The BBC recently broadcast a three part series entitled “Big Oil vs The World“.
The theme of the three hour documentary was that the oil and gas industry discovered over forty years ago that their product produced large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane and that the increase in these greenhouse gases would lead to climate change.
The documentary alleges that the oil and gas industry deliberately disseminated misinformation in order to prevent or slow down any legislation that would hurt its profit margins.
Many interviews are shown of former employees of the oil and gas industry that have had damascene conversions and now see that they were part of a huge crime against humanity or at least humanity yet to come.
I watched all three hours of this documentary on BBC iPlayer. It was very well done with many clips of hurricane damage, floods, wildfires and industry pumping out pollution.
The music reinforced the sense of doom and horror that these oil and gas company executives put profit ahead of saving the planet.
The trouble is that even though so many people consider the subject of climate change ‘settled science’ not one shred of evidence was put forward in the whole three hours.
One of the climate change experts was asked what his reaction to his predictions coming true was. He said he was angry, yet his predictions were not offered and subsequently it was not demonstrated how they were true.
Graphs and documents with certain phrases highlighted were flashed up but there was no time to evaluate them.
A ‘methane hunter’ declared that she had provided overwhelming evidence to the U.S. regulators but to no avail. During this segment images from thermal cameras were shown which looked very scary but there was no explanation as to what to look for to determine that methane was present.
The Attorney General of Massachusetts was interviewed and it was detailed how Exxon Mobile was going to have to answer in court to the allegations. It was detailed exactly what they were going to accuse the company of and footage of the team discussing the wrongdoings was shown.
That segment finished with the fact that the New York State Attorney General had tried the same thing but Exxon Mobil had won that case. Nothing further was said, no reference to the court documents, nothing to suggest that the company had pulled the wool over the court’s eyes. Nothing.
I would imagine that if I had bothered to complain to the BBC I would receive a response along the lines of them not having to provide evidence because the science is settled, but you have to ask the question, why?
If there is so much evidence and they know that the oil and gas giants have had evidence for four decades, why, in a three hour documentary, can they not produce one single piece of evidence?
How many more decades will we have to live with this constant barrage of doom-mongering before they finally see that the climate changes and there isn’t much we can do about it but continue to adapt and mitigate as we have been?
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