[intro music] Welcome to World Ocean Radio… I’m Peter Neill, Director of the World Ocean Observatory. The world is in climactic turmoil. Exhausted land. Drought. Wildfires. Extreme weather. Torrential rain. Flood. Erosion. Water scarcity. Pollution. Social disruption. Pandemic. Corruption. Political paralysis. All climate related. All urgent challenges demanding immediate response. The fossil fuel industry feigns interest in redress, but the facts reveal active indifference. Saudi Arabia announces it will pump every drop of oil from its reserves until there is no more to burn, thus to continue to emit the causative contribution to a world crisis for profit, without remorse. Exxon Mobil is revealed to have actively sabotaged condemning research and data, by withholding information and lobbying fiercely against anything that would limit their irresponsible business practice, past and present. Even today, these companies are working to undermine the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria that have been developed as standards for a company’s operations that socially-conscious investors may use to screen potential investments, environmental criteria that consider how a company performs as a steward of nature, how it manages relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where it operates, and how its governance deals with a company’s leadership, executive pay, audits, internal controls, and shareholder rights. No amount of green/blue-washing will hide their underlying purpose. How do we confront them? Here’s an idea. What if we add up all the subsidies, tax credits, and other incentives, provided as government investment in fossil fuel companies exploitation of natural resource, all the oil and gas, that is an asset of the citizens of the United States, designated that value as a “loan,” calling that loan for repayment and interest, and allocating that reparation to incentives for new, non-polluting technology for energy generation, storage, and distribution? If those companies want to continue, they must now pay a true licensing fee and royalty from this day forward, repay the natural capital value borrowed with interest, and account for such payments as operating costs not to be passed on an inflated market price and before shareholder profit—in other words, include reparation as cost of doing business, making amends for a wrong done by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged by underwriting the cost of consequence to the atmosphere, watershed, ocean, and public health, the climactic turmoil people worldwide are now breathing, consuming, and enduring as global, lethal outcomes of their corporate actions and behaviors. What if we held corporations, in the U.S. enabled as “citizens,” accountable for their actions? What if we charged the executives with conspiracy and individual crimes for such acts? What if we seized their personal profits, physical assets, and derivative wealth? What if they were indicted and judged? What if they were invited to defend their deliberate, considered actions as charges for “crimes against humanity” or for obscenity as acts “without redeeming social value?” Is this just personal hysteria, frustration and radical anger? Probably so, given the courage it would take to lead such a challenge against the past history of unaccountable corporate interest and fear of change, without a massive “citizen” movement galvanized as political will to make it so. But consider this: The world is in climactic turmoil. Exhausted land. Drought. Wildfires. Extreme weather. Torrential rain. Flood. Erosion. Water scarcity. Pollution. Social disruption. Pandemic. Corruption. Political paralysis. All climate related. All urgent challenges demanding immediate response. All this is visible on land. All this exists, but remains mostly invisible, diluted, in the ocean. If we do not resist on land, then we will most probably fail too at sea. And by so doing, by ignoring both, we will abandon the essential strategic possibility to assure our basic survival needs for the future – yes, for new sustainable forms for energy, but also for food, freshwater, health, community, and even peace in our time. Who will be held accountable for that crime of failure? Who will be found guilty for that social value lost, for that crime against us all? What will it take? We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio. [outro music]
