Everybody But Me

Why is it that industries always seem to have an "everybody-but-me" attitude toward the environment?

The American petroleum refining industry recently complained that they may have to reduce their refining capacity if emission cuts in greenhouse gases would be imposed on them. They claim that the extra costs to reduce emissions would make it so they cannot spend on increasing their capacity, even though they have not built a new refinery in 20 years!

The automobile industry, while claiming to be working on technology such as hydrogen fuel, are opposed to any increase in fuel efficiency requirements.

It should be remembered that both of these industries, especially the American Petroleum Institute (API), were behind attempts to destroy the claims about global warming.

The aviation industry continues to support their exemption from the trading emissions scheme despite being one of largest emitters (and emitting high in the atmosphere).

The point with all three of these industries is they each seem to think that they are somewhat special and therefore should not have to be subject to regulations, etc. Of course, this is not only true of global warming, but many environmental issues. I remember when lead was purposed to be removed from gasoline, the petroleum industry claimed lead was necessary for car performance.

This all goes to show that the talk of social responsibility is a piece of bullshit.