A problem with the politics of climate change is that discussion of the issue too frequently degrades into a righteousness contest. What the issue most needs, however, is a careful examination of the very complex and still uncertain set of facts underlying the issue-and thoughtful discourse.
Of all parties to the issue, oil companies should be careful not to foreclose debate.
Political climate-change remedies now proposed focus on the potential for catastrophic warming. They promise heavy costs and major changes in human behavior.
Yet science is nowhere near certain that the remedies will or even can have any effect. It is nowhere near certain that catastrophic warming looms.
By several measures, the earth is becoming warmer. This is not alarming. It also is not alarming that human activity affects the atmosphere and might contribute to observed warming.
Warming and cooling happen with or without human influence. They are natural processes, seldom catastrophic.
The degree of human influence on those cycles is very much open to question. It is therefore uncertain that change in human behavior, such as reduced use of fossil energy to lower emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, can have measurable effect.
Some observers engaged in the issue, including some oil and gas companies, urge precaution. They say that the mere chance for catastrophic warming in which human activity is any factor at all warrants change.
Other observers, equally engaged in the issue, including some oil and gas companies, see no need for hasty remedy. They argue for scientific vigilance and against preemptive manipulation by governments of people.
Both sides of the argument make compelling cases. Both cases reflect thoughtful engagement in the question.
There is little to be gained, therefore, when one of the world's leading oil companies, which has taken an aggressive stance on climate change, snubs opposition as ignoring the subject.
Jeroen van der Veer, president of Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. and vice-chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell Group's committee of managing directors, came dangerously close to doing so this week at a Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference in Houston.
In an analysis of energy and people worthy of Shell's reputation for thoughtfulness, Van der Veer asserted that business "cannot ignore this issue of climate change."
Maybe it's just semantics, but that comes across as dismissive of dissent. It's something that some Greenpeace world-changer might say, not Shell.
Who in business, especially the energy business, is ignoring climate change?
In fact, there is a lively and very important debate under way on the subject. And there are positions that differ from Shell's but are just as thoughtful. Positions like that don't come from people or companies guilty of ignoring the issue.
The openness with which the Anglo-Dutch giant expresses its views on climate change and other subjects is refreshing, even exemplary. So is the company's concern about interrelationships between energy and human welfare.
But it is neither valid nor fair to imply that companies ignore climate change if they don't hop aboard the political juggernaut pursuing immediate, costly, and possibly futile remedies.
Maybe that's not what Van der Veer intended to do. But that's how it sounded.