Every fossil fuel company is going to lie their pants off because that's what you and all other humans would do if they got into the same situation.
Speak for yourself.
1. A good number of people actually have a spine. I'd not say the majority "is good && have a spine" but enough that you are lying.
2. It doesn't help at all to spread the lie that everyone else lying.
Speaking as someone who has been embarassingly honest, and who also admires his friend who came back and admitted he'd been laughing at me behind my back.
What do you think religion is except for one big lie? Muslims and Christian's can't both be right, either one of them is right or neither of them. That puts a major portion of the world population gauraunteed to be delusional. Delusional behavior as a corporation like Exxon follows. This is logic you can't deny it.
You apparently are better than most humans since you brag about your ability to be embarrassingly honest.
> that's what you and all other humans would do if they got into the same situation.
Which is literally false if history books and court records are to be belived.
As for religion, people can both be honest and mistaken.
Honesty is about intent, not about being verifyable true.
So while two must be technically wrong, honest Muslims and honest Christians might very well co-exist with honest Atheists.
Also I didn't emphasize hard choices involving death. I was referring to life's work. Something you believed to be true your entire life and suddenly you have to give it all up because it's not true. (Think religion and evolution). There are examples of people slowly accepting the truth rather than instantly but even those are few and far in between. To maintain the illusion people build scaffolds like intelligent design to make sure their old frameworks fit the new ones.
I'm not talking about coexistence either. There is no need to bring that topic up. The only fact to support my thesis here is that part of the population is verfiably delusional for sure.
I also disagree with you about honesty. It's more complex than that. People can lie to themselves. Their biases can mold their behavior to the point where they deny logic. One religion must be wrong and those people will fight to the death for their beliefs just like how a fossil fuel company must be wrong and they will fight to the deaths for their beliefs.
You are correct, regulation is the only path forward. The problem is, when you give too much freedom to a capitalistic society, the major capitalists aka corporations seem to take control. The corporations in turn take their power and influence the very regulatory bodies that are suppose to keep them in check.