{"id":2895,"date":"2023-07-03T08:32:57","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T12:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/?p=2895"},"modified":"2023-07-03T08:32:57","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T12:32:57","slug":"big-oils-summer-of-deception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/big-oils-summer-of-deception\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Oil\u2019s Summer of Deception"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Halfway through 2023 and it\u2019s clear that climate changes are triggering catastrophes across the globe.  Incredible storms, wildfires, and floods are hammering people everywhere.  There has been a record-breaking cyclone in southeastern Africa<\/a>, an unusually intense typhoon<\/a> in the Pacific, wildfires in Chile and Canada<\/a>, unbearable heatwaves across Asia<\/a>, the southern areas of the United States<\/a>, as well as parts of Europe<\/a>, and flooding from extreme rainfalls in Europe<\/a> and Africa<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And things are expected to get worse.  In the most recent report <\/a>released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in March, environmental experts predict that at the world\u2019s current rate of collective inaction against the climate crisis, we could be facing 1.5\u00b0C temperature rise by the beginning of the 2030s.  As such, extreme weather events would increase in frequency and strength. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless the world acts far more rapidly, the head of the United Nations has bluntly stated<\/a>,  \u201cHalf of humanity is in the danger zone, from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires.  No nation is immune.  Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction.  We have a choice.  Collective action or collective suicide.  It is in our hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No nation, no location will be immune.  As Americans in the northeast and eastern coastline choke their way through a second round of smoke from out-of-control Canadian wildfires (triggered<\/a> by climate change), it\u2019s important to note that this is just another environmental \u201chit\u201d resulting from a rapidly heating planet \u2013 heating that is primarily the result<\/a> of human activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a recent analysis<\/a> by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. has sustained 357 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages\/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion.  The total cost exceeded $2.54 trillion<\/strong>.<\/strong>  So far in 2023 (as of June 8th<\/sup>), there have been nine confirmed weather\/climate disaster events to affect the United States, with each loss exceeding $1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Canadian wildfires are the most incredible seen in North America.  In just one day<\/em> this past June, it was reported<\/a> that more forest acreage burned in Canada than burned in all of California last year<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet here in New York, the oil lobby and their allies continue to do all they can to erode public support for action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Oil has known<\/a> for decades that the burning of fossil fuels would trigger the climate changes we are experiencing today.  Yet instead of doing the responsible thing and alerting the public, they spent millions on public relations consultants, law firms, lobbyists, and campaign contributions in a successful effort to block actions that could have minimized the global warming threat.  They laughed all the way to the bank while the planet continued to heat up as their scientists had predicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, their allies are arguing that it\u2019s too expensive to tackle the problem and that measures to act are too \u201cradical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s look at that assertion.  New York State approved a law<\/a> in 2019 that pledged to achieve \u201cnet zero\u201d greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050.  That pledge is consistent with what the world\u2019s experts have called<\/a> for.  The law set some interim goals to meet that pledge and established a task force to figure out the details. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That group met and issued its 400+ page report<\/a> late last year and it is that document that offers the blueprint for legislative and regulatory actions in New York.  Due to a lack of political will, much of what the plan called for has not been acted upon by state leaders.  One might argue that Albany has been too timid, but it is hardly radical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is radical<\/em>, however, is to undermine science in order to sell products that can push the world to the environmental brink and to advocate for policies that slow down the efforts to save civilization and the environment.  Now that\u2019s radical.  Dangerously radical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you hear that Albany has embraced a \u201cradical\u201d agenda to address climate change, remember that it originates from the oil industry and is advanced by witting or unwitting allies in the service of efforts to maximize oil companies\u2019 riches at the expense of billions of people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Know that it is they \u2013 the oil companies and their allies \u2013 that are the real radicals.  Radicals who are pushing the world to the brink.  Instead, ignore the propaganda and support efforts to eliminate fossil fuels from our economy.  That\u2019s not radical, it is simply commonsense.  In fact, it\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Halfway through 2023 and it\u2019s clear that climate changes are triggering catastrophes across the globe.  Incredible storms, wildfires, and floods are hammering people everywhere.  There has been a record-breaking cyclone in southeastern Africa, an unusually intense typhoon in the Pacific, wildfires in Chile and Canada, unbearable heatwaves across Asia, the southern areas of the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2896,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895\/revisions\/2896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}