Letter from the US: The bigger they are, the harder they fall

The oil industry is facing the same kind of seismic shift in consumption that rocked telecommunications with the arrival of the cellphone

“The reality is, [fossil fuel] is what runs the world today. It is going to run the world tomorrow and five years from now, 10 years from now, [and] 20 years from now,” Chevron’s CEO Michael Wirth told the Financial Times in October last year. His statement bears some similarity to what John deButts, chair of AT&T—once the US’ primary telecommunications supplier—said about his industry in 1977: “Our business in this industry is to provide people with communications of all forms. We think down the road we should continue to provide all people with all forms of communications using whatever technology is available at that particular time.” Back then, AT&T employed one out of every ni

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