Dear United Nations: Snap out of it

I was reading about a nifty new group of crooks oil company executives who launched a PR stunt group called the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) ahead of the Paris climate talks in December. OGCI (rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Kind of like oil), created by the Saudis, is something you can’t really sum up in a few sentences.

Well, maybe you can.

It’s a con. How’s that for succinct? It only took three words…”it’s a con,” or four words if you don’t want to use a contraction (“It is a con”).

Here’s their BIG declaration (hope you’re sitting down):
OGCI-CEO-Declaration-2015_Page_1 OGCI-CEO-Declaration-2015_Page_2


Do we really look so stupid, naive,  and desperate that we’d buy into this steaming load of horseshit?  Oil analyst Neil Beveridge gushed to the New York Times that the industry deserved credit for acknowledging that they played a role in climate change and that it even exists:  

“It is a big, big step for such a large number of companies to gather,” he said.

Umm. How about “no,” Mr. OIL ANALYST. Go cash your check, Neil Beveridge. For “at least acknowledging its role” they deserve “credit?” Are you kidding? The only thing they “deserve” is criminal prosecution and jail time. In fact, if they really want to show they’re sincere, they should just check themselves into prison. They’re in luck because the United States has tons of them.

But the United Nations won’t be fooled by this ruse, right? Hmm. Well, history provides us with clues that, yes, indeed, they will be fooled. Not only fooled, but they’ll keep embracing, intermingling with, and welcoming the fossil fuel industry into climate negotiations.

One of these oil companies, Total, released this giddy video (which I have improved upon):

First of all, these 10 oil and gas corporations have ceded nothing…only that they want to extract more gas, which they are pretending is somehow “better” for everyone and everything. It is not. We are talking about fracking here, folks. Hardly anyone’s idea of an improvement. And, as I wrote here, the fossil fuel industry has utterly controlled the energy game for decades. If they are appearing conciliatory, which they actually aren’t, the proper response would not be to act like a bunch of weak, grateful weenies. To appear “weak” just welcomes more trouncing.

The UNFCCC needs to see the OGCI “declaration” for what it really is – which is manipulative (if you’re prone to being manipulated), at best. It’s not even a white flag. It’s a false flag. Instead of picking through the scraps they’ve pretended to throw out to the huddled masses, the UNFCCC needs to put down the View Master…

raw-1328272073
and correctly interpret this “declaration.” Here…I’ll help them a little:


OGCI-real-declaration


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