Pro Publica offers up a trio of climate change stories that speak truth

First, carbon capture doesn't work, which I have long known, but needs to be told again and again and again, versus the lies of Big Oil and the companion lies of Big Neoliberal Government. 

Pro Publica has a great piece. It notes that projections for how much carbon capture and storage can do have increased even as the world fiddles while the planet burns more and more, and we get more and more behind the curve of serious action.

THIS:

Right now, globally, we’re permanently burying less CO2 than a single large power plant can emit in a year.

Is the bottom line. 

That's followed by the lies of Big Oil and Big Neoliberal International Government being exposed:

Some experts point to the CO2 that gets pumped into the ground to help extract oil as proof CCS works. But that process, called enhanced oil recovery, isn’t designed to function the same way and isn’t monitored as stringently. 

Global leaders are betting on carbon capture working now more than ever. 

The models used in the latest United Nations assessment presume the technology succeeds. 

IEA representatives and U.N. modelers say their projections reflect what the world has to do to achieve its goals of averting extreme warming.

There you are. 

The story then crunches the math.

On carbon-capturing plants? We'd have to plant THREE Texases or a bit more; or one Mexico, which is that same size. You see that happening? 

Plus, we'd need to be building countless injection sites — after doing proper geological study to determine each one works — AND monitoring all of them. You see that happening? 

And the price tag:

[B]y 2050, the world could be spending half a trillion dollars — more than China’s military budget, and 10 times more than the U.N.’s humanitarian and development aid budget — each year.

To coin a phrase: You see that happening? 

Related? Pro Publica does a deeper dive of how Big Oil, and specifically BP (stands for "Bullshitting about Petroleum") specifically bought off Princeton scientists in its "Wedges" study 22 years ago, and bought them off on ... carbon capture.

Yes, bought them off:

While its chief executive, John Browne, was rebranding his company as Beyond Petroleum, BP sought out researchers who were already thinking about how to address climate change without replacing fossil fuels. The company found them at Princeton University, where it set about amplifying their work by donating $15 million to start the Carbon Mitigation Initiative. The research program was framed around finding solutions to climate change while keeping fossil fuels in play, focusing heavily on carbon capture.

What else is there to say? 

Maybe this:

BP executives were deeply involved throughout the paper’s creation, according to an investigation by ProPublica and Drilled. [Robert] Socolow and [Stephen] Pacala, the authors of “Wedges” and the new center’s co-directors, not only discussed ideas with the company but, in a departure from academic norms, passed drafts back and forth and welcomed extensive feedback. 

Like a book publisher shaping a clunky early draft into a bestseller, an executive at the company suggested the scientists punch up the language, which they did. Browne himself suggested wording that became a part of the title. Together they helped make wonky scientific ideas more digestible for popular consumption. BP even tried — unsuccessfully — to revise a version of it. 

“Chaps, I have had a go at rewriting the paper,” Browne’s climate adviser wrote the researchers at one point.

THERE's the smoking gun. 

The two scientists of course deny anything nefarious:

Socolow and Pacala say they were sincere in their intent to solve climate change in the best way they believed possible, at a time when it was not obvious that wind and solar would succeed the way they have today. The researchers say BP had no control over the scientific content of the paper. They rejected the view that technologies didn’t exist to start solving climate change immediately and hoped carbon capture offered, as Pacala said, a way to make fossil fuels “climate safe.”

OK, well, do I totally believe that? 

Not really. 

Per his Wiki, post-retirement, Socolow has been a big pusher of the "personal carbon footprint." You know who else pushes that? Big Oil. "Guiltwashing" is a form of "greenwashing." 

You know what else Socolow does, per a link on his Wiki? He continues to push carbon capture, and that's as of a 2024 Washington Post op-ed. In other words? He's a liar.

That said, BP wasn't alone, of course. It was simply the most aggressive oil major, in part as the biggest non-American, non-national, oil company. 

That said, not only was BP not alone, Princeton was also not alone.

In the trifecta? As described by Pro Publica in detail in another story,  just like Big Tobacco, is Big Oil buying off scientists to do its bidding.  

This:

Corporate funders sponsored entire centers, paid the salaries of researchers, kept offices on campus and in some cases had veto power over projects.

Companies maintain they are supporting innovation and needed science. Universities say that with safeguards, sponsorship enhances research programs while preserving academic independence. 

Still, the impact of funding constitutes a pattern that Benjamin Franta, an associate professor of climate litigation at University of Oxford, called the “colonization of academia.”

Is just right.