I kind of wish I could be hopeful about this kind of thing, but I just can’t. The best case scenario I can imagine is somehow enough pressure is put on governments that they fine Exxon, or Shell, or all of them. Then the oil companies restructure into ‘Exxon Diversified Energy’ and ‘Exxon Oil Liability Corporation’. The liability corporation inherits the judgement, goes bankrupt, and nobody ever sees any money, and the ‘energy’ corporation, which got all the real assets in the restructuring, continues on business as usual.
Let’s be honest here. The real villains are the major capital owners, like the Koch brothers, who have been driving policy in these companies for decades. And our society is structured to insure that people like them never have to face punishment for what they do.
I kind of wish I could be hopeful about this kind of thing, but I just can’t. The best case scenario I can imagine is somehow enough pressure is put on governments that they fine Exxon, or Shell, or all of them. Then the oil companies restructure into ‘Exxon Diversified Energy’ and ‘Exxon Oil Liability Corporation’. The liability corporation inherits the judgement, goes bankrupt, and nobody ever sees any money, and the ‘energy’ corporation, which got all the real assets in the restructuring, continues on business as usual.
Let’s be honest here. The real villains are the major capital owners, like the Koch brothers, who have been driving policy in these companies for decades. And our society is structured to insure that people like them never have to face punishment for what they do.