Carbon Purging

Screamingly reminiscent of the gun lobby's famous "guns don't kill people; people kill people", OPEC said oil was not to blame for climate change.

OPEC's Secretary General, Abdullah al-Badri, told reporters Sunday that "oil is not responsible. It is the industrialised countries which are making all this pollution in the world".

OPEC said that consuming countries should pay to fight the threat of global warming, while the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell said drivers could help the problem by not buying Hummers. While OPEC has supported the UN Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, which encourage reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide, currently the most problematic greenhouse gas, it counterintuitively opposed plans to reduce oil consumption and advocated adaptation to climate change.

OPEC has fought long and hard to create confusion regarding climate change and global warming. As a conglomerate of oil producers, it doesn't want the status quo to change and is fearfully fighting to remain relevant in a time of rising temperatures; cost-effective clean energy such as solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal; and the likelihood of peak oil. Financing and spreading lies and disinformation against the scientific consensus just makes them look sad. If oil-producing companies spent more on R&D for clean tech and invested heavily in clean energy, they would be well positioned to transition to the only intelligent future for energy.

It is outrageous that OPEC has the nerve to go on record blaming humanity. Granted, humanity has choices other than oil, but they are not universally available; and the status quo choices are highly advertised, financed, and legislated, which convince people there is no alternative, and also drive self-interested, greedy people to be dogmatic and proud in their unwillingness to change. OPEC has the influence and cashflow to make a change towards cleaner energy. People don't kill people; guns do. If there were no guns there would be no killing by them. Likewise, oil, which OPEC produces, when burned, causes CO₂, a greenhouse gas, which is the main cause of anthropogenic global warming. Blame oil.