Republican Fix on Climate Science Denial and Oil Industry Funding

Republican Fix on Climate Science Denial and Oil Industry Funding

Donald Trump complains that the election is fixed, but he is completing the fix on climate science denial in order to receive oil industry contributions.

Republicans candidates and office holders are clearly required to deny climate science and climate change in order to get at least a billion dollars of oil and coal industry contributions. The Koch brothers have a PAC that is putting $750 million dollars into Republican races to obtain climate science denial.

According to open secrets.org, in 2012, oil and gas interests contributed $80 million.  So far in 2016, they are at $64 million.  Lobbying totals yearly have been about $144 million.  Most of the contributions are to Republicans.  The average House member gets about $70,000.  The average Senator gets over $100,000 from oil and gas interests.  Since most of the funding goes to Republican congressmen, the average per Republican is about double the average over all congressmen.

In 2015-16, Koch Industries leads the oil and gas contributors with $8.4 million.  Chevron is next with $4.1 million, and Stewart and Stevenson, an equipment source for the oil and gas industry, are third with $3.8 million.

One of the main reason to deny climate science and global warming is that there is so much fossil fuel remaining, including vast recent tar sands and shale oil discoveries, that to avoid disastrous global warming and climate effects, much of the fuels must remain in the ground.  Clean renewable and nuclear energy must eventually replace CO2 producing fossil fuels.  This leaves trillions of dollars of fossil fuel resources untouchable.

The suit against Exxon was that it knew about climate change for decades and used it for company planning, at the same time hiding it from investors by funding climate science denial sources.  If investors knew that much oil would remain entrapped forever, the value of the company would decline.

American Congressmen are not dumb. Most have college educations and many have law degrees. They did not graduate college without taking science courses. They did not get into law schools without getting good grades, especially in science courses that require reasoning with laws. Their denial of any science, such as climate science, is essentially an enforced choice.

Trump’s economic advisors, who are hedge fund and even oil company billionaires, are running or investing in many companies whose operations are based on science. They have a wealth of scientific advice available to them. The Koch brothers even have degrees in chemical engineering from MIT. Exxon Mobil was caught with its emails down as having planned for global warming to allow drilling and oil transport in the Arctic. The so-called scientists who oppose climate science are often bought and paid for by the oil companies. It is a travesty of public trust by the oil billionaires and fossil fuel companies to entrap the public and the Republican legislators into professing denial of climate science.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
This entry was posted in 2016 Election, Climate Change, Coal, Donald Trump, Economies, Electric Power, Fossil Fuel Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Oil, Politics. Bookmark the permalink.

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