Blame shifting in methane emission and climate change

 Luke Coffman had a paper in 2011 reporting an experiment in which a participant had an opportunity to play a dictator game with a second participant, but faced punishment by a third party if he was judged to have behaved badly.  It was found that if the first participant "sold" the game to still another player in a way that didn't change the outcome, he faced less punishment. ("Intermediation reduces punishment and reward"AEJ Micro, Nov 2011)

I'm reminded of this by the recent NY Times story about how oil and gas companies are selling their most polluting operations (in which methane is released into the atmosphere) to small companies that continue to operate them.

Here Are America’s Top Methane Emitters. Some Will Surprise You.  Oil and gas giants are selling off their most-polluting operations to small private companies. Most manage to escape public scrutiny.  By Hiroko Tabuchi

"As the world’s oil and gas giants face increasing pressure to reduce their fossil fuel emissions, small, privately held drilling companies are becoming the country’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, often by buying up the industry’s high-polluting assets.

...

"In some cases, the companies are buying up high-polluting assets directly from the largest oil and gas corporations, like ConocoPhillips and BP"