Shell Oil’s Cold Calculations for a Warming World
By McKENZIE FUNKMAY: 18 May 2015
Shell Oil’s Cold Calculations for a Warming World
“Shell screwed up,” said Ken Salazar, the interior secretary at the time.
Last week, when the Obama administration gave tentative approval to Shell Oil’s plan to return to the Arctic after itsdisastrous attempt to find oil there in 2012, I found myself thinking of a conversation I had several years ago with a man named Jeremy Bentham. A theater-loving Englishman, Bentham leads Shell’s legendary team of futurists, whose methods have been adopted by the Walt Disney Company and the Pentagon, among others.
The scenario planners, as they call themselves, are paid to think unconventional thoughts. They read fiction. They run models. They talk to hippies. They talk to scientists. They consult anyone who can imagine surprising, abrupt change. The competing versions of the future — the scenarios — that result from this process are packaged as stories and given evocative titles: “Belle Époque,” “Devolution,” “Prism.” Then the oil company readies itself, as best it can, for all of them.
The TRUTH will set you FREE.
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