http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/201...icance-of-a-record-high-in-antarctic-sea-ice/The world is losing ice overall
The two poles are in quite different situations. While the Antarctic is a land mass surrounded by ocean, the Arctic is an ocean with land around the outside.
Arctic sea ice is in long term decline, reaching a record low in September 2012. Source: NSIDC
In September 2012, Arctic sea ice reached its lowest extent since satellite records began in 1979. While Antarctic sea ice is growing by on average 165,000 square kilometres per decade, this is dwarfed by the loss of an average of 480,000 square kilometres per decade from the Arctic.
The Times and Saturday's Daily Mail articles both pick up on this comparison, the latter featuring a quote by polar scientist Walt Meier explaining why Antarctic ice growth is less significant a measure than declining Arctic sea ice coverage when assessing climate change. He says:
"While the Arctic has seen large decreases through the year in all sectors, the Antarctic has a very regional signal - with highs in some areas and lows in others."
In other words, there are fewer factors affecting ice behaviour in the Arctic, so what's happening there can be more directly linked to long term changes in ocean warming.
global warming
- Thread starter Stu
- Start date
My understanding is that its not just the square meterage of ice that matters but the thickness of the ice
Some people believe we are actually seeing cooling as a pre-cursor to an ice age!
What do you think about that theory?
Personally my biggest concern is about chemtrailing which i see as the most immediate threat facing us so what do you think about all the carbon dioxide that the chemtrail spraying must be belching out into the atmosphere, not to mention the toxic particulates that they are spraying?
[video=youtube;F58HbYTbKnU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F58HbYTbKnU[/video]
Some people believe we are actually seeing cooling as a pre-cursor to an ice age!
What do you think about that theory?
Personally my biggest concern is about chemtrailing which i see as the most immediate threat facing us so what do you think about all the carbon dioxide that the chemtrail spraying must be belching out into the atmosphere, not to mention the toxic particulates that they are spraying?
[video=youtube;F58HbYTbKnU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F58HbYTbKnU[/video]
https://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq/how-much-has-global-temperature-risen-last-100-yearsGlobal average temperature since 1880. This graph from NOAA shows the annual trend in average global air temperature in degrees Celsius, through December 2013. For each year, the range of uncertainty is indicated by the gray vertical bars. The blue line tracks the changes in the trend over time
http://www.joabbess.com/category/acid-ocean/http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-ocean-acidification/
Supposedly, temperature increase is accelerating in relation to increased CO2 release. Not causation, but when you consider how CO2 traps heat, it is possible. As for actual levels and concentrations, I'm not well enough versed to have an opinion on this specific point.
Consensus: 97% of climate scientists agree
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
Temperature data from four international science institutions. All show rapid warming in the past few decades and that the last decade has been the warmest on record.
Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities,1and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources.
[h=3]AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES[/h]
- [h=4]Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations[/h] "Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver." (2009)2
It became a liberal issue because its spear headed by liberals. The thought process is, it doesnt matter if its real or not. Taking steps to do what we say will reverse it is good for the environment. So a lie that leads to a good thing doesn't matter if its a lie or not. In the real world where real people breathe real air though, of course the truth matters.
Global warming is happening. Conservatives have been talking about it for a decade before liberals had any thoughts on the matter. With exception of Al Gore who at the time was screaming about a coming ice age of course. Conservatives were concerned because of the effect global warming would have on the worlds economies along with Americas. The only disputes started happening when liberals took it under their wing to promote their agenda. So we can say accurately the man made global warming speculation is 100% an uninformed liberal idea while global warming is a fact on its own.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/nasa-w...lanetary-cooling-spell-straight-ahead/5318725
Those crazy Nasa folks. Crashing spacecraft because they use the wrong math. Dont know if they are coming or going. http://www.globalresearch.ca/nasa-w...lanetary-cooling-spell-straight-ahead/5318725
But seriously this is getting ridiculous. While doing the things they say are needed to help reverse their little fantasy isnt a bad thing over all, basing it all on a lie is.
What if global warming is really being caused because the earth is inching a little closer to the sun in its orbit every year? Think about it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ts-to-nasa-earth-science-budget-draw-protest/[h=1]Massive cuts proposed to NASA earth science budget draw protest[/h] By Jason Samenow May 1
Update/clarification at 9:50 a.m. Friday: The Planetary Society, which the House Science Committee press release suggests supports the bill (and we reported as such at the bottom of this post), has submitted clarifying information that it actually does not.
“The Society supported language related to Planetary Science funding contained in the bill, not the full bill itself,” said Casey Dreier, director of advocacy for the Planetary Society, in an email. “This was a subtlety expressed in the press release that we want to reiterate. The Earth Science cuts prevent us from supporting the full bill.” (For more information, see: Good Planetary Support in A Flawed NASA Bill)
Original post from 4 p.m. Thursday
NASA visualization of ocean currents (NASA)
On Tuesday, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), introduced a new spending bill that would slash NASA’s earth science programs by more than $300 million. Advocates for earth science monitoring and research have voiced strong objections to this proposal.
“[W]e are extremely concerned that the reauthorization significantly cuts funding for NASA’s Earth Science Division – with cuts ranging from 18 percent, if budget caps are lifted, to 32 percent, if the caps are kept in place,” wrote Christine W. McEntee, executive director of the American Geophysical Union, in a letter to the Committee.
The committee’s press release said the bill represents an effort to “restore balance to NASA’s budget” by placing greater emphasis on space exploration – at the expense of earth science activities. The Houston Chronicle’s Eric Berger explains further in his reporting:
Hearings earlier this year in the Senate have likewise seen Republicans such as Ted Cruz saying NASA needs to refocus on its “core mission,” exploration.But Rep. Eddie Johnson (D-Tex.), the House committee’s ranking member, published an op-ed in the Hill distancing herself from the bill – which she said Republicans introduced without bipartisan negotiation. She suggested the bill is an attack on NASA’s climate science activities and fails to appreciate other critical aspects of NASA’s earth science mission, which includes supporting weather prediction, monitoring ice in the Arctic and tracking wildfires. An excerpt:
“Since the end of the last administration, we have seen a disproportionate increase in the amount of federal funds that have been allocated to the Earth science program, at the expense of, and in comparison to, exploration and space operations, planetary science, heliophysics, and astrophysics,” Cruz said.
In addition to other problems in the bill, it cuts earth science funding by more than $320 million. Earth science, of course, includes climate science. Despite the fact that in January NASA announced 2014 was likely the warmest year since 1880, it should come as no surprise that the majority wants to cut funding for climate science. Embarrassingly, just last week, every single Republican member of this committee present voted against the notion that climate change might be caused by people.AGU’s McEntee added:
Of course, NASA’s earth science program is much, much more than just climate science. The research is used by the Department of Defense to help keep our troops safe. It is used to improve electric and gas utility load forecasts and to document the variability of water available for agricultural use. It helps us understand the implications of thinning ice cover in the Arctic. It helps us predict floods, droughts and hurricanes. And it helps us track wildfires and volcanic ash. Basically, NASA’s earth science program provides critical measurements and research on planet Earth as a system and how it is changing over time.
The research performed and supported by the [NASA] division helps us understand the world we live in and provide a basis for knowledge and understanding of natural hazards, weather forecasting, air quality, and water availability, among other concerns. The applicability of these missions cannot be overstated given their impact on your constituents.Phil Plait, author of the Bad Astronomer blog at Slate, penned a tirade on the committee’s move:
“[T]he evisceration of Earth sciences means this bill is seriously, critically flawed. I have written about this again and again: Republicans in the House and Senate don’t want NASA studying Earth, because they think (or say) that global warming isn’t real, or isn’t a problem, or whatever talking point they’ve been told to use this week.Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), who represents Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, where many NASA earth scientists work, said she will fight the bill. Reported SpacePolicyOnline:
. . .
If you think I’m mad, I am.
[T]he bill that puts at risk the 10,000 jobs at Goddard and would have “huge, deep, lasting” impacts on jobs in her [Edwards’] district and at a place where she once worked: “I will not stand by quietly and enable that to happen.”The committee’s press release lists several outside organizations that have expressed support for the bill, including the Planetary Society and Commercial Spaceflight Federation.
Additional reading:
House budget authorization mark-up slashes $500 million from NASA’s Earth science programs (Houston Chronicle – Eric Berger)
A history primer: NASA’s robust Earth Science program now under attack originated in the Reagan and Bush administrations (Houston Chronicle – Eric Berger)http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ts-to-nasa-earth-science-budget-draw-protest/
I thought we might be talking about people's hearts growing... they're both natural anyway. To think we are separate from nature is hubris. I'd bet we're on God's good side, or will be anyway, however it makes sense to make the distinction between then and now.
I'd say the historical record shows that bad, I mean good, things are likely if nobody does anything about it... as to whether or not chemtrails are the answer, I'd hope that they're privy to some information that we don't have before spraying all the junk, and maybe hope to redouble their efforts on the possible clean power capable of keeping us out of the stone age. But, a world w/o money is unthinkable (how else are we going to get the lazy people living in the gutter to work...), so we must do what we can to keep poverty and the wonderful pollution (character building particulates anyway) around... I don't know why everyone complains, I think smog is pretty and children were born to have life enriching asthma and diseases. I'm almost to the point where I could get paid for this.
I should change my name to peaches&sunshine.
I'd say the historical record shows that bad, I mean good, things are likely if nobody does anything about it... as to whether or not chemtrails are the answer, I'd hope that they're privy to some information that we don't have before spraying all the junk, and maybe hope to redouble their efforts on the possible clean power capable of keeping us out of the stone age. But, a world w/o money is unthinkable (how else are we going to get the lazy people living in the gutter to work...), so we must do what we can to keep poverty and the wonderful pollution (character building particulates anyway) around... I don't know why everyone complains, I think smog is pretty and children were born to have life enriching asthma and diseases. I'm almost to the point where I could get paid for this.
I should change my name to peaches&sunshine.
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Fortunately, history has proven that most scientific minds and many "geniuses" have been... Progressives. To be a Conservative scientist, means you're no longer being a scientist; scientists question, Conservatives, by definition, don't.
Scientists didn't sit there and say, "Hey! I want this to be part of the Liberal agenda." They simply did their jobs as scientists. It wasn't until politicians went on witch hunts against science that scientists had to defend themselves. Turns out the witch hunts were spearheaded by Conservatives, which made scientists Liberals by default.
Yeah... I dont know where you are getting the facts for your opinion here. The problem with liberal scientists or liberals in general is that facts do not mean anything to them if the dont say what they want them to say. The report the UN still uses to this day to say global warming is being caused by man was proven...PROVEN to have been based on manipulated data. They were caught red handed in a lie but, that doesnt matter apparently.
Why would I as a thinking inhabitant living on this world care to say global warming isnt being caused by man if it really is? Because there is no proof. Only speculation. It like the kid standing outside a candy store eating a candy bar and someone runs up and yells thief! He taken to jail without anyone ever asking the store owner if he paid for it.
I don't believe much in global warming but I do believe climate change is occurring.
Climate change however is a natural thing to this planet, and I do believe that some governments and corporations are trying to prevent it through various means.
Personally I don't think we should mess with the weather.
I am not keen on the trails aircraft leave behind them, I feel like they taint the sky and they simply do not look natural. Add to that they burn tons of fuel, which no matter how you spin it, cannot be a good thing. Cost and environment wise, it would make more sense to switch to nuclear battery powered aircrafts. Ofc everyone is so flipped out about nuclear energy that its development has ground to a crawl but hell a nuclear propeller plane is a lot more environmental friendly. If submarines are ok, why not planes?
To me what gives some credit to the chemtrail theories is that we already know there are weather control programs, lets take a look at a relatively innocent one: Cloud seeding services. Basically what happens is that they spray a chemical onto clouds that forces them to rain earlier. Now if you control where it does not rain, then you can influence the weather, do it long enough and it will have an exponential environmental effect as time continues. We also know our governments are all over weather control technology, they've said as much over and over and over. If you look at the news, there are proposals for weather control projects all the time.
Global warming to me sounds a bit like a media campaign to scare the masses into paying more for environmentally aware products, and by scaring us to force our governments to put high cost projects into effect. That said, I cannot argue that all those filters on factory pipes aren't a good thing, hell just look at the health issues people near those factories had and by what percentage they reduced. Even though the dude who came up with global warming is super rich now, I strongly believe in unfucking our environment to the best of our abilities and making optimal use of the resources we already have. If there are ways to reduce our negative impact on the environment through humane means, then why not do it?
Climate change however is a natural thing to this planet, and I do believe that some governments and corporations are trying to prevent it through various means.
Personally I don't think we should mess with the weather.
I am not keen on the trails aircraft leave behind them, I feel like they taint the sky and they simply do not look natural. Add to that they burn tons of fuel, which no matter how you spin it, cannot be a good thing. Cost and environment wise, it would make more sense to switch to nuclear battery powered aircrafts. Ofc everyone is so flipped out about nuclear energy that its development has ground to a crawl but hell a nuclear propeller plane is a lot more environmental friendly. If submarines are ok, why not planes?
To me what gives some credit to the chemtrail theories is that we already know there are weather control programs, lets take a look at a relatively innocent one: Cloud seeding services. Basically what happens is that they spray a chemical onto clouds that forces them to rain earlier. Now if you control where it does not rain, then you can influence the weather, do it long enough and it will have an exponential environmental effect as time continues. We also know our governments are all over weather control technology, they've said as much over and over and over. If you look at the news, there are proposals for weather control projects all the time.
Global warming to me sounds a bit like a media campaign to scare the masses into paying more for environmentally aware products, and by scaring us to force our governments to put high cost projects into effect. That said, I cannot argue that all those filters on factory pipes aren't a good thing, hell just look at the health issues people near those factories had and by what percentage they reduced. Even though the dude who came up with global warming is super rich now, I strongly believe in unfucking our environment to the best of our abilities and making optimal use of the resources we already have. If there are ways to reduce our negative impact on the environment through humane means, then why not do it?
Could it be that NASA is one of the groups who have turned up evidence that undermines the theory of man made climate change and that cutting their budget is a way of clipping their wings so that they can't be so effective at providing evidence that undermines the climate change theory?
At the end of the day the globalists are wanting to use this whole climate change thing as a justification to do two things:
One is to bring in carbon taxes and the other is to implement UN 'Agenda 21' which is about cutting global population numbers and organising society in a way that fits their state-socialist agenda (ie a totalitarian central government running a planned economy)
The big money interests pushing the whole human causing climate change agenda are the very same people causing all the pollution!!!
Take for example the Rothschild family. They have created a weather prediction service so they are profiting from predicting weather; so when you take into account the fact that the weather is being manipulated by these guys through chemtrails and HAARP you can begin to see how they can profit from it; here's evelyn de rothschild (head of the family) speaking about their weatehr prediction business:
[video=youtube;83m1SPsO_Mo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83m1SPsO_Mo[/video]
Here is david rothschild travelling around the world (in private jets pumping out CO2) stirring up fears about man made climate change:
[video=youtube;hU5pxbEexRM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU5pxbEexRM[/video]
Funny how corporate polluter types like the rothschilds are so interested in so called man made climate change!
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Isn't it bizarre how the corporate network who control the US government are telling us that the climate is being changed by man and that we need to agree to their new changes they want to bring in and yet they use US taxpayers money to subsidise the biggest fossil fuel corporations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
These corporations are owned by people like the ROTHSCHILDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Contradiction much?
Hello? Hello? earth calling anyone with a functioning brain!
http://www.alternet.org/environment/us-taxpayers-subsidizing-worlds-biggest-fossil-fuel-companies
[h=1]U.S. Taxpayers Subsidizing World's Biggest Fossil Fuel Companies[/h]
Shell, ExxonMobil and Marathon Petroleum got subsidizes granted by politicians who received significant campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry, Guardian investigation reveals.
By Damian Carrington , Harry Davies / The Guardian
The world’s biggest and most profitable fossil fuel companies are receiving huge and rising subsidies from U.S. taxpayers, a practice slammed as absurd by a presidential candidate given the threat of climate change.
A Guardian investigation of three specific projects, run by Shell, ExxonMobil and Marathon Petroleum, has revealed that the subsidizes were all granted by politicians who received significant campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.
The Guardian has found that:
Sanders, with representative Keith Ellison, recently proposed an End Polluter Welfare Act, which they say would cut $135bn of US subsidies for fossil fuel companies over the next decade. “Between 2010 and 2014, the oil, coal, gas, utility, and natural resource extraction industries spent $1.8bn on lobbying, much of it in defense of these giveaways,” according to Sanders and Ellison.
In April, the president of the World Bank called for the subsidies to be scrapped immediately as poorer nations were feeling “the boot of climate change on their neck”. Globally in 2013, the most recent figures available,the coal, oil and gas industries benefited from subsidies of $550bn, four times those given to renewable energy.
“Subsidies to fossil fuel companies are completely inappropriate in this day and age,” said Stephen Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, an NGO that analyses the costs of fossil fuels. OCI found in 2014 that US taxpayers were subsidizing fossil fuel exploration and production alone by $21bn a year. In 2009, President Barack Obama called on the G20 to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies but since then UN federal subsidies have risen by 45%.
“Climate science is clear that the vast majority of existing reserves will have to stay in the ground,” Kretzmann said. “Yet our government spends many tens of billions of our tax dollars – every year – making it more profitable for the fossil fuel industry to produce more.”
Tax credits, defined as a subsidy by the World Trade Organization, are a key route of support for the fossil fuel industry. Using the subsidy tracker tool created by the Good Jobs First group, the Guardian examined some of the biggest subsidies for specific projects.
Shell’s proposed $4bn plant in Pennsylvania is set to benefit from tax credits of $66m a year for 25 years. Shell has bought the site and has 10 supply contracts in place lasting up to 20 years, including from fracking companies extracting shale gas in the Marcellus shale field. The deal was struck by the then Republican governor, Tom Corbett, who received over $1m in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry. According to Guardian analysis of data compiled by Common Cause Pennsylvania, Shell have spent $1.2m on lobbying in Pennsylvania since 2011.
A Shell spokesman said: “Shell supports and endorses incentive programs provided by state and local authorities that improve the business climate for capital investment, economic expansion and job growth. Shell would not have access to these incentive programs without the support and approval from the representative state and local jurisdictions.”
ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge refinery is the second-largest in the US. Since 2011, it has been benefitting from exemptions from industrial taxes, worth $118.9m over 10 years, according to the Good Jobs First database. The Republican governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal has expressed his pride in attracting investment from ExxonMobil. In state election campaigns between 2003 and 2013, he received 231 contributions from oil and gas companies and executives totaling $1,019,777, according to a list compiled by environmental groups.
A spokesman for ExxonMobil said: “ExxonMobil will not respond to Guardian inquiries because of its lack of objectivity on climate change reporting demonstrated by its campaign against companies that provide energy necessary for modern life, including newspapers.”
The Guardian is running a campaign asking the world’s biggest health charities, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, to sell their fossil fuel investments on the basis that it is misguided to invest in companies dedicated to finding more oil, gas and coal when current reserves are already several times greater than can be safely burned. Many philanthropic organizations have already divested from fossil fuels, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund whose wealth derives from Standard Oil, which went on to become ExxonMobil.
In Ohio, Marathon Petroleum is benefitting from a 15-year tax credit for retaining 1,650 jobs and a 10-year tax credit for creating 100 new jobs. The subsidy is worth $78.5m, according to the Good Jobs First database. “I think Marathon always wanted to be here,” Republican governor John Kasich said in 2011. “All we’re doing is helping them.” In 2011,
Kasich was named as the top recipient of oil and gas donations in Ohio, having received $213, 519. The same year Kasich appointed Marathon Petroleum’s CEO to the board of Jobs Ohio, a semi-private group “in charge of the economic growth in the state of Ohio”.
A spokesman for Marathon Petroleum said: “The tax credit recognizes the enormous contribution we make to the Ohio economy through the taxes we pay and the well-paying jobs we maintain. We have more than doubled the 100 new jobs we committed to create.” The spokesman said the company paid billions of dollars in income and other taxes every year across the US.
“Big oil, gas, and coal have huge influence on politicians and governments and they get that influence the old fashioned way – they buy it,” said Kretzmann. “Through campaign finance, lobbying, advertising and superpac spending, the industry has many ways to influence candidates and government officials seeking re-election.”
He said fossil fuel subsidies were endemic in the US: “Every single well, pipeline, refinery, coal and gas plant in the country is heavily subsidized. Big Fossil’s lobbyists have done their jobs well for the last century.”
Ben Schreiber, at Friends of the Earth US, said. “There is a vibrant discussion about the best way to keep fossil fuels in the ground – from carbon taxation to divestment – but ending state and federal corporate welfare for polluters is one of the easiest places to start.”
Schreiber also defended subsidies for renewable energy: “Fossil fuels are a mature technology while renewable energy is nascent and still developing. It makes sense to subsidize technologies that are going to help solve climate change, but not to do the same for those that are causing the problem.”
Damian Carrington is the head of environment at the Guardian.
Harry Davies is Special Projects Researcher at the Guardian.
These corporations are owned by people like the ROTHSCHILDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Contradiction much?
Hello? Hello? earth calling anyone with a functioning brain!
http://www.alternet.org/environment/us-taxpayers-subsidizing-worlds-biggest-fossil-fuel-companies
[h=1]U.S. Taxpayers Subsidizing World's Biggest Fossil Fuel Companies[/h]
Shell, ExxonMobil and Marathon Petroleum got subsidizes granted by politicians who received significant campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry, Guardian investigation reveals.
By Damian Carrington , Harry Davies / The Guardian
The world’s biggest and most profitable fossil fuel companies are receiving huge and rising subsidies from U.S. taxpayers, a practice slammed as absurd by a presidential candidate given the threat of climate change.
A Guardian investigation of three specific projects, run by Shell, ExxonMobil and Marathon Petroleum, has revealed that the subsidizes were all granted by politicians who received significant campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.
The Guardian has found that:
- A proposed Shell petrochemical refinery in Pennsylvania is in line for $1.6bn (£1bn) in state subsidy, according to a deal struck in 2012 when the company made an annual profit of $26.8bn.
- ExxonMobil’s upgrades to its Baton Rouge refinery in Louisiana are benefitting from $119m of state subsidy, with the support starting in 2011, when the company made a $41bn profit.
- A jobs subsidy scheme worth $78m to Marathon Petroleum in Ohio began in 2011, when the company made $2.4bn in profit.
Sanders, with representative Keith Ellison, recently proposed an End Polluter Welfare Act, which they say would cut $135bn of US subsidies for fossil fuel companies over the next decade. “Between 2010 and 2014, the oil, coal, gas, utility, and natural resource extraction industries spent $1.8bn on lobbying, much of it in defense of these giveaways,” according to Sanders and Ellison.
In April, the president of the World Bank called for the subsidies to be scrapped immediately as poorer nations were feeling “the boot of climate change on their neck”. Globally in 2013, the most recent figures available,the coal, oil and gas industries benefited from subsidies of $550bn, four times those given to renewable energy.
“Subsidies to fossil fuel companies are completely inappropriate in this day and age,” said Stephen Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, an NGO that analyses the costs of fossil fuels. OCI found in 2014 that US taxpayers were subsidizing fossil fuel exploration and production alone by $21bn a year. In 2009, President Barack Obama called on the G20 to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies but since then UN federal subsidies have risen by 45%.
“Climate science is clear that the vast majority of existing reserves will have to stay in the ground,” Kretzmann said. “Yet our government spends many tens of billions of our tax dollars – every year – making it more profitable for the fossil fuel industry to produce more.”
Tax credits, defined as a subsidy by the World Trade Organization, are a key route of support for the fossil fuel industry. Using the subsidy tracker tool created by the Good Jobs First group, the Guardian examined some of the biggest subsidies for specific projects.
Shell’s proposed $4bn plant in Pennsylvania is set to benefit from tax credits of $66m a year for 25 years. Shell has bought the site and has 10 supply contracts in place lasting up to 20 years, including from fracking companies extracting shale gas in the Marcellus shale field. The deal was struck by the then Republican governor, Tom Corbett, who received over $1m in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry. According to Guardian analysis of data compiled by Common Cause Pennsylvania, Shell have spent $1.2m on lobbying in Pennsylvania since 2011.
A Shell spokesman said: “Shell supports and endorses incentive programs provided by state and local authorities that improve the business climate for capital investment, economic expansion and job growth. Shell would not have access to these incentive programs without the support and approval from the representative state and local jurisdictions.”
ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge refinery is the second-largest in the US. Since 2011, it has been benefitting from exemptions from industrial taxes, worth $118.9m over 10 years, according to the Good Jobs First database. The Republican governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal has expressed his pride in attracting investment from ExxonMobil. In state election campaigns between 2003 and 2013, he received 231 contributions from oil and gas companies and executives totaling $1,019,777, according to a list compiled by environmental groups.
A spokesman for ExxonMobil said: “ExxonMobil will not respond to Guardian inquiries because of its lack of objectivity on climate change reporting demonstrated by its campaign against companies that provide energy necessary for modern life, including newspapers.”
The Guardian is running a campaign asking the world’s biggest health charities, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, to sell their fossil fuel investments on the basis that it is misguided to invest in companies dedicated to finding more oil, gas and coal when current reserves are already several times greater than can be safely burned. Many philanthropic organizations have already divested from fossil fuels, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund whose wealth derives from Standard Oil, which went on to become ExxonMobil.
In Ohio, Marathon Petroleum is benefitting from a 15-year tax credit for retaining 1,650 jobs and a 10-year tax credit for creating 100 new jobs. The subsidy is worth $78.5m, according to the Good Jobs First database. “I think Marathon always wanted to be here,” Republican governor John Kasich said in 2011. “All we’re doing is helping them.” In 2011,
Kasich was named as the top recipient of oil and gas donations in Ohio, having received $213, 519. The same year Kasich appointed Marathon Petroleum’s CEO to the board of Jobs Ohio, a semi-private group “in charge of the economic growth in the state of Ohio”.
A spokesman for Marathon Petroleum said: “The tax credit recognizes the enormous contribution we make to the Ohio economy through the taxes we pay and the well-paying jobs we maintain. We have more than doubled the 100 new jobs we committed to create.” The spokesman said the company paid billions of dollars in income and other taxes every year across the US.
“Big oil, gas, and coal have huge influence on politicians and governments and they get that influence the old fashioned way – they buy it,” said Kretzmann. “Through campaign finance, lobbying, advertising and superpac spending, the industry has many ways to influence candidates and government officials seeking re-election.”
He said fossil fuel subsidies were endemic in the US: “Every single well, pipeline, refinery, coal and gas plant in the country is heavily subsidized. Big Fossil’s lobbyists have done their jobs well for the last century.”
Ben Schreiber, at Friends of the Earth US, said. “There is a vibrant discussion about the best way to keep fossil fuels in the ground – from carbon taxation to divestment – but ending state and federal corporate welfare for polluters is one of the easiest places to start.”
Schreiber also defended subsidies for renewable energy: “Fossil fuels are a mature technology while renewable energy is nascent and still developing. It makes sense to subsidize technologies that are going to help solve climate change, but not to do the same for those that are causing the problem.”
Damian Carrington is the head of environment at the Guardian.
Harry Davies is Special Projects Researcher at the Guardian.
Hi Lerxts
You and me agree on a fair amount of stuff, though not everything, but i've read your posts for enough years to know that in your heart you mean well
Can i just say that the whole liberal versus conservative narrative in the US is a whole load of horse manure, manufactured by the corporate media to keep myou all divided and fighting amongst yourselves
The truth is that the corporate interests control both the 'liberal' AND the 'conservative' political parties so no matter which you vote for they will both push the man made climate agenda and the NWO agenda behind it, because they both answer to the same monied interests
The same money feeds both the clinton and the bush political camps for example!
When you had kerry v's bush both candidates were members of the same lifelong secret society (the skull and bones!)
Scientists are dependent on money and corrupt scientists will provide corrupt science for money. Just because someone is a scientist does not mean they or their research is credible.
So i think its time to drop all this talk of 'liberals' etc as the so called 'conservative' republican party is also controlled by the same monied interests
Wake up america!