1.3 Can The Fossil Fuel Industry
Be Defeated?
Contents:
We’re modern day abolitionists.
“So before anyone misunderstands my point, let me be clear and state the obvious: there is absolutely no conceivable moral comparison between the enslavement of Africans and African- Americans and the burning of carbon to power our devices. Humans are humans; molecules are molecules.
The comparison I’m making is a comparison between the political economy of slavery and the political economy of fossil fuel.”
Embedded Value
In 1860, Slaves = 16% South’s total assets → ~$10 Trillion
“In 1860… slaves as property were worth more than all the banks, factories and railroads in the country put together.”
Stranded Assets
That liquidation of slavery’s private wealth is the only precedent for what today’s climate justice movement is rightly demanding: that trillions of dollars of fossil fuel stay in the ground.
It is an audacious demand, and those making it should be clear-eyed about just what they’re asking.
They should also recognize that, like the abolitionists of yore, their task may be as much instigation and disruption as it is persuasion.
There is no way around conflict with this much money on the line, no available solution that makes everyone happy.
What do we make of this?
How to Erode an Industry
A Brief History of The American Tobacco Industry’s Decline
Addiction isn’t purely chemical it can be cultural
Tobacco’s Fall From Grace: A Timeline
1957 - US Public Health Service implicates smoking as a cause of lung cancer with robust evidence
1964 - Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee report marks beginning of a significant shift in public attitudes about smoking
1965 - Congress requires that all cigarette packages carry Surgeon General warning labels
Tobacco’s Fall From Grace: A Timeline
1967 - Federal Communications Commission Fairness Doctrine ruling requires broadcasters to run an anti-smoking advertisement for every cigarette ad aired.
1970 - television and radio tobacco advertisements banned
Tobacco’s Fall From Grace: A Timeline
1975 - Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act is the first statewide law in the nation that requires separate smoking areas in public places.
1987 - The RJ Reynolds tobacco company debuts the Joe Camel character in its U.S. advertisements. This cartoon character hooked millions of kids on Camel tobacco products.
Tobacco’s Fall From Grace: A Timeline
1994 - Seven tobacco company executives testify before congress that they do not believe nicotine is addictive.
1998 - Industry agrees to a $206 billion master settlement with 46 states, the largest settlement in U.S. history.
Tobacco’s Fall From Grace: A Timeline
2000 - Philip Morris on its website acknowledged “an overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious disease in smokers”
2009 - President Obama signs legislation granting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over tobacco products. Tobacco products are now no longer exempt from basic oversight.
What do we make of this?
What worked?
Research has shown that the most potent demand-reducing influences on tobacco use have been interventions that impact virtually all smokers repeatedly
$250 billion spent on cigarette advertisement between 1940-2005
The Emperor Has No Clothes
The Industry Is More Vulnerable Than Ever
Crude Oil Prices ($/kWh)
Material, Economic Changes
“Shared stories are humanity’s essential tool for overcoming the obstacles to collective action:
There is compelling reason to believe that human beings’ predilection for deploying socially meaningful narratives is an evolutionary adaptation that has given our species a competitive advantage.
“We dream in narrative, daydream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criticize, construct, gossip, learn, hate and live by narrative.”
Material, Economic Changes → Narrative Changes
Ready for Part 2?
Our Vision & Narrative for a Just & Livable Future
2. 1 New Economics & Culture
2.2 Environmental & Climate Justice
2.3 The Green New Deal