Exxon and Planet of the Apes

I sat down yesterday and  watch four movies from the 1970's Planet of the Apes series and I kept thinking of the disaster that destroyed the earth. You know the usual: nuclear holocaust, global pollution, dying oceans global warming, greed, racism, discrimination, and religious myths just to name a few.

While watching the original movie, I could not help but label the heroes and the villains. In one, the apes, villains, where driven by hatred for the humans who destroyed the earth by nuclear war. The human survivors were the slaves the apes hunted, tortured,  and killed. In another sequel, the humans were the villains and the apes were the slaves. The humans treated the apes as slaves who lacked intelligence and were terrified that one of the apes could talk, therefore, was intelligent. 

I suppose that a common theme of the movies was that mankind caused the destruction of the earth yet the human value systems had not changed over thousands of years. Global annihilation brought about by human greed, imperialism, and a lack of moral fiber is destined to destroy us all one way or the other. 

Which brings me to Exxon, a multi-billion dollar oil company, who has lied for decades about the destruction that oil does to the world. Based on news reports and released documents, Exxon knew their products were destructive but choose greed over humanity. They choose profit and power resulting in wars of conquest, environmental destruction, and global disaster. A more humane path would have them fixing their products to make them safe but that would have required them to possess a level of humanity they apparently lack, kind of like the apes in the newer version of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.