How the Greens are Taking Down Big Energy by John Horvat II

 

How the Greens Are Taking Down Big Energy From Within

By John Horvat II

 

The left exploits the Green Revolution to further its ecological agenda of destroying the present economic system. Its special target has long been Big Oil, which plays a dominant role in the global economy. Bolstered by the support of Big Media, Green activists are trying hard to bring the present system down.

The Greens’ relentless war on oil and gas usually involves a battle of data and reports. For decades, the left has presented the inconvenient truth of dire hockey-stick-graph predictions that are constantly pushed back when doomsday fails to arrive. The oil companies defend themselves by pointing to their conservation efforts and impressive record in safeguarding the environment.

This lopsided battle between Tiny Green and Big Oil was doomed to fail—until now. However, Greta Thornburg or other strange poster children are not the ones responsible for any victories.

The secret weapon is that Big Oil is now going green. Shareholding activists seek to force energy giants to change sides and reimagine themselves by transitioning into carbon suppressors to reach zero-emission goals. The only way to do this is to make the companies do it themselves from the inside.

How Oil Lost Its Edge

From a technical perspective, things could not be better for oil in general. The peak oil hypothesis that the world would soon run out of crude is hopelessly outdated and discredited. No one talks about it anymore. The world has more oil than ever. Fracking has increased the supply and reversed America’s decline in oil and gas production. America now leads the world in the production and export of some grades of oil and natural gas.

However, the psychological climate has changed drastically, as people are exposed to increasing doomsday predictions. The Biden Administration’s return to the Paris Accords has given new impetus to demoralized Greens.  The Covid crisis battered oil futures and consumption, and disrupted production schedules. A massive media offense is making green ever more popular among the environmentally “woke.”

The greatest danger for the oil industry is the little green suicide pill. The politics of surrender has entered the boardrooms of the energy sector, prompting it to adopt measures once unthinkable.

Engine No. 1 Fires Up Against Exxon

Part of the unthinkable happened just recently when a little hedge fund, un-ecologically called Engine No. 1, turned the corporate system against itself. It presented a Green-friendly slate of four candidates for election to Exxon’s 12-member board. Three were elected and promise to push their agenda to center stage.

Not surprisingly, the tiny fund with an infinitesimally small stock holding in Exxon made common cause with massive blue state pensions funds (New York and California) who voted for the candidates. These giant funds see no hypocrisy in holding vast numbers of shares in unclean energy while capitalizing on its ill-begotten oil profits.

Big Money piled on the eco-assault. Vanguard, State Street and Black Rock, with a combined ownership of over one-fifth of all Exxon stock, supported part of the Green slate.

The Radical Leftist Ideas of Ecology

The Green perspective has always fit into the most radical zones of the leftist spectrum. It dovetails neatly with Marxist egalitarian obsessions. Marx rejected income inequality and pitted one class against another in search of an ever-illusive equality brotherhood.

Green ideology takes the equality ideology a step further by contesting the domination of humanity over Creation. It has a problem with the divine mandate in which God put all nature at the service of humanity (see Gen. 1:28). For the Greens, all things—animals, plants and minerals (and lastly, man)—have equal rights that trump human development and progress.  Some deep ecology radicals go so far as to declare humanity a harmful virus that must be eliminated.

Thus, Greens promote an anti-human agenda that targets world populations and civilization. They delight in demographic meltdown, degrowth, and industrial rust belts. Their ideal is a “noble savage” harmony with nature that reduces humanity to the most primitive state and numbers. Companies like Exxon and its supporting establishment are obstacles that must be eliminated so that Greens can realize their hopelessly idyllic dreams of primitive tribal life.

The Suicide of the West

Big Oil’s self-destruction is part of the eco-suicide of the West and all its philosophical, social and moral infrastructure. A Wall Street Journal editorial (June 10, 2021) recognizes this disaster saying that “The U.S. is barreling toward one of the greatest self-inflicted wounds in its history.”

 

Defending Exxon is not the way to stop this collapse. Big Oil, like so many gigantic conglomerates, is a cold, impersonal rationalized product of modernity. Massive economic structures do not inspire anyone to noble deeds in defense of strong principles.

The regeneration of the West will only happen with a return to its Christian roots. What is needed is a counter-paradigm of a society based on an organic, personal order that corresponds to human nature. Such an order represents a true harmony with nature following the biblical mandate of governing over Creation and building a splendorous civilization that will give glory to God.