When my friends with green groups dismiss peak oil as a propaganda campaign run by the oil industry to scare the public into chanting "drill, baby drill," I smile. Hey, I care about peak oil but I'm also an environmentalist from way back, I protest. The Sierra Club card -- I won't leave home without it. Climate change scares the crap out of me. Bill McKibben and Jim Hansen are … [Read more...]
More reasons to hate the Koch brothers
Poor Exxon. They used to be the oil company that everybody loved to hate. This spawn of the Standard Oil breakup had it all: Obscene profits, the Exxon Valdez, a mean CEO who sneered at clean energy, blatant funding for climate deniers. But now, the new ExxonMobil is just not that special anymore. It turns out that all the big oil companies are buying elections, paying … [Read more...]
Big Oil: Obscene profits with subsidies on top
While the GOP House leadership seeks $60 billion in savings from programs including food-aid for pregnant women, public transportation and the EPA, Democrats say they can find most of that amount just from cutting oil subsidies. In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed cutting nearly $40 billion worth of handouts to the oil and gas industry. All told, … [Read more...]
How we can, and why we must, overthrow Big Oil
Since the US passed the peak of its domestic oil production in 1970 and then suffered the indignity of the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-74, policy wonks and advocacy groups alike have presented no shortage of sensible plans to start breaking America's dependence on oil. But every attempt to implement a rational energy policy has failed because because the major oil companies … [Read more...]