Bipartisan Pushback Against Villainizing Industry at Anti-Fossil Fuel Conference
Monday October 10, 2016
Just when we thought anti-fossil fuel activists couldn’t marginalize themselves any further, former Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Bill Ritter (D-CO) – key figures in the climate change movement – pushed back against their extreme rhetoric at the “After Fossil Fuels: The Next Economy” conference, which was held at Oberlin College last weekend. EID was on the ground at the conference, reporting each day on appearances by 350.org co-founder and #ExxonKnew proponent Bill McKibben and San Francisco billionaire activist Tom Steyer.
On the Saturday panel, Steyer said that oil companies “like making hundreds of billions of dollars. They would like to continue doing it and they are going to push back.” But former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger disagreed with this demonization of the industry, noting that the climate movement needs to be “inclusive” and should not “villainize the oil companies.” As Schwarzenegger put it,
“And I think the important thing also is to be always inclusive. It doesn’t help if you villainize the oil companies. […] I think the key thing is that you need to bring them in and make them understand that they should diversify with their investments. Not just their investments in oil but to invest in green energy because this will be the energy of the future. And it will be a smart investment for them also. But, just attacking them and just villainizing them alone is not going to bring them in because they will feel they are on the other side and they will fight and all those things. So you can fight them and you can also negotiate with them and I was always in the belief that the more we bring every...