mtobis (@mtobis): This is because the energy sector is a machine that is misprogrammed, not because it is intrinsically evil.
I believe the fault lies mostly in the way we structure society to encourage this sort of behaviour in amoral profit-optimizing corporations. https://twitter.com/ClimateHuman/status/1481407130783547393
In a system which rewards malign behaviour over decent behaviour, malign people will show up to do the dirty work. And I am not suggesting we be kind to the individuals who brazenly lied. But I think in retrospect it was to be expected that they'd show up.
When people within, say, Shell or BP try to move "beyond petroleum", our response shouldn't be to yell "greenwashing"! It should be to organize our reward structures such that those people prevail.
Treating the corporations themselves as the problem is a category error. It's like blaming a drunk driving accident on a poorly maintained road or the vehicle. (Let's assume it's a well-maintained electric car so as not to further confuse the issue.)
It's not the machine's fault. And in the present case we need the machine (energy corporations). Smashing them is a very bad idea.
We don't need the drivers so much but we need the engine and the chassis (the infrastructure and the engineers).
The absurd and dire situation is easy to be angry about.
It's much harder to accept the extent to which responsibility falls on the general public and our failure to live up to our responsibilities in maintaining a competent democracy.