campaign, I acknowledge that an urgent phase-out of fossil fuels (including "natural" gas) cannot be conducted without a concrete just transition plan for the workers of this sector. This phrase apparently held distinct meanings for different people at the conference.
When they talk about the transition not happening without "the workers," they mean they need the right "skilled workforce," implying the need of the sector to anticipate the challenges in employment, jobs, skills, and plans for the future.
On the one hand, the need for a "skilled workforce" does not translate into current workers being ensured requalification or income and job guarantees in the transition. We saw many situations of fossil infrastructure closing down due to loss of profitability, companies moving on to new projects–often both in renewables but also in fossils, relocating fossil industry elsewhere—and the workers being left behind with no compensation, jobs, or income guarantee.
On the other hand, when it comes to planning and preparing for a world beyond fossil fuels, a disproportionate emphasis was placed on the challenges of doing so in small and medium companies, compared to big enterprises being better equipped for this task. In other words, some of the speakers interpreted the transition as a way for big companies to consolidate their power over the energy sector.
First, a just energy transition to stop climate change requires economic planning and preparation. This process should have started decades ago but has been constantly postponed due to intense investment by fossil companies to deny the climate change crisis or offer false solutions under greenwashing schemes.
The much-needed economic planning cannot be left to profit-driven mechanisms. On the contrary, it must be conducted with great public scrutiny and accountability towards civil society, especially workers.
Second, an energy transition to stop further damage on the climate and ecosystems requires a shift from extraction-intense and endless-growth economic and energy systems, to an economy based on people's needs and planetary boundaries. Private companies have, of course, a different view on this, resulting in an energy expansion—a growth in investment of both renewables and fossils—with greenhouse gas emissions still on the rise.
That is exactly why the Secretary General of Eurogas opened the conference by saying that "this is the beginning, not at all the end" and later said that "this is not a sunset sector." They do have plans to keep the sun shining for themselves. As it was explained in the conference, "the technologies to decarbonize the gas sector have been identified" and they are: 1) hydrogen and 2) biogas (mainly bio methane).
The strategy to add value to the existing infrastructure, while having an excuse to expand it, is to use it for biogas, as it can be transported and distributed via existing gas grids. Currently, bio methane accounts for only 1% of the gas production in Europe. Hydrogen, which is more complicated to transport and store, is their plan to expand energy infrastructure and energy production, while also being able to get their hands on the renewable energy production. Keeping in mind that an overwhelming majority of hydrogen is today produced using gas, we understand that both of these strategies came hand-in-hand with the prospects of extending the use of "natural" fossil gas as far out as possible.
Third, there was a common agreement that this transition is not possible without public subsidies and workers. When it comes to the subsidies, RePowerEU, the Resilience and Recovery Funds and the Just Transition Funds are the major subsidy packages of the European Union. The Just Transition funds are a good example of how European public funding has been been used as a way for companies to close fossil infrastructure that is no longer profitable instead of the money being used to ensure a social plan for workers, and to guarantee and plan their access to jobs in the new sectors. As for the RePowerEU, there are plans for large sums being used to support gas production and distribution, using the energy crisis as an excuse to delay the phase-out of fossil fuels.
A way out of the energy crisis and toward energy security won't be achieved, now nor in the long term, by investing in new "natural" gas infrastructure. There is no energy security in a world of climate chaos.
I would like to challenge the logic behind the mainstream discourse of public subsidies to support private investments, which then put workers in the hands of private companies' profit-oriented decisions, and thus the social dialogue becomes a way to avoid social unrest rather than a condition for fund allocation.
When it comes to key sectors for the transition and sectors providing essential services and goods—with the energy sector playing both roles—their future and of its workforce should never be left in the hands of private investments. Public funding should be channeled to public services and creation of good jobs in the public sector.
Just Transition Plans should be designed by putting the workers and communities at the forefront of the discussions, and should never be based on the interests of the companies who have for decades prolonged and benefited with the burning of fossil fuels, while well aware of their impacts on climate and livelihoods. This demands a shift towards renewable energy systems that are publicly owned, democratically managed, and freed from the imperatives of profit and economic growth.
Lastly, the conference I attended was closed by the Secretary General of Eurogas, expressing that "there is no gas sector, there are gas people" and wondering "what is the best way forward for gas people." Very well framed. I dare to suggest that the best way forward to the gas people is a planned phase-out of gas that guarantees 2024 is the last winter of gas. This plan should include massive public investment on the renewable sector, ensuring requalification and income guarantee for workers, and creating millions of Climate Jobs.
This is the plan to avoid cold houses in the winter and a burning planet in the future.
All of this proves why the climate justice movement needs to come together with other social movements—and specifically the labor movement—to create real social plans for a just energy transition. We need a strong program and a strong movement fighting for it, to make these industry conferences meaningless. That is also why we ought to come together from March 24 to 26 in Vienna, in the counter conference "Power to the People”—because we need to talk about how to make this the last winter of gas, and after that, blockade the European Gas Conference.
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'Twisted': BP and Shell CEOs See Pay Double as Workers Struggle to Heat Homes
"Instead of allowing huge payouts to end up in the pockets of CEOs, the government must step in with a proper tax on the oil industry and its profits," said one campaigner.
Mar 10, 2023
Progressives are renewing their call to adequately tax Big Oil's windfall profits and executive bonuses after a pair of London-based fossil fuel giants reported that the pay packages of their CEOs doubled last year while working-class households suffered under the weight of soaring prices.
BP said Friday that its CEO Bernard Looney received $12.1 million in 2022, up from $5.4 million the previous year. His compensation package included a $2.9 million cash bonus and $7.3 million in company stock. BP's profits doubled last year to a record high of $28 billion.
The news came one day after Shell said that its former CEO, Ben van Beurden, took home $11.7 million in 2022, up from $7.9 million the previous year. His compensation package included a $3.1 million cash bonus and $5.9 million in company stock. Shell's profits doubled last year to an all-time high of $40 billion.
In the wake of Big Oil's record-breaking profitmaking in 2022—which came as Russia's invasion of Ukraine created chaos in global oil and gas markets, giving corporations a pretext to jack up prices—BP and Shell announced last month that they are weakening their emission-reduction targets and expanding fossil fuel production.
Climate scientists are emphatic that such decisions are, in the
words of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, "inconsistent with human survival."
"While the rest of us struggle to pay our energy bills, the pay packages of fossil fuel giant bosses are doubling. Why are they allowed to profit from our misery?"
Fossil fuel corporations' ballooning profits and executive pay packages have provoked calls for far-reaching action to protect consumers from the high gas prices and electricity bills driving a historic cost-of-living crisis.
"Instead of allowing these huge payouts to end up in the pockets of CEOs, the government must step in with a proper tax on the oil industry and its profits, channel the money into stopping energy waste from homes, and invest in green heating schemes," Greenpeace U.K. campaigner Mel Evans told Reuters on Friday.
As many as 45 million people in the United Kingdom have struggled with fuel poverty this winter, and over the past decade, an estimated 7,409 Brits have died each year as a result of living in cold damp homes. This reality has prompted demands for the government to cover a greater share of people's skyrocketing utility bills, fund home insulation, and ramp up clean energy production—all of which would be made easier by enacting a stronger tax on Big Oil's windfall profits.
It's a "twisted irony" that a handful of wealthy executives got even richer "precisely because bills have been so unaffordable for the majority," Jonathan Noronha-Gant, a campaigner at the London-based advocacy group Global Witness, told The Associated Press on Friday.
Like Greenpeace, Global Witness has called for strengthening the U.K.'s loophole-ridden tax on Big Oil's windfall profits and imposing a tax on executive bonuses.
Global Witness said it would take the average British worker six centuries to earn the $23.8 million that BP's Looney and Shell's van Beurden made last year. Both CEOs make more than $100 every four minutes, the group added, meaning that it would take each one just eight minutes to earn the cost of a U.K. household's monthly energy bill and less than a day to earn the average annual U.K. wage.
"While the rest of us struggle to pay our energy bills, the pay packages of fossil fuel giant bosses are DOUBLING," Greenpeace U.K. tweeted Friday. "Why are they allowed to profit from our misery?"
New research commissioned by Britain's Liberal Democratic Party shows that the U.K. government provided $24.1 billion more in support to producers of planet-wrecking fossil fuels than to producers of renewables since 2015, The Guardian reported Thursday.
These subsidies have helped oil and gas giants realize record profits, which they use to block policies that would facilitate a green transition and rein in their destructive industry.
Liberal Democrats on Thursday called for a one-time "bonanza bonus" tax on energy company executives, AP reported.
According to the news outlet, "The proposed tax is similar to a levy on bankers' bonuses that the U.K. government imposed in 2009-10 amid the fallout of the global financial crisis."
"It is outrageous that oil and gas bosses are raking in millions in bonuses while families struggle to heat their homes," said party leader Ed Davey. "Whether it is executive bonuses or soaring profits, the money being made out of Putin's illegal war should be helping struggling families, not oil and gas barons."
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'They're Ripping Us Off': BP Profits Could Pay Energy Bills of 9.4 Million UK Households
"Big fossil fuel firms making eyewatering profits is a slap in the face for the millions of citizens struggling to heat their homes."
Nov 01, 2022
The London-based oil and gas giant BP reported Tuesday that it brought in a staggering $8.2 billion in profits in the third quarter, more than doubling its total from the same period last year amid Europe's worsening cost-of-living crisis.
The company announced it will be using its banner profits to buy back $2.5 billion worth of its own stock, rewarding shareholders as millions of people across the United Kingdom are having trouble heating their homes ahead of the winter season. According to the Financial Times, BP has repurchased more than $10 billion of its shares this year.
"While fossil fuel companies are being allowed to make record-breaking profits, households are facing astronomical energy bills."
The advocacy group Global Witness estimates that BP's $27 billion in profits over the past 12 months could pay the energy bills of 9.4 million U.K. households.
"Big fossil fuel firms making eyewatering profits is a slap in the face for the millions of citizens struggling to heat their homes, cook their meals, or buy everyday essentials," said Jonathan Noronha-Gant, senior fossil fuels campaigner at Global Witness. "As winter fast approaches, a dividing line is emerging: whose side is the government on? Brits facing financial hardships or an industry that's making billions in profits off the current energy crisis?"
The U.K.'s conservative government unveiled a windfall profits tax on energy companies in May, but it has thus far had little impact on oil giants. Shell reported last week that it has paid nothing in windfall taxes in the country, and BP said Tuesday that it expects to fork over $800 million--a fraction of the gains it has reaped from global energy market chaos spurred by Russia's war on Ukraine.
BP's latest earnings announcement sparked calls for a more aggressive windfall tax as Jeremy Hunt, the U.K.'s chancellor of the Exchequer, is expected to unveil a new economic plan later this month. The Guardian reported that Hunt is "considering increasing the windfall tax by up to five percentage points, to 30%, and extending its lifespan by three years, to 2028."
The government of new right-wing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is also facing pressure to reverse plans for deep public spending cuts, which could be devastating for millions of people across the country.
Freya Aitchison, oil and gas campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said in a statement that "the announcement of yet another obscene profit for a climate-wrecking oil firm highlights the scale of the pain that these companies are inflicting on the public."
"While fossil fuel companies are being allowed to make record-breaking profits, households are facing astronomical energy bills and millions are being pushed into fuel poverty," said Aitchison. "Bosses and shareholders at these big polluters are being allowed to get even richer by exploiting one of our most basic needs. BP is also worsening climate breakdown and extreme weather by continuing to invest and lock us into new oil and gas projects for decades to come."
BP's profit report came just hours after U.S. President Joe Biden warned fossil fuel giants that he's prepared to support a windfall profits tax if the companies continue gorging on their own stock while refusing to lower costs for consumers.
"Oil companies' record profits today are not because they're doing something new or innovative," Biden said in a speech at the White House on Monday. "Their profits are a windfall of war."
Murray Auchincloss, BP's chief financial officer, declined to comment on Biden's speech when pressed by Reuters.
In a statement Tuesday, Daniel Willis of the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now noted that Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies have announced combined profits of more than $170 billion this year.
"To put this into perspective, that is more than the $116 billion a year that loss and damage are estimated to cost the Global South, to date," Willis said. "It doesn't take much to connect the dots to see what's happening here. When fossil fuel companies are announcing record profits just days before COP27, it's high time leaders joined those dots once and for all too and make polluters pay up for loss and damage. It's clear they can afford to, and a polluter tax could help reduce household energy bills closer to home as well."
"People here and the Global South have one thing in common when it comes to companies like BP: they're ripping us off and think they can keep getting away with it at the expense of people and the planet," Willis added. "It's high time we showed them the game is up."
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New Jersey Sues 5 Oil Giants, Industry Lobby for Climate Fraud
"We will work tirelessly to make sure these companies pay every last dollar for the harm they've caused," said state AG Matthew Platkin. "If you lie to the public to protect your profits, we will hold you accountable."
Oct 18, 2022
New Jersey on Tuesday sued five oil and gas companies and a leading fossil fuel lobby group for knowingly lying to the public about the existence of climate change and the role their products play in exacerbating human-caused global heating.
"The defendants have known for decades that use of fossil fuels is a major cause of climate change."
The lawsuit, filed in New Jersey Superior Court in Mercer County, targets ExxonMobil Corporation, Shell Oil Company, Chevron Corporation, BP, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute (API).
The plaintiffs--state Attorney General Matthew Platkin, the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, and the Department of Environmental Protection--argue that "the defendants have known for decades that use of fossil fuels is a major cause of climate change, but instead of warning the public or the state about the danger, they launched public relations campaigns to sow doubts about the existence, causes, and effects of climate change with the goal of confusing the public, delaying the transition to a lower carbon economy and future, increasing their own profits, and further deepening dependence on their products."
The suit also accuses API "of playing a key role in orchestrating and implementing climate denial campaigns on behalf of and under the supervision of" the five oil giants.
Climate campaigners welcomed the lawsuit, with Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, saying in a statement that "after lying for decades about their role in fueling the climate crisis, these oil and gas corporations deserve to be held accountable for the damages they have caused to communities across the country."
Oil companies including ExxonMobil, Shell, and Total have known since as far back as the early 1970s that burning fossil fuels emits greenhouse gases that cause global heating.
According to Platkin's office:
The state is seeking to hold the defendants accountable for systematically concealing and denying their knowledge that fossil fuel consumption could have a catastrophic impact on the climate, causing the devastating consequences of fossil fuel overconsumption: the significant sea level rise, flooding, and extreme weather that have battered New Jersey's citizens and businesses, requiring the state and its residents to shoulder the enormous costs of rebuilding, hardening New Jersey's defenses against severe weather, and making the necessary transition away from reliance on fossil fuels to a more sustainable clean energy future.
Platkin, a Democrat, said in a statement that the defendants "went to great lengths to hide the truth and mislead the people of New Jersey, and the world."
"In short," he added, "these companies put their profits ahead of our safety. It's long overdue that the facts be aired in a New Jersey court, and the perpetrators of the disinformation campaign pay for the harms they've caused."
New Jersey Commissioner of Environmental Protection Shawn M. LaTourette said that "New Jersey is ground zero for some of the worst impacts of climate change."
"Our communities and environment are continually recovering from extreme heat, furious storms, and devastating floods," he noted. "These conditions will sadly only worsen in the decades ahead, leaving us scrambling to prepare for a parade of harmful climate changes."
"All this while we rush to ween ourselves off the very products these companies have long known would fuel our pain but deceived New Jerseyans about, because keeping us addicted was better for their bottom line," LaTourette added. "It was wrong to mislead us; wrong to undermine climate science; wrong to put profit over people and the planet that we share. It is time New Jersey demands accountability."
New Jersey now joins dozens of states and cities that have filed similar lawsuits against fossil fuel corporations in recent years, including Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, Baltimore, Boulder, Oakland, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
The suit's timing roughly coincides with the 10th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, which killed 38 people in New Jersey while causing around $30 billion in damage.
"We will work tirelessly to make sure these companies pay every last dollar for the harm they've caused," Platkin vowed. "If you lie to the public to protect your profits, we will hold you accountable."
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