When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
Paul Samuelson (commonly misattributed to John Maynard Keynes)
The Financial Times’s ‘Monday Interview‘ of Lord Browne was headlined ‘Beyond BP: John Browne on the oil company’s green U-turn’. Aged 77 and now standing for the Chancellorship election at Cambridge university, it was his chance to reminisce over 40 years of career experience at BP, with 12 years as the company’s CEO. Despite the headline, he had precious little to say about the oil company’s dramatic shift away from ‘green’ investments back to oil and gas under its new CEO. As the FT put it: “Browne demurs, in his characteristically circumspect way, saying he ‘doesn’t really approve’ of former CEOs weighing in on the choices of their successors.”
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Climate communist A holes like Brown are very wealthy. So none of their decisions nor pronouncements will affect them on their expensive yachts, and in their multi million pound houses. The insulation that wealth brings is a major problem for us because those insulated people make the decisions that damage we small folks lives.
Revolution might be an answer. And Remigration!
“none of their decisions nor pronouncements will affect them”
Exactly. But more people need to wake up to this.
Point of order… you can’t use the words intellectual and milliband in the same sentence.
Unless you mean some ideas are so stupid, only an intellectual could believe them.
“The insulation that wealth brings is a major problem…”
Not if, like me, you build that wealth to isolate yourself from the communists and the rest who try to impose their ideas on you.
Be careful who you kill in your revolution, please!
And he was very cozy with china
Just in time for the inescapable downturn in ‘renewables’. Beyond Profits.
My bet is that by 2029 when Uniparty Labour gets kicked out of office, the UK’s dependency on fossil fuels for its primary energy supply will be not much different from what it is now, reported by gov.uk to be 75% in 2024 (well hidden, search for “75.0”) and barely scratching the surface on progress towards Net Zero: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67e4f5d855239fa04d412067/Energy_Trends_March_2025.pdf.
“Lord John Browne, former CEO of BP, has been actively involved with the World Economic Forum (WEF) for many years, contributing to discussions on corporate responsibility, climate change, and sustainable energy.” Source ChatGPT on the question “Lord Browne connections to the WEF”.
The WEF wants us to stop using fossil fuels and strive for Net Zero as a pretext for the control and subjugation of the general populace.
Okay Your Lordship – humanity might indeed need to go beyond petroleum by the year 2125, but in the meantime there’s a century of progress to be made, including bringing the African continent closer to the living standards of a developed world in which life expectancy has doubled in the last 175 years.
All down to the affordable and reliable 24/7/365 hydrocarbon energy which Your Lordship now so despises. Strange how a former CEO of a global energy major never understood the interface between physics and economics – otherwise referred to as reality.
Best keep stum, Your Lordship – keep your luxury beliefs to your luxury self and stop infecting modern civilisation with delusional pandering to climate claptrap.
Agreed but, regarding Africa, I am highly sceptical that most countries there will become advanced, well governed, economies. The cultures are incompatible with such an outcome. A much more likely outcome is a tripling in population, along with still more serious issues than at present. In many decades we may well end up with North America, Europe, East Asia having, in any case, cleaned up their previous pollution, while Africa, large parts of South Asia and the Middle East, with their huge populations, are churning out more pollution than ever.
Realistically you may well be right – but UN policy of denying Africa the right to exploit hydrocarbon resources in order to Save the Planet is a sure fire way of ensuring you will be right.
In the developed world, falling birth rate (and increased life expectancy) correlated directly with the advent of mains water, sanitation and (later) mains electricity.
Get those fundamentals in place and see what happens – encouragingly if you look at life expectancy around the globe, in many other parts of the world it already has – China, Brazil, Algeria, etc, etc…
Africa has become more prosperous and will continue to do so. I guess it’s possible that the gap may fluctuate in size depending on various policy choices but it will never disappear and will always be noticeable.
Interesting link and surprising to see USA life expectancy below ours and Canada’s.
Net Zero Woke Kill Business
I’m sorry, but the water companies have a lot to answer for. The whole of southern England is mentally deformed and I can only put it down to something in the water. The natural champions of free thought, conservative values and economic progression have all had their brains turned into the sort of thing that exists between the ears of a first year student at Bristol Uni: masks, social distancing, taking lockdown seriously, going green, clapping for Zelensky, magical thinking on replacements oil, gas, steel, coal…
First year Bristol Uni students weren’t like that in the 1980s. I can’t recall a single political issue the students were bothered with. Having too much fun and enjoying the excellent bands that came to the Student Union and down the road at Colston Hall.
Something must have happened in the 1990s … now what could THAT have been??
I blame the huge increase in emf radiation, untested and unregulated. Who’d have thought we’d be facing all this nonsense in the 21st century?
“BP’s Lord Browne is Still Aiming to Go ‘Beyond Petroleum”
Can he please explain to me what is beyond petroleum?
‘Virtue-signalling climate warrior CEOs’. But the entire identity politic narratives and legalities lead to this type of moral hazard situation. Over the last couple of decades , almost all roles at the top of British institutions, education, companies, judiciary, media, have been filled by the same group think. Try going for an interview and even hinting anything different. The same goes for within institution promotions. This is precisely why the nation is now such a mess, with a wholly unrepresentative establishment pushing their views onto everyone else.
Spot on – at the top diversity means conformity.
Diversity of ideas, inventiveness and ingenuity drove the industrial revolution and lifted the developed world out of medieval feudalism and squalor.
Too much Education, Education, Education now getting in the way of progess!
The financial pages of The Mail had a feature on the future of BP as it is dwarfed by Chevron, Exxon, Total and Shell to such an extent that it could be the subject of a take over by one of them. The Americans could currently be a bit put off by the exchange rate that makes sterling more expensive. The French? Not sure. But maybe Shell might see it as a good time to expand. After owning BP for a number of years I have given up and gone for the others.
Maybe if BP is so unloved it’s time to buy.
In my view he can’t go far enough – just keep going, don’t stop.
Bye, bye.
Any one in business who thinks that is a good idea to try to replace a system that that works at about ~90% productivity / capacity with a system that works at less than ~20% and is dependent on massive public subsidies but produces plant food with proven productivity gains must deserve to fail.
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/analysis-of-renewable-power-de-uk-fr-in-the-context-of-europe-2024/
Brown and Looney sounds like a good comedy act!!!
Lord Browne is a complete fanny.