Wednesday 10 February 2010

Big Oil

Whenever you read about someone being sceptical about global warming, or even worse, a "denier", you will almost always hear that they are in the pay of big oil, especially if there is any academic rigour behind their comments.

Well, read this and then reflect on the motivations of those promoting the scam.

Still not convinced?

6 comments:

Angry Exile said...

As I've said for some time, there's Big Oil and its vested interests, but equally as powerful if not more so there's Big Eco and its vested interests. The real irony is that parts of what the soap dodging tree huggers like to call Big Oil is actually part of Big Eco these days. Those Toyota Pious hybrids won't sell without the warble gloaming scare.

microdave said...

I doubt if ANY Toyotas will be selling at the moment!

I've seen more than once, figures of ~$20 million being given by Enron to "Sceptics" over 10 years. But over the same period the US government gave $79 BILLION to pro AGW causes....

Oh dear - looking out the window there's more warble gloaming falling from a dark sky.....

bayard said...

I dunno, I'd have thought that all you need to sell cars like the Pious is expensive fuel.

microdave said...

But the Pious isn't particularly good on fuel, any comparable sized Diesel will knock spots off it in real world driving. It's main selling point is based on hyped up "green" credentials, and the exemption from the London Congestion Charge. In reality it's a modestly powered car lugging around a heavy battery and motor/generator, which can only provide limited assistance. Even Toyota aficionados admit that the build quality is not up to the companies usual standards (to save weight).

And unless you live in a cave it surely hasn't escaped your notice that Toyota are having to recall hundreds of thousands of cars world wide due to problems with sticking accelerators, and brake problems. The bad publicity at the way they've handled the issue has already knocked their share price down.

Angry Exile said...

microdave, good point. Not much incentive to buy a car that'll save trees if you think you might end up laminated to one because of the brakes. But Toyota aren't the only ones who make them so it still sort of applies.

bayard, I see lots of them here because the Aussies seem to be allergic to modern diesels in family cars. Small diesel powered city cars are starting to appear, and with ads boasting about how they beat a Pious on fuel economy, but there are still plenty of cars that sold with diesels in the UK but were only supplied with petrol lumps for this market. Weird.

microdave said...

@ AE - there seems to be a parallel with the USA. Both you and them have a tradition of long distances, and big cars powered by even bigger V8 petrol lumps.

A recent thread at WUWT discussing the Audi advert, mentioned the reluctance to move to diesel engines over there.

I can only guess that the relatively much higher cost of fuel in the UK / Europe has been the reason for their greater popularity.