If you put a knife in someone’s heart, you’re the one who did it and ultimately you’re responsible. If someone told you to do it and you were just following orders… you still did it. If you say there were no rules against putting knives in other people’s hearts, you still did it and you’re still responsible.
If it’s somehow different for corporations, please enlighten me how.
What if people are manipulated by bot farms and think tanks and talking points supported by those corporations?
I think this view of humans - that they look at all the available information and then make calm decisions in their own interests - is simply wrong. We are manipulated all the damn time. I struggle to go to the supermarket without buying excess sugar. The biggest corporations in the world grew fat off showing us products to impulse buy before our more rational brain functions could stop us. We are not a little pilot in a meat vessel.
The oil companies also knew and lied about global warming for decades. They paid and continue to pay for as science to stall action. I am completely mystified how you can find them blameless for venal politicians and a populace that largely believes their lies.
There are politicians in multiple states trying to pass laws that slow down the deployment of renewable energy because they’re afraid if they don’t intervene it will be deployed too quickly and harm fossil fuel interests. Trump is promising to bring back coal, while he bans new wind leases. The whole “oil is the only way aw shucks people chose it” shtick is like a time capsule from 1990. That whole package of beliefs served its purpose and has been replaced with a muscular state-sponsored plan to defend fossil fuel interests even as they become economically obsolete and the rest of the world moves on.
The oil companies are saying their product is vital to the economy and they are not wrong. How else will we get food from the farms to the store ? Ambulances to the hospitals ? And many, many other things.
Taxes are the best way to change behaviour (smaller cars driving less. Less flying etc). So government and the people who vote for them is to blame.