Are oil companies bad?
The other day someone mentioned to me that companies like Shell and BP are destroying the planet. Nowadays it's a pretty common sentiment amongst younger people to hate fossil fuel, mining or oil companies. It makes a lot of sense, the damage they are doing to the environment, atmosphere and ecosystems are immeasurable. They must be evil right? The people running these corporations must be akin to Disney villains.
Let's bring some nuance into the picture. Is it hypocritical to hate oil companies when you drive a car and fill it up with BP petrol? What about flying to another country, you are directly emitting greenhouse gas into the upper atmosphere. Is it unethical to run electricity into your house burning lots and lots of coal? What about turning on the AC to cool yourself down on a hot summer's day? If you shop at all, guess how the items were shipped their from the farms or Chinese Temu factories?
Like it or not, BP and Shell are core infrastructure companies that have done a fairly good job at ensuring we all have access to energy which we all depend on. Take away energy, and society will grind to a halt. Maybe to some readers this is all obvious but in my experience, people often struggle to take on a nuanced view of complex issues and emotionally are quick to take a side or jump to conclusions. Suppose you are a hippie who wears handsewn clothes and walk everywhere, you are still benefiting from the fossil fuelled industrial revolution! Society would not be rich enough to support unemployed nomads with nutritious food and structurally sound shelter for them to protest for nature. How ironic.
Now of course, I'm not saying everyone should be worshipping big oil and let them do what they want. It is an incredibly wealthy and corrupt industry with lots of dirty deals, unfair competition and even lots of political influence that has lead to decades of wars and deaths. A quick search turned up Petrobras “Car Wash” scandal, Glencore, Iran, Nigeria, Exxon, Lobbying... Then of course there's the issue of global warming which is a relatively modern issue. I'm not saying these are not major issue that don't deserve criticism, attention or solutions, just that it took a lot of fossil fuel burning to even get here in the first place. Cheap energy kick started modern trade, medicine, technology, internet, water on tap, everything we take for granted. It just takes a bit of nuance to both appreciate fossil fuel for taking us this far and to realise it's time to retire it for something better and the people at the top running the show don't have your best interests in mind.
So are oil companies evil? No. Most of it exists to provide critical value to all of us in our daily lives, that's why oil prices keep rising thanks to Trump and we keep paying. Are certain oil executives evil and putting their own interests above the general public or the future of our species? Well, this one you can sort of assume will always be true as long as humans are around.