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Johnson & Johnson's stock slammed after report it knew of asbestos in baby powder
Shares of Johnson & Johnson tumbled Friday, after a Reuters report that the drug and consumer-products company knew for decades that its baby talcum powder was contaminated with asbestos, a known carcinogen, that is alleged to have caused cancer in thousands of its customers.
The stock ended 10% lower on Friday, marking its largest one-day percentage decline in 16 years and lowest close in nearly four months, according to FactSet data. It led decliners on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 on the day, and accounted for about 101 points of the Dow's 497-point loss.
[...] Reuters said an examination of internal company memos and other documents found the New Jersey–based company was aware of the presence of small amounts of asbestos in its products from as early as 1971 but failed to disclose that fact to regulators or to the general public.
Reuters stands by J&J report, says it was based 'entirely' on Johnson & Johnson documents
Reuters reporter Lisa Girion stands by her report that Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos was in its baby powder. "Our report on the fact that J&J was aware of small amounts of asbestos in its talc, in its baby power, in the ore that it mined in Vermont to make baby power, is based entirely on their documents," Girion told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Friday.
The Reuters story sent J&J shares down 9 percent on Friday and prompted a response from the health-care company that called the article "one-sided, false and inflammatory." "Simply put, the Reuters story is an absurd conspiracy theory, in that it apparently has spanned over 40 years, orchestrated among generations of global regulators, the world's foremost scientists and universities, leading independent labs, and J&J employees themselves," the company said in a statement.
See also: Asbestos Opens New Legal Front in Battle Over Johnson's Baby Powder
Those J&J Baby-Powder Lawsuits Aren't Going Away
Johnson & Johnson loses $39.8 billion in market value in one day after report claims it knew about asbestos in its baby powder
Previously: The Baby Powder Trials: How Courts Deal with Inconclusive Science
Johnson & Johnson Ordered to Pay $417m in Latest Talc Cancer Case
$417 Million Talc Cancer Verdict Against Johnson & Johnson Tossed Out
Johnson & Johnson Loses New Jersey Talc Cancer Case
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday December 17 2018, @03:17AM (40 children)
It takes a very special kind of stupid to not expect thermonuclear blowback from asbestos in a baby product.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @03:43AM (6 children)
The asbestos business started a long time ago, when it was minimally controlled. J&J made baby powder with asbestos since 1975, and it was legal enough for several decades. As this article says [epa.gov], the following happened:
The fear of asbestos was steadily rising, and by the year 2000 J&J says that they stopped making baby powder with asbestos, honest. They did that to protect themselves from scandal. But "two can keep a secret only if at least one of them is dead."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Monday December 17 2018, @04:21AM (4 children)
That's the law. But even back in the '70s we all knew asbestos == bad. Angry mothers don't give a damn what the regulations say if they find out something everyone knows is bad is in a baby product. They should probably start the process for writing off their baby products division now.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 17 2018, @04:49AM (3 children)
Something very similar happened with arsenic in treated wood about 15-20 years ago. Oh, it's harmless. Oh, we've done it this way forever and 'taint never hurt nobody. Then, a neighbor of mine led a study of the arsenic content of playground soil.... he, and his masters, knew full well what they would find and what would happen after they published.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Blymie on Monday December 17 2018, @08:00AM (2 children)
Part of the problem is the difference between the laboratory and implementation.
For example, asbestos used in insulation? Well, it *is* safe, but only if used precisely and without deviation from instructed installation and maintenance procedures. And here's another thing. It's replacement?
It's not just as bad, but it's bad! You are firmly recommended to wear a mask when installing. You will end up with skin issues, with repeated contact. Blown-in insulation has issues as well! There is literally nothing as a replacement, that works well, that isn't a health risk.
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/30/fiberglass-causes-cancer.aspx [mercola.com]
Story at-a-glance
- Fiberglass is one of the most widely used insulating materials in the world, despite concerns that it may cause cancer
- The National Toxicology Program first ruled that fiberglass is “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen,” then revised the ruling to include only certain glass wool fibers (those that are inhalable), which excludes fiberglass;
- Consumer groups are challenging the revised label, claiming the formula the EPA and NIH used to determine carcinogenicity diluted the results, making them look like fiberglass is safe when it really isn’t
- Animal studies have shown that certain glass fibers can cause tumors in animals’ lungs and other tissue sites, while cell studies have shown that certain fiberglass fibers may cause damage to DNA
- When working with fiberglass, choose only formaldehyde-free varieties and wear protective clothing and a respirator; even better, opt for non-toxic insulation materials made from sheep’s wool, recycled blue jeans, newspapers or other natural materials
Does the above sound like asbestos, or like its replacement? Because it is its *replacement*.
Yet, asbestos, fibreglass, and that blown in insulation all have one thing in common. Safe when used and not-deviated from, in terms of installation. And in terms of reaction to maintaining it.
I'll step back, and point at something that is very similar. Teflon.
Here's the thing.. teflon *is* perfectly safe, but only if used .. again, as it was approved by the FDA and other such agencies around the world.
Yet.. real world? Well, let's start with this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety [wikipedia.org]
--
Pyrolysis of PTFE is detectable at 200 °C (392 °F), and it evolves several fluorocarbon gases and a sublimate. An animal study conducted in 1955 concluded that it is unlikely that these products would be generated in amounts significant to health at temperatures below 250 °C (482 °F).[31]
While PTFE is stable and nontoxic at lower temperatures, it begins to deteriorate after the temperature of cookware reaches about 260 °C (500 °F), and decomposes above 350 °C (662 °F).[55] The degradation by-products can be lethal to birds,[56] and can cause flu-like symptoms[57] in humans—see polymer fume fever. Meat is usually fried between 204 and 232 °C (399 and 450 °F), and most oils start to smoke before a temperature of 260 °C (500 °F) is reached, but there are at least two cooking oils (refined safflower oil at 265 °C (509 °F) and avocado oil at 271 °C (520 °F)) that have a higher smoke point.
--
And look here:
https://www.petcoach.co/article/teflon-toxicity-ptfe-toxicosis-in-birds-signs-and-preventio/ [petcoach.co]
--
Birds are susceptible to a respiratory condition called "teflon toxicity" or "PTFE poisoning/toxicosis." Deaths can result from this condition, which is due to the noxious fumes emitted from overheated cookware coated with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE).
--
I assure you, this gas isn't good for humans. At all. It's just we're too big, and not quite as susceptible as a little bird -- so a tiny pan won't kill us, when it releases a toxic gas.
Here's the thing. You're NEVER EVER supposed to, for example, let your teflon get too hot. *That* is what causes problems with toxic chemicals. That is what makes teflon unsafe. It is 100% harmless otherwise.
But who here has not been cooking, and accidentally let their pan get to hot? You ever have your oil smoke? Or have you ever used pork / animal fats, which have a much higher smoke point?
Or have you cooked, but kept the food moving constantly, so it browns but doesn't burn? The pan is much hotter in that case, but you're not letting the food (because you keep stirring it) get as hot.
Teflon is 100% safe via FDA tests and regs. Yet those tests do not even remotely taking real-world usage cases into account. They also assume that people are 'ever vigilant'.
And once the gas is released? Once the teflon is damaged? It's forever toxic, the chips of teflon that may break off are no longer inert, but toxic.
So go back to asbestos. Same thing. In fact, if you examine most of the issues with chemicals these days, it's all about usage.
I'm not saying the consumer is at fault, but that part of the paradigm is the same issue you have in a computing environment!! Look at it from this angle.....
Software engineers are notorious for needing UX/UI rules, otherwise the 'average user' won't understand how to use the program. Nor the casual user. Why? Well, because when an expert designs an interface, it is more difficult to put themselves in place of the user, especially when the expert was probably very skilled at using computers at the age of 10!
Same for scientists of whatever stripe. Here you have FDA scientists, thinking "Why would anyone let their pan get too hot, when the fine print on the package says to be wary of teflon", or "Why would people use something they haven't read about?"
Well.. because some people aren't analytical, and some frankly aren't all that smart, and it's just a damned pan...
I guess what I'm saying here is that, that baby powder was probably safe when not inhaled. When it went on the diaper, and only there.
But is that what's really going to happen all the time? Every single day, over all the years in a house? No dropped bottles of it? No tops falling off, and the contents flying out? No kids getting a hold of it, and making fun white clouds in the air?
Whether a programmer, or an FDA scientist.. learn about the real world people!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @09:31AM
FTFY. Next time try a little truth in advertising;-)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 17 2018, @11:54AM
I self installed 2400 square feet of 6" fiberglass encapsulated batts, they were pretty benign compared to the standard stuff, and less than $100 more expensive for the job IIRC. Sure, if you tore into them carelessly you expose the nasty stuff, but 99% of the job was itch free, and after installation they covered the old insulation in the attic which I believe also reduced airborne fibers.
The whole damn construction industry is structured around shaving the last possible percentage point out of materials cost. Most of the materials decisions are made by contractors, not the sub-contractors who work with the material and not the owners who live with the material, but the contractors who profit directly from material cost reduction. Every single thing I have ever failed to specify, in writing, or supply to a contractor has consistently been provided as the absolute cheapest garbage imaginable - stuff that fails after a year or two instead of the twenty or fifty years that would have been possible for a 10% increase in materials cost. Sure, I don't recommend or use those assholes again after they pull that stunt on me, but they're not hurting for work.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 17 2018, @01:15PM
Asbestos has been a common contaminant of talc well before the human race ever existed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 17 2018, @04:43AM (24 children)
It's called "being led by the aged."
Not only do they not give a flip what happens 10 years from now, they also know the shit they've gotten away with for the past 70 and fully expect that the trend can and will continue for a few more years.
It's sort of the psychopath's logical extension of "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission" except here it's more of a time-value of bad news thing.
If the bad news doesn't break until after I'm dead, is it really bad news at all?
Better to not break bad news today when we don't know how long we might possibly keep a lid on it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @10:49AM
No, it's called being led by the privileged.
Without going into the usual TL:DR rant, the people behind the manufacture, distribution and safety legislation of the products that the herd use don't care what they do to the herd (just so long as it isn't killing them off too fast) as they don't use the stuff themselves (e.g do you think that the people who ok'd MRM/Pink Slime as fit for human consumption and the ones who're making millions from selling it eat products made from it?)
Fsck all to do with age, everything to do with 'position', money and power.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 17 2018, @12:59PM (22 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 17 2018, @02:01PM (21 children)
Perception is all there is.
It doesn't matter if there are zero negative health impacts of that amount of asbestos in talcum powder, or even demonstrable positive health benefits, what matters is the public perception of it.
Rather than getting out in front of the issue with solid, publicly believable, non-refuted studies showing that the asbestos found in talcum powder has no negative effects, they buried the issue, hoping it would go away; because, with the public perception of mesothelioma, "dangerous" old buildings, and the first responders to the the WTC all high in the general perception, it's a damn high bar to overcome that contemporary entrenched absolute negative perception of asbestos.
Do the math: Option 1) bury the issue, deal with it later, profit now, or Option 2) attempt to convince an irrational public of the "truth" that goes against their current mindset, most likely have it blow up in your face, and lose the market much sooner than option 1.
They pursued option 2 for decades, and here we are. Maybe they are hoping that the decades of implicit testing of their product on the public will convince everybody that it's just fine. Didn't work that way for arsenic treated lumber.
Perhaps, if they had initiated the studies for option 2 at the earliest opportunity and shared the results when they were statistically significant, that might have been a better option, but it doesn't appear that they did that. If they're like the tobacco companies, they did the studies, lots of them, but buried - perhaps even burned - the data and conclusions.
If you use any product on 100 million people, some of them are going to have a problem, is there a causal relationship? Impossible to prove or disprove in real life. An idealistic approach would have initiated a real and open search for the truth as soon as the concern was raised, our aging business leadership never did things that way in the past, and they didn't do things that way this time either.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 17 2018, @02:27PM
Errata - they ignored option 2 for decades, pursued option 1. No more commenting before the sun is warm.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 18 2018, @01:00AM (19 children)
If perception is the problem, then perceive differently. Odds are fair that this will drift away and then baby powder (and perception of it) will be back where it was.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 18 2018, @01:21AM (18 children)
Not your perception, not my perception, the perception of all the people who matter. If you can change that, reality doesn't matter.
Good luck changing the perception of the general public regarding asbestos on and around their babies.
You're right, though, attention spans are generally short and this might blow over.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:50AM (11 children)
You just said it was about perception. Those people don't matter to me.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 18 2018, @01:13PM (10 children)
Nor do you matter to them, or the greater course of events in the world.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:55PM (9 children)
Uh huh. Sounds like you lost another SN argument again. But please tell me again how futile and irrelevant your own arguments are in the greater course of events in the world.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 18 2018, @08:50PM (8 children)
Not doing this for internet points, I wish you all the happiness you can muster from "winning SN arguments" in your own mind.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 18 2018, @08:59PM (7 children)
Too bad. That really cuts down on the value of your ramblings.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 19 2018, @12:10AM (6 children)
You underestimate how much I enjoy the sound of my own typing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 19 2018, @03:33PM (5 children)
I disagree. The babble endgame is unfortunately a common outcome, but it's a long struggle to get to that point. You put too much effort in for it to be merely that. Primal things like the need to express yourself are important, but they're not everything. The higher level details matter.
As to some of the behavior in this thread, spoiled grapes nihilism is a common response when one can't rebut criticism of their ideas. "My idea is wrong, but it doesn't matter. The public/powers-that-be/scientific community/etc will perceive things my way." The obvious rebuttal to that is that they can perceive things other ways that aren't so wrong. Discussion in places like SN is one way to help change that perception. I don't believe SN speech will move mountains by itself, but then I'm not trying that hard either. The results are good for the effort I put in.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:46AM (4 children)
Correct on two counts, your idea is wrong, and it does not matter.
I do not find that you have in any way, shape or form demonstrated anything I have said to be "wrong," incorrect, or anything but incompatible with your personal world view. Thank you for sharing that view, and chalk this particular exchange up as yet another point in your favor on your personal scorecard if that makes you feel better.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:53AM (3 children)
First time you've expressed that particular narrative. I like it much better than the rest because it expresses something relevant to our conversation. So what do you think supports your contention here?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:17PM (1 child)
Sorry, now you're looking for argument and I've already told you: this is abuse.
For argument, find somebody who cares.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 21 2018, @03:17AM
It's not very good abuse. I've had much better.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:20PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDjCqjzbvJY [youtube.com]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:03AM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 18 2018, @01:15PM (4 children)
You're looking for consistency? This isn't consistency, this is abuse - for consistency please refer to the information desk. Best of luck.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:57PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 18 2018, @08:53PM (2 children)
If the acuity of your perception were less obtuse, you might actually connect the three threads and see how they weave into a cohesive narrative. I am not paid to write cogent articles for your pleasure and I seriously doubt anyone else on the planet reads into our deep threads, so it is left as an exercise to the reader to find their own enjoyment in the content presented herein.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 18 2018, @09:04PM (1 child)
Sorry, I didn't smoke enough weed for that. We all have our failings.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 19 2018, @12:15AM
To continue the arsenic in wood preservative thread, that guy smoked plenty of weed, but not so much that he didn't know what the blowback would be from his study. And he was very right, arsenic was banned as a wood preservative, at least in Florida, within a very short time after they published the playground soil findings. Anybody who stopped and thought about it for a second would have considered it obvious that wood preservative would leach out into surrounding soils, but "obvious" and "scientifically demonstrated and published in the peer reviewed literature" have very different effects on public perception and the actions that legislators take in response.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday December 17 2018, @05:23AM (7 children)
J+J has that special stupid, alrighty. Contemplate their jeering, lying response that because they could not possibly have conspired to keep this problem covered up for 40 years, it couldn't be true. They're so full of shit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 17 2018, @01:06PM (6 children)
That's what we call a good reason in the real world. Occam's razor does need to be explained here rather than merely saying without even a shred of proof of that the response is "lying, jeering".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday December 17 2018, @01:57PM (5 children)
No, the evidence is against them. Corporations have concealed problems for decades. Smoking was known to cause health problems in the 1960s, and tobacco companies were forced to put warning labels on their products in the 1970s, but in 1994, they were still lying. Every one of them said that they believed nicotine was not addictive, though everyone had been told over and over and over that nicotine was indeed addictive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ZDQKq2F08 [youtube.com] They pioneered the new propaganda of "doubt is our product", in which no amount of scientific evidence could ever settle an issue.
As far back as the 1930s, Bisphenol A was known to be similar to estrogen, and it was feared that similarity could cause problems. But instead of checking this suspicion out, the plastics industry buried their heads in the sand and managed to get everyone else to do so too. It's only in this century that BPA awareness has grown so strong that industry had to cut back. So there's a 7 decade delay.
Then there's lead. Wasn't banned in paint until the 1970s, and was used in gasoline until phased out in the 1980s, despite the Romans having found out near 2000 years ago the hard way that lead was toxic. Still used in plumbing to this day, and Flint, Michigan knows what a bad idea that is. A 2014 law cut back on lead in plumbing, but didn't entirely eliminate it.
Then we have #Exxonknew. As far back as the 1970s, maybe even the 1960s, those bastards running Big Oil suspected CO2 pollution would cause problems, but they buried it.
Another that special interests defended was asbestos.
Radioactivity is yet another. Would you like to work for the company that made radium paint? Paint watch dials with paint that glows with radioactivity? Read up on the Radium Girls. It's another ugly story of greed and motivated denial.
So that's 6 separate industries that conspired and propagandized to cover up problems, for decades. There's lots more than that. I didn't mention Big Pharma, another bad one. It's so pervasive that, yeah, I tend to believe the accusations against J+J. Can you come up with anywhere near that many examples of corporations being responsible and voluntarily ending the use of problematic substances and methods long before public outcry and new regulations would have forced them to?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 17 2018, @02:14PM (3 children)
While I generally agree with your rant, I know that small companies and especially large corporations stop the development of products that use problematic substances every day all around the world, before they get significant investment into them. The problem comes when X billion dollars have been sunk into development of a product which now generates Y billion dollars of annual revenue and the decision makers will lose Z million dollars in bonuses and other compensation if they put a stop to it, and then a problem with a substance in a product is discovered.
Medical latex is maybe an example of early discontinuation of a widely used substance before a total blowup - in the late 1980s it was becoming apparent that natural latex was a significant problem, and by the late 1990s profit motivated companies managed to develop and market better alternatives that have mostly displaced the use of natural latex in medical applications today. IMO, this worked, in-part, due to the (relative) lack of IP protection and exclusivity in latex products, whoever came out with the "better" glove first not only was first to market, but had something they could license for profit.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday December 17 2018, @04:44PM (2 children)
> and then a problem with a substance in a product is discovered.
And then? Sometimes that's the timeline, but not always. Such as, lead. They knew it was a problem before modern industry sunk a lot of investment in it. And, they have plenty of perfectly acceptable alternatives. Brass does not have to have any lead in it at all, they only add it to make machining a little easier. The machining tools last longer. But it can be done without. There's also bismuth brass, which makes the machining about as easy as leaded brass does. There's just no acceptable excuse for having ever added lead to the brass in our plumbing.
I'm thinking that the Big One is going to be #ExxonKnew. The fools propagandized against a problem, Global Warming and the consequent Sea Level Rise, that is potentially so big it could cause another World War. If the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica melt, ocean levels will rise so much that most of Florida will be underwater. What will be left is an island where central Florida is now. Coastal lands all over the world will be flooded, trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure will have to be abandoned. And that's not the worst of it. If our food supply is disrupted, and it almost certainly will be, millions will go hungry. There will be a reckoning. It won't be just Big Oil on trial for its life. It will be Capitalism itself. People will know why things came to that pass: unrestrained greed. Capitalistic pursuit of short term wealth. Corruption of the rule makers and rule enforcers. Everyone will see that the capitalistic society, the blind worship of wealth, and Prosperity Gospel thinking was folly, and failed us all very badly. We survived the cruel folly and madness of WWII. All the more folly to have pulled it, when you would have thought memories of WWI were still fresh enough to give people pause. We survived the Cold War, kept it from ever become hot, though there were entirely too many close calls-- the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Able Archer military exercises of 1983. Now, can we survive this? This war is best fought softly, as soon as possible, by heading off the coming sea level rise.
And why has Big Oil done this to us all? For more money that they did not really need.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 17 2018, @05:44PM
Lead was a bad one, but you have to roll back to when lead was really introduced into the various industries... the 1920s were a VERY different time than today, and that's the kind of world that started building internal combustion engines that "ran better" with lead in the fuel. Even in the 1950s, the solution to pollution was still dilution. Even in the 1990s when Dade county and many other metro areas were instituting vapor recovery devices on automotive fueling pumps, environmentally conscious Monroe county (the Florida keys) passed on the initiative because of their long-thin geography where the vapors released would rapidly dissipate - at least that was the front-line explanation, there's also the fact that pleasure boats use more gasoline in the Florida keys than automobiles and that vapor recovery from many yachts' fuel tanks would also recover crap you don't want to have to deal with in your fuel...
Al Gore's Grandfather may have predicted CO2 based global warming in 1922, but the bulk of society wasn't primed to listen at that point. On a slight tangent, I remember some movie from the 1960s where a little girl is crying about all the baby seals being clubbed to death, but the narrator reassures her in a patronizing tone that nature replenishes their numbers and there are always more next year. That was the mindset that a lot of the fools who are still in power grew up in, and they're never going to unlearn it.
Clearly, you don't relate to these people. A primer outline:
1. you need money to survive
2. you need more money than 1. to attract a mate and support your offspring
3. you need more money than 2. to compete for status, better mating opportunities, and control of limited resources
N. you need more money than N-1. to compete for status, better mating opportunities, and control of limited resources
Whatever N you are at, there's always an N+1 who bought that private island, or congressman that you wanted for your own purposes. In BP corporate land, the money is very much required to continue to influence legislation that provides them a secure profitable environment in which to operate their enterprise, including throwing enough cash off to all the people they care about to keep them fat, happy, and far up the N scale.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 18 2018, @04:20PM
You've already answered a good portion of your rant. The Second World War and the Cold War were trials of capitalism and democracy which they passed. But you want yet another trial because you are lousy with diseased ideology.
Let's review some of the dumber claims. First, there is no blind worship of wealth and prosperity. There is no unrestrained greed. These are purely imaginary. There were at least a billion more hungry people in 1970, depending on the counting (for example, here [ourworldindata.org]), than there are now (and that's with the doubling of human population since!) yet we didn't have said "trial". And the melting of the ice caps would be over centuries, if not several millennia. Humanity can easily adapt to the loss of Florida and other low lying territory over that long a time span. Finally, I doubt you've thought much about those time spans of the future, if you don't even understand the present, oh, Mr. Short Term Thinker. Assuming they'll be bad is not thinking.
As to "#ExxonKnew", read the actual summary of their research rather than the propaganda hype. All they concluded was that AGW could be a problem in the future. Oh. Em. Gee. It's just more fake eco-drama because a business looked into the consequences of its actions and didn't find anything troubling.
Can we survive? Oh course. We've survived worse as you noted. We've adapted to worse. What's the big deal when the answer is merely "move to higher ground in a few decades or centuries"? Are we going to forget how to move?
And why has "Big Oil" done this? Because we want a prosperous, healthy society with a future more than we want token environmental feelgoods. You can't even be thinking about this a little, if you can't understand what oil gets used for. It's not unrestrained greed that provides me with the freedom of my own personal transportation, for example.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 18 2018, @01:07AM
Why would you ever hear of them? My take is that every company has some such examples, even the purported conspirators you mention. But you don't see what is missing.