Summarize the important parts of what the speaker is saying
written like a 8th grader
Source: “Who is Really to Blame for Climate Change?,” Jocelyn Timperley, BBC Future, 2020.
Fossil fuel firms clearly play a major role in the climate problem. A major report released in 2017 attributed
70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions over the previous two decades to just 100 fossil fuel
producers. An update last year outlined the top 20 fossil fuel firms behind a third of emissions.
But it is not only through their ongoing extraction of fossil fuels that these companies have had such a huge
impact on climate action. They have also worked hard to shape the public narrative. In 2015, an investigation
by US website InsideClimate News revealed that the oil firm Exxon knew about climate change for decades
and led efforts to block measures to cut emissions. Revelations like this have contributed to strong public
anger at fossil fuels firms. Many now think that such companies have said and done everything they could to
be able to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels – no matter the cost.
Amy Westervelt is a climate journalist who has spent years exploring the thinking behind big oil’s strategy
over the past decades. She says there was a point in the late 1970s when oil companies in the US like
Exxon appeared to be embracing renewables and increasingly viewing themselves as energy companies,
rather than just oil companies. But this mindset had changed completely by the early 1990s due to a series
of oil crises and changing leadership, she says. “There was this real sort of shift in mindset from ‘If we have
a seat at the table, we can help to shape the regulations,’ to ‘We need to stop any kind of regulation
happening.’”
Fossil fuel firms have since done “a great job” of making any kind of environmental concerns seem elitist,
adds Westervelt. For example, Rex Tillerson, the Exxon chief executive who went on to be US secretary of
state, repeatedly argued that cutting oil use to fight climate change would make poverty reduction harder.
“They have this talking point...that if you want to make that industry cleaner in any way, then you’re basically
unfairly impacting the poor. Never mind that the costs don’t actually have to be offloaded onto the public.”
At the same time, fossil fuel companies have long employed PR tactics in a bid to control the narrative
around climate change, says Westervelt, pushing doubts about the science and working to influence how
people understand the role of fossil fuels in the economy. “They have put a real emphasis on creating
materials for social studies, economics and civics classes that all center the fossil fuel industry,” says
Summarize the important parts of what the speaker is saying
written like a 8th grader
Westervelt. “I think there’s a real lack of understanding about just how much that industry has shaped how
people think about everything, and very deliberately so.”
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