spoiler alert: the numbers are much higher: https://www.opensustainabilityindex.org/company/shell

another spoiler alert: emission of an average country is much bigger. for countries i will analize poland because its where i live and usa:

for poland: total co2 emmision of poland in 2022 was 315mt. total greenhouse gases emission was 380mt. however 319 megatons of that (83%) was polands nearly entirely coal-based power plants. which means that if not the pro-coal lobbying our GHS emmission would be nearly 80% lower. the flora consumes 35 megatons of co2 per year. so net co2 emission minus the power sector would be 26mt, less than a half of what shell does

source (polish) https://www.ekologia.pl/srodowisko/czy-emisje-w-polsce-maleja-kto-kopci-najbardziej/

usa emits 6343 megatons of GHS per year 79% of which is co2. only 25% of that is from electric power. the biggest factor is residential&commercial(31%)(each of which is around 15%)

source: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks

tl:dr: it is partially your flaut

I'm not sure about the data sources for this image but from some quick research it looks like this includes scope 3 (end user emissions) for shell and chevron by not the others. The data realistically looks a bit more like this:

🇸🇦 Saudi Aramco: ~2.0 Billion metric tons (Estimated; excludes Scope 3 from official tracking) 🇬🇧 Shell: ~1.1 Billion metric tons 🇺🇸 ExxonMobil: ~813 Million metric tons 🇺🇸 Chevron: ~600 to 780 Million metric tons (Varies by accounting method) 🇬🇧 BP: ~400 Million metric tons

Context: For all these companies, Scope 3 makes up 85% to 95% of their total climate impact. This is why state-owned giants like Aramco and US majors like Exxon/Chevron focus their climate targets almost entirely on their own drilling operations (Scope 1 & 2) while excluding the footprint of the products they sell.

In any case this is pretty bad and we are probably gonners.

Oligarchs. People own Shell, they make demands. Those shareholders demand profits over all else. Those companies are just constructs we've made to organize making money. Not to say you can't go after them... well, you can't because they own the governments... but you get my point

Word of the day is 'Oubliette'.

There are a lot of "who gives them the money" posts here - and on a basic level they're right.

But there's also the part where these companies were spearheading climate research initially - and instead of trying to pivot into renewable energy they doubled down on oil, muddied the waters in discussions by first denying global warming and then when that didn't work out anymore, emphasizing scientific uncertainty, lobbied against environmental regulations, and shifted blame to the individual.

To the people who are saying "Yeah but you're the one who buys the oil!!!!!" Please stop. Please think about any of the context surrounding those supposedly individualist decisions. Please think about what the most practical solutions are for fixing the problem. You can do that and be helpful or you can be smug and look down on others.

Sure, you buy and drive the car, but you didn't:

• Design towns and cities that can only be easily traversed by car.
• Decide where jobs and housing were located.
• Spend millions of dollars to lobby against public transit.
• Spend millions of dollars to lobby against regulations.
• Spend millions of dollars to lobby against green energy investments.
• Spend millions of dollars to lobby for imperialist wars to access oil.
• Spend millions of dollars to spread misinformation about climate change.
• Decide what cars were available to buy and at what price. (Demand driving supply only makes sense if consumers have a way to signal that they want something that isn't being offered. The main market way of doing that would be to not buy anything until the right good is offered... but as stated above, people can't just opt out of needing a car if the places where they can live and work are built around cars.)
• Decide to be too poor to buy luxury goods masquerading as green alternatives.

Framing the issue in terms of individual decisions lets the people who have most actively stood in the way of progress off the hook and ironically shirks any real responsibility to fix the issue. You think by saying that it's us doing it that you take responsibility for your actions and therefore because YOU got a hybrid car or some shit, you did your part and everyone else needs to do the same and it's not your responsibility anymore. Needing to put in the political struggle to take on the corporate interests destroying the planet takes effort that deviates from your normal life. You have to actually talk to people, work with them, and take part in collective action. And your responsibility isn't over until the problem is solved.

Also, sort of related: I always take issue with how dealing with issues like climate change is framed in terms of making sacrifices. Like sure, are we going to be able to do as much excessive consumption as we do now? No. But there are so many climate policies that would also just make life better for people in the short/medium term. We would be happier, healthier, and safer in a world where we got rid of our dependence on cars and replaced it with walkable cities and good mass transit. But instead of talking about how good it could be, instead the message ends up being "You're a bad person for diving a car. You need to give up using your car and go either walk to your job which is too far away and across a bunch of busy streets or cram yourself onto the underfunded public transportation that is crowded, slow, unreliable, and falling apart." No wonder people get so defensive. We don't want them to have to use the bad infrastructure. We want it to be so good that it's the best option by far. Pitch that future instead of lecturing people.

Spoiler alert: if we weren't 8 billion and fertilized our crops with fossil fuels, then we wouldn't need that much fossil energy...

Yes, it's you. It's me. It's your 5 kids. The oil didn't pump itself out of the ground and set itself on fire for fun.

It's your plane trip, it's your military, it's your proxy wars.

yeah but you make sure you don't fart a lot and keep it in as much as possible

This is a false choice between huge lifestyle changes for everyday people and regulating the polluters. Regulating the polluters is going to cause huge lifestyle changes for everyday people.

The idea that any of us get to go on as usual is the main roadblock to meaningful climate action.

Shell also dodge paying fair taxes. https://www.ftm.eu/articles/shell-shifted-billions-in-profits-to-tax-havens-leaked-files-reveal

Where does the money they get come from?

Put a garnishing order on their past 50 years of profits. All proceeds go to infrastructure investments for the developing world in climate mitigation and food security.

>>"Spoiler alert: it's not you"

>>proceeds to display a chart of companies who sell a fuel we all use

We ought to seize all the top companies.

They're just holding companies. They don't make anything. They don't produce anything. They just bleed off a kick, like a mob boss, and use those gains to amass political power.

Seize them all and use the assets (and annual profits) to fund American society.

who keeps giving them money?

Y'know we could have had spaceships each since the 1930s, right?

Or even just running our cars on seed oils, like hempseed oil, or plant derived ethanol.

Or even just running our cars on water.

... If they'd stop killing inventors and stop abusing the patent system to secretize emancipatory technologies.

I thought it is me, because I'm Not recycling hard enough. Puh, got lucky here /s

But someone told me it was my neighbors who are the evil polluters? This is telling me it's rich people. That makes no sense. I want to blame my neighbors, not rich people!

Ah yes companies that famously refine oil only to pour it into a hole and light it on fire for their own amusement, one else uses it at all.

If it's just these companies that would be affected let's just close them down. I'm sure it would make no difference whatsoever.

And God said "LET CORPORATIONS DESTROY THE PLANET AND ERADICATE ALL LIFE".

Guess this is the modern alternative to the flood.

Congress. For not taxing carbon emissions according to the damage they cause.

(And other countries' legislatures, but as an American voter, I first need to hold my own legislature responsible.)

I know for a FACT that Shell bought up every patent it could on Hydrogen use in the 1960's. My dad worked in England back then in the main office; way up in the tree and he witnessed this himself. FACT. Maybe I'm not completely clear: F A C T !!! He told me when I was a boy and I never forgot. (Was I clear? FACT!!!)

What do you have to be a TOTALLY ROTTEN COMPANY to even NOW not use those inventions and implement Hydrogen as a fuel so the world will be saved.

I truely HATE Shell with all my guts.

Godammit. I've boycotted Exxon and BP, for their negligence that led to spills, for a long time. I knew shell probably wasn't much better but I've preferred them anyhow. Turns out I was helping the worst offender. Awesome.

At some point, you realize that ordinary people are not responsible for any of these big "problems" (some doesn't even exist).

Corporations and governments are responsible for all problems we have. They create them with their laws and their greed for power.

But they love telling people to donate money to the problems they cause, or to make us feel guilty for things we have nothing to do with. We should always be in a state of fear and guilt, because that makes us easy to control.