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Big Oil Exploits Ukrainian Refugees For PR, Puts Them To Work For The Industry Funding The War [1]

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Date: 2023-08-08  

Would you want to work for a company that's profiting off destroying your future? What about an industry that's already destroying your present? Obviously not — but for a select few, it's not much of a choice.

On the first question, the fossil fuel industry is struggling to hire new talent as college graduates are apparently increasingly reluctant to seek employment with the industry destroying their (present and) future by profiting off of unconstrained carbon pollution.

“People are concerned they won’t have a job in 10 to 20 years,” one petroleum engineering student told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) . A recent graduate now employed at BP said she “sometimes prepares talking points in case someone attacks the industry” while she’s socializing with friends.

It's a problem that fossil fuel companies are addressing — not by actually transitioning to clean fuels, of course, but by greenwashing.

“Oil-and-gas companies are pouring money into fellowships and other programs designed to cultivate a new generation of talent,” the WSJ reported. BP, for example, has “launched a new $4 million fellowship program with U.S. universities to provide students with exposure to the energy industry,” while also investing a * b* illion MORE dollars a year than expected on producing climate-warming fuels.

And these polluters are getting creative. Not content to merely exploit those whose futures will be ruined by their profits, the fossil fuel industry is also exploiting people whose present lives have been destroyed by fossil-fueled profits.

Last Sunday, the AP ran with this headline: “ Ukrainians move to North Dakota for oil field jobs to help families facing war back home .” Sounds like a heartwarming news story, but like so many others , the feel-good sheen covers a sinister reality.

As part of the U.S. government’s Uniting for Ukraine program to provide citizenship to Ukranians escaping Russia’s invasion, the North Dakota Petroleum Council’s Bakken Global Recruitment of Oilfield Workers program is graciously inviting refugees to fill the oil jobs that the industry is otherwise struggling to fill because the industry is dirty and work incredibly dangerous .

(The fact that accepting overwhelmingly-white Ukrainian refugees is so uncontroversial you’ve probably never heard of the numerically unlimited Uniting for Ukraine program — contrary to … say, Syrian refugees, the specter of migrants in so-called "caravans" that didn't even really exist , or other immigrants from " shithole countries " — is worth mentioning.)

So, as Big Oil reaps billions in windfall profits as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which in turn is funded by Russia's oil industry , the industry is using the war for a PR push .

"This is a fossil fuel war," Ukrainian climate scientist Svitlana Krakovska declared last year. Surely refugees deserve better than being graciously given the opportunity to work for the industry bankrolling the bombs destroying their country.

Continental Resources, a Bakken heavyweight, made $1.01 Billion in profits in just the 3rd quarter of 2022. Maybe if the industry wanted to help refugees more than it wanted PR about how it's a beneficial job creator , it could just give them 0.01% of just three months of just one company's profits? Just round that number down to an even $1 billion?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/8/2185948/-Big-Oil-Exploits-Ukrainian-Refugees-For-PR-Puts-Them-To-Work-For-The-Industry-Funding-The-War

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