It was the build up to the AFL grand final and there was a presenter on a football field with kids kicking footballs in the background.
Anyway, he introduces the segment and it turns out it's a paid promotion for Shell. The show then cuts to a 2 minute promotional video for Shell fuel.
Once the promo ends, he tells the kids that whoever kicks a goal gets a $1000 petrol voucher, as he waves a stack of these petrol vouchers in front of the camera.
I don't get easily offended, but I've honestly never seen anything more disgusting in my entire life.
Try watching some documentaries about Tiananmen Square or Uyghurs. I am curious if this statement will still hold.
The US government runs a prominent advertising campaign on the theme "if you let your baby sleep with you, you are a bad mother".
Pick a lane ;).
That's a pretty bold statement to make. I don't know what kind of isolated world you live in if you think that a Shell ad is the most disgusting thing you ever saw in your life, but I can give you a hundred examples off the top of my head.
One example that might be related to this subject are working conditions in a lithium mine and the purification process. If people knew the price we pay to drive EVs I'm convinced they would stick with oil. Just because it all happens in China and it doesn't affect us directly, doesn't mean it's any less disgusting.
I am also getting seriously tired of this constant need for censorship which is a contradiction in an open-market economy. You should compete, not sabotage. Instead of looking for ways to ban Shell ads on TV, why doesn't the EV industry offer vouchers too?
As for your comment about EVs, I don't necessarily disagree. My main outrage is that they used children to sell oil.
As for your comment on competition, how can you expect to compete against big oil without regulation, possibly the biggest most powerful industry in the world? The problem is that there is nothing better than oil for what it does, which extends to the other problem that open markets don't care about externalities or planetary boundaries. Which is where people need to come in and put restrictions.
I'm curious, but would you have been against the breaking up of Standard Oil back in the day?
Don’t ask the West. Ask India that had the choice to leapfrog fossil fuels and be energy independent, at higher cost.
People don’t care about our opinions. They want the cheapest options.
The only way to transition out of fossils for energy, is to make the alternatives cheaper and easily accessible. US transitioned from coal to gas within 10 years when the economics became favorable.
Then there are all the externalities that are not part of the cost of fossil fuel costs today, start charging for the pollution and make the real costs explicit. The next thing, stop subsidizing road construction and maintenance for car drivers, and make only car owners pay the costs of all the roads, people would again see more explicitly how much more expensive cars are, which would get people to shift to other options (the vast majority of which are not EVs and won’t be for a long time). People might opt to bike for anything shorter than a 3 mile errand, deeming the car to be too expensive, or use the local bus or transit system…
Point being, these fossil fuels are supported directly by our governments and many of the primary users of those fuels are also supported by our governments (some more than others like here in the US).
If you want to argue we should levy a trillion dollar tax on fossil fuels that's fine but let's at least be direct about it instead of the somewhat misleading statement that it's a subsidy, like it's some giant pile of cash the state is handing to the oil companies. It's not even that it's giving tax breaks (that would be an explicit subsidy), it's that these taxes didn't exist at all.
You're essentially arguing not being taxed to oblivion as being directly supported by the government.
Renewable energy is also cost effective compared to fossil fuels in many cases and has been for years. This also excludes the massive externalities of fossil fuels.
True, making it cheaper is the best way, which should involve not subsidising fossil fuels and subsidising renewables.
Alas, none of this has anything to do with fossil fuel companies advertising to children, not sure if your a contrarian or a shill but your take is totally off topic.
We are subsidizing fossil fuels by deferring their actual real cost to the future. We can and should stop doing that.
So more tax on food and energy to the poor. Great idea how to start a riot.
And do it in a way that the poor people do not revolt and topple the governments because of the crazy high prices in goods.
The valid debate is how fast can we go towards this direction(aka how much should we ask people to pay to fund the transition). And there is no single right answer for this.
I guess having companies build out maps and use their assets was going to be a side effect of having user created content.
Company sponsored games aren’t new (80d had 7up-spot and cool-aid man). One of this years biggest movies is a doll brand. However I don’t think they’re fooling anyone.
The kicker at the end of the presentation: Sponsored by Exxon Mobile.
Both BP and Shell are likely aware of this and are now trying to target public transport advertisement and online communities, where they think they will probably win over Gen Z.
I doubt that the sentiment is universally shared, though. There are still large groups in denial about climate change, even though heat record after heat record is broken.
It's not really strange that people don't get that argument though right? Since the heat records are only a few 100 years old at most.
If "climate change is real and a problem, because weather heat records" is supposed to be a logical narrative then I can totally understand that people don't follow that logic and just tune out.
I trust the science about global warming, but the logic in those papers is very very far from "climate change is real and a problem, because weather heat records".
I can't believe this exists, it's almost funny. Maybe they can do Depend Adult Undergarments branded content next.
It is why Santa is dressed in red. Why people buy diamond engagement rings. Why cigarettes were readily available for literally decades after they were already known to be harmful. And why American gun control laws have never matured despite all the evidence that proves the status quo isn’t viable.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/
It probably helped cement that as the standard image of the character, but that was becoming the default look anyway.
Tbh I don't think this has anything to do with marketing. Guns are just a part of our culture regardless of whether we want them to be or not. If we were capable of changing this we'd be capable of doing a hell of a lot of other things, too, instead of sitting on our hands and loudly babbling about individual freedoms as a form of politics.
The only difference now is that people are more aware of it.
Green movement has spent the last 50 years opposing nuclear power, otherwise we would have decarbonised at least 90% already (like France has).
I can tell someone is going ask you for your "solution."
You know what the solution is, reader? Either support pro-nuclear policies until something better comes along, or shut up about climate change. In my experience, every single person who views climate change as an impending catastrophe responds with "but what if" when asked about nuclear. This is a widespread form of insanity. If we are headed for catastrophe, or extinction according to some, then the purely hypothetical world-ending events related to nuclear reactors shouldn't be any more of a problem. Personally, I'll take 100 Chernobyl-like events over extinction and a dying planet. Think that's crazy? Do the math.
Renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuels in many cases.
No one thinks fossil fuels were not essential in getting us to where we are.
according to wikipedia it cut the required farmland to feed a population in four. obviously it's hard to argue with more food for more people, but it clearly made urbanisation and overpopulation that much easier. quite a brilliant invention of engineering, but is it actually a good thing for a population to grow at that rate?
Fossil fuel companies opposing it I can understand: it’s a straightforward, strategic move.
For green proponents, I think it was an own goal, likely driven by a mix of fear and failing to realize that people would not readily temper their demand for energy and the holistic solution needs to include humanity harnessing substantial amounts of energy. Ruling out nuclear directly (in a single step) means decades of people creating gigatons more emissions from burning fossil fuels.
After all, nuclear power was brand new. And the pollution and death if one goes bad...
They announced to the staff one day that they landed a deal with Shell to produce videos about their science investment initiatives. I was disturbed by this and had chats with various decision makers. I was told that it would have a positive impact and celebrate the good investments, which would encourage Shell to do more good things! I wish I wrote down details, it was ridiculous. But they went ahead and did it. Shell never exerted any control over other content and all the news/editorial people were smart and committed, but this left a bad taste in my mouth about the company for the rest of my time there.
Not bananas compared to previous popularity it had. For reference, CS:GO (or is it CS 2 now?) has 1,2 mil online at the moment.
Quite a statement tbh. I thought it’s all Minecraft and Roblox?
And even then “only care about” are very strong words
Minecraft now is not the same game as it was 10 years aGO
https://www.spellingmistakescostlives.com/single-post/hell-i... (embeds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z64LV-BSwDs)
>One of the most polluted areas on the planet, the Niger Delta has a life expectancy of just 41 years due to decades of Shell oil spills & constant gas flaring.
That's a single data point, that contributes less than environmental factors, skyrocketing populace, low instances of vaccination and healthcare.
> The top three leading causes of death in Niger in 2017 were malaria, diarrheal diseases and lower respiratory infections. Comparatively, in the United States, the leading causes of death are heart disease, cancer and accidents.
> https://borgenproject.org/10-facts-about-life-expectancy-in-...
There are /numerous/ reports that state what this project states with much more clarity and decades of numerical data gathering.
Spills and gas flaring don't even make it to the top 10 life expectancy issues of the Niger Delta.
Shell Stations US
or
Shell Station Sus
Yep, pretty sus alright. I'm sure a lot of the target audience is laughing about this.
Big oil never had to advertise the "benefits" of fuel, people just bought it. This slowly starts to change. And oil companies are crapping their pants, because in some countries a significant amount of cars on the roads will be EVs within a few years.
In Europe some corporations already switched to a 100% EV company car policy. All new leases need to be electric only, and within 3 years they will have >90% EVs in their passenger car fleet.
Have I got news for you... Check out the latest ClimateTown video https://youtu.be/_pNRuafoyZ4 for just a few examples, but there's lots more and it's been happening for decades.
If you’re going to get upset about anything in games, get upset about loot boxes. Promoting gambling to children should be illegal. That’s psychologically damaging.
All is fair in love and war.
Give the ownership of oil rights to other people / companies and they'd have done the same stuff, specially after the first waves of development. Attributing all the positives of cheap energy on humanity to oil companies and their employees seems like attributing the joy of music to the record labels.
I don't think you can write a comment that says the book is a nuanced take and in the same breath say you're not apologising for them.
Of course the CEO of shell's nuanced take is "they let us do it", when they spent an absolute fortune ensuring that they would be allowed to continue.
I've read the book, and it's not a nuanced take, at all. It sells a picture of "well you said you wanted it, so we just gave you what you want", and sweeps under the rug all of the other parts. For example, the research that these companies did almost 50 years ago that they made absolutely no effort to avoid the consequences of, instead burying them.
There was nothing stopping the CEO of shell divesting in the early 2000's other than greed and growth, and the only reason he wrote a book about it is because it sells.
So if you think quality of life = cool ,
then it's true that fossil fuels = cool.
Don't let any private jet flying tech CEO or yacht enthusiast actor tell you otherwise. They want to brainwash you to have the exclusive on fossil fuels consumption much like they want to brainwash you to pay the maximum amount of taxes while they structure their affairs through trusts in Puerto Rico, Curacao or St. Kitts and Nevis.
Keep that foot on the pedal, they have much more to lose than we have, for once that's an advantage, if they are really so scared of climate change they'd move to Tibet or the Rockies.
It's suspicious how many in this thread are pointing out that fossil fuels are an essential component of society reaching the point it has. We know, that's not a revelation.
It is not the point.
I think you're spending a bit too much time in the conspiracy rabbit hole. Kim Kardashian's carbon footprint is about equivalent of 50 americans. She also has almost 350 million followers on Instagram. If she manages to get 1% of her following to reduce their footprint by 1% for a year, she undoes more than she emits in a year.
That doesn't mean they're not hypocrites, but have some context. What's actually needed is a change in consumption across the board, and a change in attitude towards impact. The only way that happens is through regulation and education.
It should be the person who has a footprint of 200x the avg. person to make cuts to their CO2 emissions because they are the low hanging fruit as far as quality of life is concerned, not the avg. person.
It's a fairly easy concept, like taxation, you take from those who have, not from those who don't have anything...oops my bad it's the country of the MAGA tax breaks and tax writeoffs on new and used private jets, while Flint doesn't have clean water since forever.
perhaps this is just my bubble, but I don't think I've ever met a person in real life who tries to defend oil companies
With this said, I am also happy to have a car and to use it from time to time to drive. It requires fuel and fuel is made by oil companies (directly or indirectly).
I am not sure this is "supporting" them, but I sure do not want them to close overnight (we have in France from time to time the apocalyptic version of fuel not being distributed - thanks to our unions who prepare us for Mad Max style futur if oil was to suddenly vanish :))
> one of the many entities directly responsible for destroying our planet
Do any of you believe this narative?
Honest question: isn't the destruction of the planet due to the 8 billion people that have to be fed, clothed, housed, entertained? Aren't fossil fuels directly responsible for the industrial revolution and people not starving anymore?
I get that "Big Oil" might have delayed some reforms, but isn't the elephant in the room the 8 billion people that still need to be fed, clothed, housed, and entertained?
That's a huge understatement. They have actively sabotaged green initiatives all along. They have stopped green policies, and green policies is and has always been the ONLY way forward, you can't put shit like this on individuals.
When I've lived in Russia, I've donated to Green Peace and WWF, because they helps a lot to save Nature Reserves, oppose predatory laws which allows to exploit Protected Areas without any ecological control, they sued factories which dump industrial waste into soil and water without any treatment, etc.
Now I'm living in Europe and I don't want to give money to Green Peace, because their agenda is not about nature reserves and industrial waste treatment, but, first, anti-nuclear-plant and then anti-travel, antu-car-ownership, etc.
As of today I'll argue that no true reform has been done, externalities of burning fossil fuel are absolutely not taken into account.
And it's been delayed by something like half a century ? (cf https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64241994)
This sentence fragment greatly understates the impact they have had. It is clear that you consider it to be a narrative and are deliberately deflecting attention elsewhere. Both are valid statements, it is not a binary situation. It is not one over the other, and deliberately polarising situations does not help anyone. It only serves to further hinder the situation.
Imagine how much progress would have been made had Shell et al. not buried research for decades showing the harms of fossil fuels and aggressively lobbied against alternative forms of energy.
This is like saying its not Comcast's fault that your neighborhood still only has 50mbps after decades and millions in grants because people still need Internet access.
The US and its companies are not the only ones on this earth, so unless you're going to claim some sort of conspiracy that prevented global progress, I'm not buying it.
Couldn’t the oil companies have included environmental responsibility in their work and not just have focused on profits?
extremely disappointing
Is the understatement of the century. They knew about global warming from internal research close to a decade before public science was able to gather enough data to raise alarm bells. Over that decade big oil spent time not researching greener alternatives or options for improving things but rather prepared for the globe spanning disinformation campaign you've so lightly referred to as delaying some reforms.
Big oil is a major reason for why 8 billion people are being fed, clothed, and entertained unsustainably. We don't need oranges avaliable year round. We don't need North Sea salmon in pacific Islands. We especially don't need to import so much most is thrown out as waste.
There is a lot wrong with the world right now, and population management needs to be part of the conversation but we are not yet at a point where the volume of people is simply unsustainable. We are unlikely to reach that point as well, since population growth seems to slow naturally as populations hit carrying capacity.
YouTube channel Climate Town has a very good summary of history of early climate chance action, The Time America Almost Stopped Climate Change
Jason Crawford has a really good analysis of this sentiment, trying to understand why people think this, on his Roots of Progress blog: https://rootsofprogress.org/the-spiritual-benefits-of-materi...
Sure, spreading oil propaganda and trying to influence policies despite very well knowing of the negative consequences is bad, maybe even evil behavior. But making it sound like Shell singlehandedly destroyed the planet is just ignorant. Without us, the consumers, and our desire for the products made from that oil and gas, Shell would not have pumped a single barrel out of the ground or sunk an oiltanker somewhere in the process. The convince of having a car, consuming cheap electricity, getting plastic toys from China delivered across the globe the next day and spending your holiday at the other end of the world is what destroyed the planet.
And any attempts to move away from that paradigm are heavily lobbied against by entities like Shell. It's hard to change habits, even harder to get an entire culture to change, and harder still when the change is being actively countered.
Its literally causing expensive electricity now and blocking cheap electricity.
