Greens on the Machines: At Least 195 Carbon Bombs Threaten at Every Turn

Almost daily, one can read on the vastness of the internet that somewhere a group of green activists has committed some mischief, stopped traffic, spilled paint on some artwork, or performed a similar foolish act. These actions of theirs, it would seem, annoy most people, but they, as they call themselves, the greens, continue their performances across Europe and the USA. They are not really present in Asia; we wonder why.

Wrong Battles

However, here, on the domestic European ground, groups like Just Stop Oil, Pipe Busters, Extinction Rebellion, or Tyre Extinguishers are daily fighting their battle against oil, gas, mining, or, like the latter, against SUVs. Yes, you read that right; Tyre Extinguishers do not like SUV models of cars, so they, as their name suggests, puncture tires in cities, presumably to encourage their drivers to switch to electric as soon as possible.

It is sometimes hard to fathom what is in the minds of these people, but judging by the footage from, say, the National Gallery in London, where recently two activists poured tomato soup on van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’, it is hard not to say that there is absolutely nothing in their heads. Let’s add that it was not enough to just pour tomato soup on the masterpiece; their clever heads glued themselves to the wall to draw attention to climate issues. And then when one of them opened their mouth, it became clear why people do not like them. The dramatic speeches of kids around sixteen years old, modeled after their great guru Greta, have become tiresome for everyone.

The biggest problem for these European activists is that actually all European laws work in their favor. The ban on gasoline and diesel cars, the transition to alternative green and more expensive energy sources, and various ESG goals that favor inclusivity, often of those who protest, show that the entire policy is moving precisely towards all the demands of green activists, which evidently is still not enough for them. They want some colorful world of theirs, where there is no use of fossil fuels at all, but they do not care how all industries would survive without it. They do not care about the working conditions of the workers who sew their designer clothes and sneakers because that is still far from their little tearful eyes, as if it does not exist. Green activists today are fighting the wrong battles; everything is in their favor, but they seem to either not want to or simply do not understand. Their feelings are hurt, so it is best to glue themselves to the wall in a museum.

Real Problems

And while they are gluing themselves to walls and floors, watering artworks, lying on the roads at seven in the morning when everyone who is not a parasite on the budget is going to work, one German town was recently evacuated due to coal mining, but there was no help from the activists. Namely, the German government, as a leader in green policies in the EU, decided in 2020 to abolish coal-fired electricity generation, but the war in Ukraine disrupted those plans. Due to gas shortages and the energy crisis, it has ‘temporarily’ returned to coal. As the decision was made, five villages above which there are large coal deposits were relocated or partially relocated, and it was decided that the village of Lützerath must be destroyed.

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Although studies highlighted by climate activists show that coal beneath Lützerath is no longer needed, studies commissioned by the government and the energy company show the opposite. In North Rhine-Westphalia, about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide are emitted each year. About 22 percent of that is due to Rhineland lignite, so activists say that coal extraction would jeopardize the 1.5-degree target set in the Paris Agreement to limit global warming. They also claim that the reason for the resolution is the greed for profit, which is, as always, quite accurate. In a survey conducted by ZDF Polit-Barometer, 59 percent of respondents expressed opposition to the clearing of the village, while 33 percent were in favor, making the battle over Lützerath a battle for the narratives being fought in the media.

Why does the German multinational RWE insist on extracting coal precisely where it is detrimental to the people living there? The answer is simple. Because it can. Despite the fact that we could call it immoral, it is still legal and profitable, and RWE, just like other large companies that are most responsible for emitting large amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere, continue as they please while at the same time preaching about climate protection and their carbon offsetting as a measure that will compensate for all the damage they have done.

Like 66 Coal Plants

To ensure that the problems are not only in Europe, American President Joe Biden and his administration have taken care of that by approving the ‘Willow’ project in Alaska. This is a major oil drilling initiative, which activists say contradicts the country’s climate goals. Specifically, in March of this year, the United States approved a major oil drilling project on the North Slope of Alaska, rich in oil. The ‘Willow’ project by ConocoPhillips is expected to produce an estimated 160,000 barrels of oil per day over the next 30 years, and burning that oil will produce 260 million tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the annual output of 66 American coal plants.

Ecologists lost the first round of their legal battle over the oil project in the oil-rich area of North Slope in Alaska when environmental groups and indigenous groups filed two lawsuits in an attempt to block it in April of this year. The lawsuits were dismissed, and the court ruled in favor of the federal government and the oil company ConocoPhillips, noting that the activities planned for the next few months ‘do not involve the extraction of any oil and gas’, but what will happen after ‘a few months’ did not concern the court.

Dangerous Plans

The world’s largest fossil fuel companies are quietly planning dozens of oil and gas projects that activists have dubbed ‘carbon bombs’. This was recently reported by The Guardian, which obtained data showing that these companies are actually betting against humanity’s ability to stop global warming. Their massive investments in new fossil fuel production could pay off only if countries fail to quickly reduce carbon emissions, which scientists say is vitally important. The oil and gas industry is extremely unstable but also extremely profitable, especially when prices are high as they are now. ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron have made nearly two trillion dollars in profits over the last three decades, and the recent price surge led BP’s CEO to describe the company as a ‘cash machine’.

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The lure of colossal payouts in the coming years seems irresistible to oil companies, despite the fact that global climate scientists have stated that further delays in reducing fossil fuel use would mean missing the last chance ‘to secure a livable and sustainable future for all’. Details about the planned projects are not easily accessible, but research published in The Guardian shows that the fossil fuel industry’s expansion plans include the initiation of oil and gas projects that will produce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to decades of CO₂ emissions from China, the world’s largest polluter.

These plans include 195 carbon bombs, gigantic oil and gas projects, each of which would result in at least one billion tons of CO₂ emissions over its lifetime, which is equivalent to about 18 years of current global CO₂ emissions. Approximately 60 percent of them have already begun to release CO₂ into the atmosphere. Additionally, the top ten oil companies are on track to spend 103 million dollars a day by the end of the decade exploiting new oil and gas fields. And while the Middle East and Russia often attract the most attention regarding future oil and gas production, the USA, Canada, and Australia are among the countries with the largest expansion plans and the most carbon bombs.

‘Bombing’ Companies

Among the ‘bombing’ companies is the French company TotalEnergies, which is involved in 22 ‘bombing’ projects. One of these projects, ‘Arctic LNG 2′, is located in the Russian Arctic and has sparked further controversy following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. European activists condemned TotalEnergies’ climate plan as an attempt at greenwashing ‘deadly’ oil and gas projects such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Uganda and Tanzania or the Arctic liquefied natural gas project in the Russian Arctic.

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They also accused President Emmanuel Macron and the French government of providing political, financial, and diplomatic support to the oil and gas giant despite the fact that the company’s projects threaten to destroy any hope of keeping global warming below the 1.5 °C limit set by the Paris Agreement in 2015. For this reason, a minority group of eleven shareholders of TotalEnergies proposed a resolution to align the company’s emission targets with the Paris Climate Agreement; however, the company rejected it, stating that transposing the Paris Agreement into corporate statutes would open the field to potentially huge and dangerous legal disputes.

Your Efforts Are in Vain, Musicians!

As can be seen, large companies do not shy away from destroying the environment when profit is at stake. Politicians turn a blind eye to such projects because they also benefit in some way; we will not speculate on how. People who work for such companies often change positions, jumping from companies to politics or regulatory bodies (just like in the pharmaceutical industry), so various laws pass through experienced lobbying and connections. And while young and eager activists waste soup and glue on futile battles, the real problems and solutions to those problems are somewhere else. Certainly not in a museum in front of a van Gogh painting.