Big oil has grown tired of the threats and accusations of activists and governments alike, and in recent months, the executives of large oil companies are starting to fire back. Trying to appease climate obsessives has got them nowhere and some of the big players have had enough.
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Constant accusations of knowing the effects of their products on the environment and lawsuits have become constant companions of oil companies in the last few years, says OilPrice.com.
The successes that activists have had—such as Friends of the Earth’s court win that obliged Shell to cut its emissions by 45 percent—have been celebrated loudly and globally.
Naturally, Big Oil tends to be the target of choice because of its size, but with governments in Europe and much of North America pledging their total support for an energy transition, the whole industry has become a target. And has been quiet about it all, probably on the assumption that trying to defend itself would make things worse. Until recently.
Perhaps the first highly public retaliatory shot came in 2021 when the chief executive of Liberty Energy made a YouTube video attacking North Face for its refusal to sell branded apparel to an oil company because of what it did. In the video, Chris Wright accused North Face of hypocrisy, noting the fact that the synthetic fibers they used in their products were a product of the oil industry.
The video made quite a splash at the time, with North Face’s defense coming down to an admission that associating with an oil company would make it look bad and a promise to make all its products recyclable by 2030.
But Wright didn’t stop there. Just this month, the chief executive of Liberty posted a video on LinkedIn challenging the climate crisis narrative. LinkedIn took the video down. Wright challenged the decision. LinkedIn first said the video violated its misinformation policies but a day later restored it. And the Wall Street Journal wrote a long article about it.
In his disputing the alleged scientific consensus on climate change, Wright is still an exception. Yet Liberty’s bigger sector players are challenging the energy transition in other ways. They may well have had enough of bearing the attacks silently and making emission-reduction pledges in hopes that everyone starts liking them better.
Last year, for instance, the chief executive of Chevron, Mike Wirth, countered accusations by the Biden administration that the oil industry was raking in inordinate profits, saying that from a longer-term perspective, these were in fact modest returns on investments that oil companies made.
Industry insiders have noted, only half-jokingly, that if the federal government wants to tax the excess profits of Big Oil, then it should have provided financial support to the industry when it struggled during the worst of the Covid crisis. Or that it should have also taxed Big Tech, which made billions during the two pandemic years.
Exxon went further, attacking the windfall tax the European Union recommended to all its members in court. The supermajor said that the windfall tax was counter-productive, it discouraged investments, and the European Union had exceeded its legal authority in imposing the tax on oil companies. It noted the $3 billion it had invested in refineries in Europe in the past 10 years, ensuring the security of fuel supply for the continent, suggesting that such investments would not be forthcoming in a windfall tax environment.
The U.S. company wasn’t the only one. French TotalEnergies was quick to take legal action against none other than one of the icons of the environmental movement: Greenpeace. After the organization issued a report claiming that TotalEnergies was underreporting its emissions, the supermajor acted swiftly and slammed Greenpeace for spreading misinformation, filing a lawsuit against the organization.
“The Greenpeace report follows a methodology that is dubious, to say the least,” TotalEnergies said at the time, adding that “the dissemination by Greenpeace of misleading information in this matter is serious.”
Full article here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Ron Clutz posted two days ago…
Courts are increasingly taking a close look at the validity of climate change lawsuits against oil producers. And for good reason: These cases severely test the boundaries of court jurisdiction, the breadth of tort law, the protections of due process and even the sanctity of free speech.
Its about time they stood up. Somebody said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. The hand entrusted with power becomes, either from human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; Wendell Phillips.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
Now is the time, big oil is making record profits, much of it caused by the climate alarmism. The alarmism has caused increased costs in everything the big oil companies do, and the cost is passed on to the consumers and increased costs lead to increased pricing and increased profits. Many fossil fuel businesses have been forced into bankruptcy, especially coal energy companies, cutting down on competition. Everything that has been done to destroy fossil fuels has made the survivors richer. Now is the time to spend some of the increased profits on proper science, proper study of natural causes of climate change. CO2 is a trace gas and could not have ever controlled the climate, other natural factors are much more powerful and have caused self-correcting alternating increasing warm and cold periods for millions of years.
Now is the time to file law suits, using the increased profits, because the green alarmist subsidies are spent to suppress any studies of any factor other than Greenhouse Emissions, as long as they can restrict all those who oppose their peer reviewed consensus “so called” greenhouse disaster, to only studying and arguing about the harm of CO2, it reinforces that nothing else really matters and they win all the disagreements based on “Precautionary Principles”.
We must study other factors, natural causes of climate change, we must get the debates and discussions out of their home emissions ball fields, which uses their umpires and get the topics to be natural factors, where they have “Net Zero” Experience.
I posted a comment, it did not show up, I tried to post it again and was told it was a duplicate, it still does not show up.
This is a revised version of a comment that did not show up with two tries.
Big oil is making record profits, much of it caused by the climate alarmism. The alarmism has caused increased costs in everything the big oil companies do, and the cost is passed on to the consumers and increased costs lead to increased pricing and increased profits. Many fossil fuel businesses have been forced into bankruptcy, especially coal energy companies, cutting down on competition. Everything that has been done to destroy fossil fuels has made the survivors richer. Now is the time to spend some of the increased profits on proper science, proper study of natural causes of climate change. CO2 is a trace gas and could not have ever controlled the climate, other natural factors are much more powerful and have caused self-correcting alternating increasing warm and cold periods for millions of years.
Conduct proper study of causes of natural Climate Change, using the increased profits. File law suits, using the increased profits, because the green alarmist subsidies are spent to suppress any studies of any factor other than Greenhouse Emissions, as long as they can restrict all those who oppose their peer reviewed consensus “so called” greenhouse disaster, to only studying and arguing about the harm of CO2, it reinforces that nothing else really matters and they win all the disagreements based on “Precautionary Principles”.
We must study other factors, natural causes of climate change and the natural internal climate factors that caused past warm periods to turn cold and the past cold periods to turn warm. We must get the debates and discussions out of their home emissions ball fields, which uses their umpires and get the topics to be natural factors, where they have “Net Zero” Experience.
I don’t have ant profits with oil companies or any other companies making profits, even large profits, in competitive industries. There are some unfair trade practices which should not be allowed.
I the fossil fuel industry has any information that their products do not do harm or cause climate change they should publish it immediately. The fact that they have not tells me such information does not exist, and in fact their products are responsible. But I am willing to listen to anything they have to say in their defense. But all I hear are crickets.
[reply] guilty until proven innocent?
I don’t have any problems with . . .
If the fossil fuel . . .
Sorry for the typos.
“The fact that they have not tells me such information does not exist”
Oh, it most certainly does!
You must be remarkably impervious to science.
catweazle666 says:
February 10, 2023 at 1:19 am
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right on catweazle666
Where?
OG, if you have science that shows fossil fuel emissions harm the climate, show us. Its your hypothesis, so you need to prove it. Let’s see the evidence that there has been actual harm caused by emissions of CO2. So a causal chain. Let’s see it. Let’s see what ECS is – the proven figure so that we can prove the harm. Let’s see the models that have proven skill. Let’s see why there was clear cooling in the 1970s and 1970s. Let’s see your proven explanation of the PDO, AMO and El Ninos and how you disentangle natural variation from the data to obtain your signal. Then we might listen.
Switzerland won’t follow EU out of controversial energy treaty: official
Published on 09/02/2023
Experts fear that fossil fuel companies will restructure their operations through Switzerland to keep suing governments over climate action
Switzerland will not join the European Union’s proposed mass exit from a controversial energy investment protection treaty, according to the official responsible for engaging on the issue.
This week, the European Commission has proposed a joint EU exit from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), over fears its protections for fossil fuel investments will slow down climate action.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2023/02/09/switzerland-wont-follow-eu-out-of-controversial-energy-treaty-official/
Fear? Climate alarmists know all about creating that.
I think we should seek climate reparations from Norway:
https://en.mercopress.com/2023/01/27/soaring-gas-price-helped-norway-triple-its-hydrocarbons-tax-revenue
“Soaring gas prices in 2022 means that the Norwegian Tax Administration will collect a record US$ 89,5 billion, triple the previous record of 2021, according to the tax revenue office. Likewise it has revised upwards petroleum revenue by 20%. The high natural gas prices drove the record tax revenue from petroleum companies which “has never been anywhere near as high as it is now,” the Norwegian Tax Administration’s director Nina Schanke Funnemark said.
In the previous record year of 2021, Norway’s petroleum tax revenue was US$30 billion, the administration said.
Norway, Western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer, has benefited a lot from the spike in oil and gas prices since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year. Most of Norway’s government revenues from oil and gas go into the US$ 1.34 trillion Government Pension Fund Global, commonly known as Norway’s oil fund, which is the biggest sovereign wealth fund in the world.
Going forward, Norway is determined to keep high production on its shelf to export more gas and oil to Europe, which is scrambling for supply from sources other than Russia.
Earlier this week, Norway said it would offer up to 92 new blocks for hydrocarbon exploration in the new round of licensing in mature areas. “Further exploration activity and new discoveries are important to maintain the production of oil and gas over time, both for Norway and Europe,” Petroleum and Energy Minister Terje Aasland said.”
Reblogged this on Calculus of Decay .
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