How Big Oil Obfuscates Global Warming?
Dear Reader,
Do you know that Exxon Mobil’s profit doubled to $17.9 Billion, and Chevron’s profit tripled to $11.6 billion as sales for both companies rose to record levels of more than $50 billion?
Nearly $100 billion - that is the industry's overall profit in the second quarter of 2022, as it continues to benefit from increased oil and gas prices and lower costs.
On August 4, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lamented the situation and asked nations and governments to safeguard the vulnerable, who will be affected by rising inflation.
Surprisingly, major cities such as Baltimore, New York, and San Francisco have filed lawsuits against oil and gas corporations, claiming that these companies deliberately contributed to climate change by producing and selling fossil fuels, hiding climate change research, and opposing climate change mitigation programs.
So, how did the industry come to this point?
History of industrial deceit
Exxon Mobil, one of the major oil and gas corporations, was aware of climate change as early as 1981 and attempted to utilize techniques to feed climate deniers. A research examined ExxonMobil's 40-year history of climate-change communication in 2017 and uncovered systematic differences between what Exxon scientists claimed about climate science privately and in academic circles. It revealed that ExxonMobil deceived the public about basic climate science and its ramifications. In order to do this, they secretly made contributions to the field of climate research while actively discrediting it.
Here's another example of how one corporation used marketing to deflect criticism and shift blame to individuals. The concept of a personal carbon footprint, which is now omnipresent in conversations about individual accountability, was established by British Petroleum (BP) as part of a $100 million marketing effort between 2004 and 2006. They were able to advance the idea that people have the ability to lessen their carbon impact by doing this and to show themselves as contributing to the cause.
Role of Language and Shifting the responsibility
Within language resides the power to effectively (mis)communicate. However, differences in language use between science, policy, media and civil society can unavoidably impede efforts to make climate change – or any other issue – meaningful in society. In this way, important research, effective arguments and interesting insights can suffocate under a wet blanket of jargon.
In 'Political and English Language,' George Orwell acknowledges that political language in the modern day comprises of euphemism, question-begging, and ambiguity. it can make a lie seem truthful and murder acceptable.
When it comes to the oil and gas industry, their communications strategy employs clever tactics to present a favorable picture of themselves and increase their legitimacy among stakeholders. There has been extensive research on the subject to understand how these corporates use lexicons and rhetoric in their reports and communication.
One of the recent works focuses on how ExxonMobil used language to subtly but systematically affect the way the public thinks about climate change. it shows how the corporation has selectively promoted some phrases and terms in public while continuously avoiding others.
In contrast to phrases like "global warming" or "greenhouse effect," leading oil companies to prefer to use the term "climate change" in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, according to research on the corpus linguistic study(Sylvia, 2018). So, what exactly is corpus linguistics study? The creation and study of collections of spoken and written texts (i.e., corpus) as the source of evidence for explaining the nature, structure, and use of languages is referred to as corpus linguistics. it addresses critical research questions in language research of finding specific patterns related to lexical or grammatical aspects, as well as how these patterns differ between varieties.
The preference for "climate change" is noteworthy, and it may reflect efforts by certain politicians and climate skeptics to eradicate the word "global warming" from public discourse since it is viewed as more frightening and alarming. Furthermore, "global warming" is a phrase connected with urgency and human agency and is perceived as more dangerous than "climate change," which has a broader scope (Schuldt et al.,2011).
CSR reporting in the oil industry, one of the world's most significant industries, is intimately connected with government authorities. They show commitment to climate change while subtly shifting the responsibilities to other stakeholders or the future. In doing so, this rhetoric obscures the industry's involvement in environmental deterioration ( Lischinsky, 2015) and perpetuates the neoliberal ideology that the market and technology are the sole answers to ecological concerns. While the benefits of technology solutions for climate change mitigation should not be ignored, the technologies that have been adopted by the industry, such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), do not need any modifications to present market behaviours. So, excitement for technology solutions and CCS obscures alternative answers, doesn't really question established processes, and thus contributes to maintain their ongoing process.
Why Does It Matter?
Due to politics, the term 'climate change' has turned into an elusive and rhetorical instrument. The term now mimics commitment but dodges any (public) criticism. To avoid any backlash, the corporations’ have now moved to sophisticated lobbying rather than explicitly denying climate change.
The power of words can be comprehended by Archbishop Desmond Tutu's words "Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes”. In how it strongly affects our perspective of reality and behaviour.
In order to create a more sustainable future, we must be conscious of how certain sectors manipulate language to distort our perception of the world and lessen their responsibility.
George Carlin had an interesting take on soft language, perhaps it might be of some interest to some of you. Language more often than not is becoming a tool for deviating rather than explaining an issue.
