GOP Plots Global Climate Pact Attack

[tclambert]

20. Yes, but they are protecting oil companies.

The fossil fuel industries see admitting the existence of global warming as a threat to their existence. Rightly so. If the public accepts that burning fossil fuels could lead to a climate catastrophe, we will want to decrease our use of fossil fuels. The fact is, we need to get to the point where oil companies sell less than 10% of the oil they sell today. The oil industry is fighting for its life. They do that by buying politicians.

The oil companies know they are doomed. Our problem is they want to delay their own doom as long as they can, and risk dooming everybody else. Maybe they already have. If we stopped using fossil fuels this minute, the CO2 now in the air will continue to raise the Earth's surface temperature for decades. Then it will stabilize at a higher equilibrium temperature for about a thousand years, unless we work hard to pull carbon out of the air and put it somewhere else.

Fossil fuel companies try to portray any efforts to counter climate change as a threat to the economy. Any such efforts would likely stimulate the larger economy, but would destroy the economy of fossil fuel companies. It seems like some people still think whatever is good for Exxon Mobil is good for America. That really stopped being true (if it ever was) in 1973.