Big Oil - Historie und politische Einflußnahme

Beginnend bei Rockefeller und Standard Oil das scheint sehr gut recherchiert.Rockefeller (Standard Oil), Rothschild, Nobel, Marcus Samuel (Shell).
(ggf auf dt Untertitel umschalten).
In Boston hatte ich am MIT ein paar Gebäude gesehen welche von den Koch Brüdern 'gesponsort' sind. Die bekommen in den USA auch heute noch viel Öl-Subventionen.

Kam per Mail, George Monbiot:
——
‘Law of Nature
30th March 2019
Those who destroy the living world should be charged with the international crime of ecocide

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 28th March 2019

Why do we wait until someone has passed away before we say how much we honour them? I believe we should overcome our embarrassment, and say it while they are with us. In this spirit, I want to tell you about the world-changing work of Polly Higgins.

She is a barrister who has devoted her life to creating an international crime of ecocide. This means serious damage or destruction of the natural world and the Earth’s systems. It would make those who commission it – such as chief executives and government ministers – individually and criminally liable for the harm they do to others, while creating a legal duty of care for life on Earth.

I believe it would change everything. It would radically shift the balance of power, forcing anyone contemplating large-scale vandalism to ask themselves, “will I end up in the Hague for this?”. It could make the difference between a habitable and an uninhabitable planet.

There are currently no effective safeguards preventing a few powerful people, companies or states from wreaking havoc for the sake of profit or power. Though their actions might lead to the death of millions, they know they can’t be touched. Their impunity, as they engage in potential mass murder, reveals a gaping hole in international law.

Last week, for example, the research group InfluenceMap revealed that the world’s five biggest publicly-listed oil and gas companies, led by BP and Shell, are spending nearly $200m a year lobbying to delay efforts to prevent climate breakdown. BP has successfully lobbied the Trump government to overturn laws passed by the Obama administration to prevent companies from releasing methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere. The result – the equivalent of another 50 million tonnes of CO2 over the next five years – is to push us faster towards a hothouse Earth.

Hundreds of dead dolphins are currently washing up on French beaches, often with horrendous injuries. Why? Because trawler companies fishing for seabass are failing to take basic precautions to prevent them from being caught. The dolphins either drown in the nets or, when pulled up wounded, are stabbed to death (to make them sink) by the fishermen. For a marginal increase in profits, the trawler companies could be driving common dolphins towards regional extinction.

In West Papua, which is illegally occupied by Indonesia, an international consortium intends to clear, without indigenous people’s consent, 4000km2 (the size of Somerset) of stunning rainforest, to plant oil palm.
...
When governments collaborate (as in all these cases they do), how can such atrocities be prevented? Citizens can pursue civil suits, if they can find the money and the time, but the worst a company will face is a fine or compensation payments. None of its executives are prosecuted, though they may profit enormously from murderous destruction. They can continue their assaults on the living planet.

Suits against governments, such as the successful case against the Dutch state, seeking a legal order to speed up its reduction of greenhouse gases, may be more productive, but only when national (or European) law permits, and when the government is prepared to abide ...

Until 1996, drafts of the Rome Statute, that lists international crimes against humanity, included the crime of ecocide. But it was dropped at a late stage of drafting at the behest of three states: the UK, France, and the Netherlands. Ecocide looked like a lost cause, until Polly Higgins took it up ten years ago.

She gave up her income and sold her house to finance this campaign on behalf of all of us. She has drafted model laws to show what the crime of ecocide would look like, published two books on the subject, and, often against furious opposition, presented her proposals at international meetings. The Earth Protectors group she founded seeks to crowdfund the campaign. Recently she has been working with Vanuatu with a view to tabling an amendment to the Rome Statute, introducing the missing law.

Last week, Polly was diagnosed, at the age of 50,with an aggressive cancer that has already spread through much of her body. The doctors have told her she has six weeks to live. Given her determination, and the support of those around her, I expect her to defy the prediction, that she has met with amazing fortitude. “If this is my time to go,” she told me, “my legal team will continue undeterred.’

www.monbiot.com/2019/03/30/law-of-nature/
——

-> influencemap.org

Wieder Guardian
-> www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/22...lock-climate-change-policies-says-report


@Thomas, wieder etwas Text aber wenn die mit dem Brexit die Internetverbindungen kappen ..

‘Nur’ 200 Mio. Da hätte ich ein vielfaches erwartet.

Vor den internationalen Gerichtshof in Den Haag. Wenn das klappt ...

HIer nochmals Monbiot (Guardian UK). Der hat einen globaleren Überblick als die meisten.
---
'No More Excuses
20th April 2019
No one is coming to save us. Only rebellion will prevent an environmental apocalypse
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 15th April 2019
Had we put as much effort into preventing environmental catastrophe as we’ve spent on making excuses for inaction, we would have solved it by now. Everywhere I look, I see people engaged in furious attempts to fend off the moral challenge it presents.
The commonest current excuse is this: “I bet those protesters have phones/go on holiday/wear leather shoes.” In other words, we won’t listen to anyone who is not living naked in a barrel, subsisting only on murky water. Of course, if you are living naked in a barrel, we will dismiss you too, because you’re a hippie weirdo. Every messenger, and every message they bear, is disqualified, on the grounds of either impurity or purity.
As the environmental crisis accelerates, and as protest movements like YouthStrike4Climate and Extinction Rebellion make it harder not to see what we face, people discover more inventive means of shutting their eyes and shedding responsibility. Underlying these excuses is a deep-rooted belief that if we really are in trouble, someone somewhere will come to our rescue: “they” won’t let it happen. But there is no they, just us.
The political class, as anyone who has followed its progress over the past three years can surely now see, is chaotic, unwilling and, in isolation, strategically incapable of addressing even short-term crises, let alone a vast existential predicament. Yet a widespread and wilful naivity prevails: the belief that voting is the only political action required to change a system. Unless it is accompanied by the concentrated power of protest, articulating precise demands and creating space in which new political factions can grow, voting, while essential, remains a blunt and feeble instrument.
The media, with a few exceptions, is actively hostile. Even when broadcasters cover these issues, they carefully avoid any mention of power, talking about environmental collapse as if it is driven by mysterious, passive forces, and proposing microscopic fixes for vast structural problems. The BBC’s Blue Planet Live series exemplified this tendency. As TV comedy and drama have become ever more daring, factual and current affairs programmes have become ever more timid. Truth now has to be smuggled into our homes under the guise of entertainment.
Those who govern the nation and shape public discourse cannot be trusted with the preservation of life on Earth. There is no benign authority preserving us from harm. No one is coming to save us. None of us can justifiably avoid the call to come together to save ourselves.
I see despair as another variety of disavowal. ..... We might relieve ourselves of moral agency by claiming that it’s already too late to act, but in doing so we condemn other people to destitution or death. Catastrophe afflicts people now, and, unlike those in the rich world who can still afford to wallow in despair, they are forced to respond in practical ways. In Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, devastated by Cyclone Idai, in Syria, Libya and Yemen, where climate chaos has contributed to civil war, in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where crop failure, drought and the collapse of fisheries have driven people from their homes, despair is not an option. Our inaction has forced them into action, as they respond to terrifying circumstances caused primarily by the rich world’s consumption. The Christians are right: despair is a sin.
As the author Jeremy Lent points out in a recent essay, it is almost certainly too late to save some of the world’s great living wonders, such as coral reefs and monarch butterflies. But, he argues, with every increment of global heating, with every rise in material resource consumption, we will have to accept still greater losses, many of which can still be prevented through radical transformation.
Every nonlinear transformation in history has taken people by surprise. As Alexei Yurchak explains in his book about the collapse of the Soviet Union – Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More – systems look immutable until they suddenly disintegrate. As soon as they do, the distintegration retrospectively looks inevitable. Our system – characterised by perpetual economic growth on a planet that is not growing – will inevitably implode. The only question is whether the transformation is planned or unplanned. Our task is to ensure it is planned, and fast. We need to conceive and build a new system, based on the principle that every generation, everywhere has an equal right to enjoy natural wealth.
This is less daunting than we might imagine. As Erica Chenoweth’s historical research reveals, for a peaceful mass movement to succeed, a maximum of 3.5% of the population needs to mobilise. Humans are ultra-social mammals, constantly if subliminally aware of shifting social currents. Once we perceive the status quo has changed, we flip suddenly from support for one state of being to support for another. When a committed and vocal 3.5% unites behind the demand for a new system, the social avalanche that follows becomes irresistible. Giving up before we have reached this threshold is worse than despair: it is defeatism.
Today, Extinction Rebellion takes to streets around the world in defence of our life support systems. Through daring, disruptive, non-violent action, it forces our environmental predicament onto the political agenda. Who are these people? Another “they”, who might rescue us from our follies? The success of this mobilisation depends on us. It will reach the critical threshold only if enough of us cast aside denial and despair, and join this exuberant, proliferating movement. The time for excuses is over. The struggle to overthrow our life-denying system has begun. '

www.monbiot.com/2019/04/20/no-more-excuses/

---
Letztlich sagt er es ist für vieles zu spät. Ein Umlenken kann aber noch einiges verhindern. Er hat viele wichtige Punkte auch wenn ich ihm nicht in allem Recht geben würde.

Das Geheimnis der sieben Schwestern
Ein sehr gute Dokumentation.