So, you think there should be new regulations put on oil production companies so they don’t raise prices? Or are you calling for the full nationalization of the oil and gas industry? You must be, because for it to be Biden’s fault, he must control it somehow. I wonder, do you think he sets oil prices? Production schedules? Supply or demand? Controls OPEC or Russia?
Biden released oil reserves to mitigate the price gouging (didn’t work), but without nationalizing oil and gas, there’s little more he could do (maybe threaten to halt all new drilling permits until those already issued are used, but good luck). You would pretend cancelling Keystone XL raised prices, it wasn’t operational yet.

Just ask Texas how privatization and deregulation is working for them. Analysts say they aren’t better prepared for extreme weather than last year because there’s no requirement for them to upgrade, so statewide power outages and multiple deaths can be expected, and the hits to the economy that come with shutting the state down for weeks.

The largest oil and gas companies made a combined $174bn in profits in the first nine months of the year as gasoline prices climbed in the US.
Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP among group of 24 who resisted calls to increase production but doled out shareholder dividends and bought back stock.
The oil and gas industry has fought Joe Biden’s attempts to pause new drilling permits on federal land, despite its unwillingness to expand operations in order to reap the returns of costlier oil and the fact the industry currently sits on 14m acres of already leased land that isn’t being used, an area about double the size of Massachusetts.
“It’s not the government that is banning them from drilling more,” said Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James. “It’s pressure from their shareholders.”


Soooooo…..nationalize? Gas in Venezuela is $.12 a gallon. If not, blame capitalism, not Biden, for your “high” gas price. (Try gas prices in Europe where gas isn’t subsidized, now those are high gas prices).

@bcglorf Here's a tome for you....


It's certainly not (the only way). Converting to green energy sources stimulates the economy, it doesn't bankrupt it, and it makes it more efficient in the future thanks to lower energy costs. My solar system paid for itself in 8 years, giving me an expected 12 years of free electricity and hot water. Right wingers would tell you it will never pay for itself....utter bullshit.

Every gap in our knowledge I've ever seen that we have filled with data has made the estimates worse. Every one. Every IPCC report has raised the severity and shrunk the timeframe from the last report....but you stand on the last one that they admit was optimistic and incomplete by miles as if it's the final word and a gold standard. It just isn't. They themselves admit this.

The odds of catastrophic climate change is 100% in the next 0 years for many who have already died or been displaced by rising seas or famine or disease or lack of water or...... and that goes for all humanity in the next 50 because those who survive displacement will be refugees on the rest's doorsteps. Don't be ridiculous. If we found an asteroid guaranteed to hit in the next 50-100 years, and any possible solutions take a minimum of 50 years to implement with no surprises, and only then assuming we solve the myriad of technical issues we haven't solved in the last 100 years of trying and only if we can put the resources needed into a solution, not considering the constantly worsening barrage of smaller asteroids and the effects on resources and civilisation, we would put all our resources into solutions. That's where I think we are, except we still have many claiming there's no asteroid coming and those that already hit are fake news....including those in the highest offices making the decisions.

Every IPCC report has vastly underestimated their projections, they tell you they are doing it, only including data they are certain of, not new measurements or functions. They do not fill in the gaps, they leave them empty. Gaps like methane melt that could soon be more of a factor than human CO2, and 100% out of our control.

The AR5 report is so terrible, it was lambasted from day one as being incredibly naive and optimistic, and for not including what was then new data. Since its release, those complaints have been proven to be correct, in 5 years since its release ice melt rates have accelerated 60 years by their model. I wouldn't put a whit of confidence in it, it was terrible then, near criminally bad today. I'll take NOAA's estimates based on much newer science and guess that they, like nearly all others in the past, also don't know everything and are also likely underestimating wildly. Even the IPCC AR5 report includes the possibility of 3 ft rise by 2100 under their worst case (raised another 10% in this 2019 report, and expected to rise again by 2021, their next report), and their worst case models show less heat and melting than we are measuring already and doesn't include natural feedbacks because they can't model them accurately yet so just left them out (but noted they will have a large effect, but it's not quantitative yet so not included). Long and short, their worst case scenario is likely optimistic as reality already outpaces their worst case models.

Again, the economy benefits from new energy production in multiple ways. Exxon is not the global economy.

It took 100 years for the impact of our pollution to be felt by most (some still ignore it today). Even the short term features like methane take 25+ years to run their cycles, so what we do today takes that long to start working.

If people continue to drag their feet and challenge the science with supposition, insisting the best case scenario of optimistic studies are the worst we should plan for, we're doomed....and what they're doing is actually worse than that. The power plants built or under construction today put us much higher than 1.5 degree rise by 2100 with their expected emissions without ever building 1 more, and we're building more. Without fantastic scientific breakthroughs that may never come, breakthroughs your plan relies on for our survival, what we've already built puts us beyond the IPCC worst case in their operational lifetimes.

There's a problem with that...I'm good with using real science to identify them without political obstruction and confusion, the difference being we need to be prepared for decisive action once they're identified. So far, we have plans to develop those actions, but that's it. In the event of a "surprise" asteroid, we're done. We just hope they're rare.
This one, however, is an asteroid that is guaranteed to hit if we do nothing, some say hit in 30 years, some say 80. Only morons say it won't hit at all, do nothing.
Climate change is an asteroid/comet in our orbit that WILL hit earth. We are already being hit by ejecta from it's coma causing disasters for millions. You suggest we don't start building a defense until we are certain of it's exact tonnage and the date it will crash to earth because it's expensive and our data incomplete. That plan leaves us too late to change the trajectory. The IPCC said we need to deploy our system in 8-10 years to have a 30-60% chance of changing the trajectory under perfect conditions....you seem to say "wait, that's expensive, let's give it some time and ignore that deadline". I say even just a continent killer is bad enough to do whatever it takes to stop, because it's cheaper with less loss of life and infinitely less suffering than a 'wait and see exactly when it will kill us, we might have space elevators in 10 years so it might only kill 1/2 of us and the rest might survive that cometary winter in space (yes at exponentially higher cost and loss of life and ecology than developing the system today, but that won't be on my dime so Fuck it).' attitude.

The Exxon Valdez, in miniature.

The crazy thing is i think the Russians got the man they really wanted in Tillerson.

Exon and Russia have untold billions of dollars tied up in sanctions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/world/europe/rex-tillersons-company-exxon-has-billions-at-stake-over-russia-sanctions.html?_r=0

I give it a year, TOPS, before their greed 'trumps' any concerns over perceived impropriety .

@worm
thanks for your input ron swanson!

your comment exemplifies that our own,personal politics tend to reside somewhere in the middle.
that is where the majority of us reside,and your comment is a literal macrocosm of the federalist papers.

federal vs state power.

which is a great discussion.

but that's not what we get ..is it?

we get a circus of buffoonery,cult of celebrity,and all conversation occur in this weird "twitter speak".

the art of discussion and debate has been traded for faux outrage and sanctimonious moralizing.to even admit that an opposing political philosophy has a good idea is tantamount to treason.

compromise is now viewed as weakness,and not common sense.

the extreme left and right have hi-jacked this countries national discussion,NOT because they both have put forth such amazing ideas,but rather it makes for good television.

and i say this as a person who holds many "left" ideals.i am a fucking anarchist for fuck sakes!

donald trump winning this years surreal election cycle is only a symptom of the disease eating away at our republic.

in my opinion?
both the democrats and republicans have become monolithic institutions that no longer represent their core ideals,having sold their soul to their corporate masters.

and while i can respect the republicans for being open on who they prostituted themselves to,the democrats STILL play the "feel your pain" tripe while simultaneously giving exxon a tugjob under the table.

the extreme left and right do not represent the majority.
and they should be ridiculed and shamed for their utter lack of anything resembling a good idea.

let's kill them.

median income is up, but unfortunately all of the gains (for the last 40 years) have gone straight to the top; don't worry though the molester in chief is sure to fix this with his goldman sachs and exxon buddies

And here we are, just about 2017, and 'freethinkers' are still convincing themselves that sending 100 million tons of carbon up into the sky every day does nothing to the air, water and soil carbon sinks. And to suggest it does and also own a car or fly in a plane? You're a degenerate hypocrite.

Very glad you pointed this out, as the international cabal of hundreds of thousands of researchers (people who literally earn their livings by questioning established norms and developing new ideas and solutions, and are therefor pretty hard to keep toeing the line in this cabal) will certainly be angry at Neil deGrasse Tyson for owning that nice car, and flying in airplanes, and no doubt eating burgers while wearing clothes made in China. We, the cabal, definitely need to chat with Neil, as that luxory sedan only get 19 city/29 highway,... with such hypocritical actions, he may as well be handing out pamphlets telling people about our secret anthropogenic global warming cabal, and its goals to, um, regulate the human contributions to the warming of our one habitable planet.

Sorry I lost the snark there at the end because I forget what reason the conspiracy theorists give for 'AGW shills'... is it somethng to do with a moral argument against Exxon and other energy mega companies? Again, sorry, would appreciate help with that part.

Exxon's executives will die of old age before we can make the proper changes to see that they get their just deserts. It'll take decades to change American law and society enough to prosecute these greedy murderers.

Sure sounds like it's time to dump any Exxon stock you might have before it pulls an Enron.
*quality information

Verizon Chipotle Exxon Merger (Parks and Rec) has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

i am not a climatologist nor a scientist,but i play one on an MMORPG and therefore my opinion matters.
taking offers now to the highest bidder!
i shall easily sell my credentials now for drugs and hookers later!
c'mon EXXON! papa needs a new summer home in the hamptons!


*promote

WHAT?!? She's a daily mail columnist/journalist. What she isn't is a reporter or investigator. She is exactly the kind of 'journalist' the right wing has put forth for decades now.

I must admit some confusion that you now seem to support the idea of AGW and seem to imply the scientists are right and industry is not.

I really wish someone would pipe pure CO2 into the board meeting of Exxon, because they call it life it should make them healthier, right?

EDIT: Oh, there's a surprise. Trancie downvoted my comment. Odd, that's NEVER happened before.

A Physicist who does op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal regarding climate change with no peer reviewed work on the subject and whos foundation (Marshall Institute where he is the Chairman of the Board of Directors) has received a shit ton of money from Exxon.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_C._Marshall_Institute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Marshall_Institute

Call me skeptical.

Economic disobedience in the form of collective boycotts would be the fastest way to show the masses how much power they actually wield in this illusion created for us, a system that serves a handful of gangsters.

Try it on a huge corp like Mc Donalds or Exxon for 3 months and watch how fast the quarterly numbers force their compliance with the new, not-a-robot demands.

the CEO's message is quite telling (somewhere here already)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brabeck-Letmathe

Peter Braebeck, Austrian Jew, b. 1944, worked extensively in S.A. (his wealthy connections most likely allowed his family to flee Germany after the war) in various marketing and managing oif food concerns, well-known for his human rights abuses or dis-concern, a real piece a work this one and Nestle Nazi's still own a huge chunk of the world market due primarily to the wealth they absconded with and amassed during the Nazi regime.

The same CEO sits on the Board of Directors of Credit Suisse Group, L'Oréal, and Exxon Mobil.

Nestle is complete shit, bottle your own water.