Survey Shows People Don’t Trust Fossil Fuel Giants

One of the world’s top accounting and consulting firms, Ernst and Young is a venerated name if there ever were one.  And, as is typical for large business consulting concerns, they seem to do an awful lot of market research surveys, most of which, IMO, reveal little that anyone with any common sense would take for granted.  “Study finds that unprotected teen sex leads to unwanted pregnancies.”  That kind of thing.

Here’s one that’s a bit more interesting, focused on public attitudes towards the fossil fuel industry.  The main take-away is that the majority of Americans believe that oil, coal and gas will be around for decades to come, though they are hopeful that renewable energy will make rapid progress in displacing them.  More to the point, only about one-third of those interviewed trust the oil companies to do the right thing regarding this transition.  In other, words, there is wide-spread doubt of the oil companies’ honesty, and, perhaps predictably, the younger the respondent, the most intense that distrust is.

Now, of course, we can speculate as to why that is.

Are most people aware that the U.S. Justice Department is investigating ExxonMobil for burying the truth about climate change and defrauding investors in the process? (I doubt it.)

Is there a general distrust in large corporations given the malfeasance of Volkswagen, Wells Fargo, and the rest? (Yes.) Do people believe that, by the very nature of corporations functioning in a capitalist economy, that the oil companies can be expected to protect their monopolistic positions, even at the expense of the truth, and what’s good for our civilization? (For sure.)

In any case, I hope you’ll enjoy the report.