Internal Shell documents assume catastrophic climate change

Internal Shell documents assume catastrophic climate change

Their internal study concludes that the world's governments seem incapable of taking the steps necessary to prevent a tremendous warming trend, and therefore they need to have a business plan for the worst case scenario. There's really nothing there to disagree with. Any good business has to do scenario planning, and establishing a plan for the worst case is not tantamount to predicting it or causing it.

When I conducted corporate planning seminars back in the day, I always had to remind people that the function of corporations in society is to maximize their value within the laws, but other entities in society actually make those laws. Shell has actually gone farther than necessary, in that they publicly favor governmental actions that will reduce their profits, like greenhouse gas taxes, but they can only favor laws, they can't pass them. Whatever action is taken by public policymakers, corporations will act to maximize their value within that framework. As we found out in previous decades, if a company can increase profits and stock value by dumping raw industrial waste in a municipal river instead of treating it, neutralizing it and dumping it harmlessly in a remote desert, they will choose the more profitable scenario unless public policy forbids it. I'm not defending that action, just acknowledging it.

If Shell doesn't play by the rules and breaks laws, then by all means punish them, severely if necessary, but don't blame the guys playing the game for trying to win the game within the rules; blame the guys who make the wrong rules in the first place.

And change the damned rules before it's too late.