Success Quote by Lee R. Raymond

Raymond’s line is a velvet-gloved jab: “I find it interesting” is corporate-speak for “You’re being hypocritical.” The sentence is engineered to flip the moral spotlight. Instead of arguing the climate science or the economics of fossil fuels head-on, he reroutes the conversation to credibility, framing restriction as a luxury belief held by people who have already cashed the benefits of cheap, dense energy.

The subtext is a familiar development narrative: fossil fuels built the modern West, so the West has no standing to tell anyone else to slow down. That’s not just a defensive move; it’s a bid to recruit the Global South into the argument by positioning fossil-fuel constraint as a kind of gatekeeping. “Well-developed countries” quietly implies “countries that got there first,” while “abundant and affordable energy” functions as both a boast and a shield - a reminder that comfort is powered by extraction.

Context reminds you why the wording is so strategic. Raymond, longtime Exxon CEO, spent decades navigating regulatory pressure and public scrutiny as climate politics sharpened. He’s not speaking as a neutral observer; he’s selling a frame in which environmental policy looks less like stewardship and more like elitism. The point isn’t to prove that restrictions are wrong. It’s to make them sound socially suspect: an ethics lecture delivered from a heated house.

What makes it work is its selective truth. Yes, rich countries have consumed disproportionately and now call for restraint. The sleight of hand is treating that hypocrisy as a reason to delay action, rather than a reason to accelerate support for cleaner energy access elsewhere.