Country remembers what greed forgets

The eight largest fossil fuel companies in the world have reported that they were pocketing an extra 9.4 billion dollars, Australian dollars, of profits, and that's an increase of their profits, almost 10,000 million dollars, in the first quarter of this year.

And this was when the Middle East crisis had only just started.

Since then, we have seen oil prices climb and oil companies' profits have been rising even further.

It stands out because these profits are made on people's cost of living pain, on instability in the world, and a climate, as we're seeing it, that's breaking down and killing people in the thousands every week.

How is this even acceptable? There's so much talk at the moment about AI and about whether AI will become conscious, and we hear the experts discussing what is consciousness actually? How do we define consciousness? Well, I suggest we take a look at the consciousness of fossil fuel companies, or in general, the consciousness of companies.

Because the truth is we have written our laws in a way that gives companies the same rights as human beings.

But we have not been demanding from companies that they have a conscience.

We allow the formation of corporations with the rights of human beings, but none of the obligations.

We could have here in Australia written in the law, in the Business Act, that companies need to have a conscience.

They can't just act as if they don't care about what impact they have on the environment, on the climate, on people.

It's our government that's allowing these companies to use their power to pursue self-interest and greed.

And as we're seeing AI coming in, the ongoing development of AI is only going to make the situation worse.

We need to amend the corporate law so it will give corporations something that resembles a human conscience.

Because until we do that, democracy will continue to lose that contest between the pursuit of corporate self-interest and profits and the protection of us, the people, and the public interest.

And the public will continue to lose faith in democracy as we are seeing it happen.

We've talked about this in The Sustainable Hour.

Over the years, we've heard former corporate lawyer Robert Hinkley say this again and again, and it remains the truth.

We need to change the laws, and where does that process begin? Well, it begins with becoming active in politics.

That's a longer story, of course, but we do have a, another election coming up in two years' time, and there are initiatives also around Geelong where groups are beginning to mobilize for that election.

We'll come back to that in another Sustainable Hour, because right now, let's hear what's been happening around the world.