Many of us are worried
about the climate crisis.
Many of us feel guilty.
Many of us want to try
to fix the problem.
But where should
we focus our efforts?
Well, here's one
place we could start.
New research commissionned
by the Guardian has shown
that just 20 fossil fuel companies
are directly related
to more than a third
of the greenhouse gases
that have been wrecking our
climate since industry
became aware of the risks,
in the 1960s.
So however much we care
about our personal consumption,
what really matters is
political action
to rein in the oil,
gas and coal companies.
Among privately owned firms,
Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell
are high on the list of climate polluters,
which is topped by
Saudi Aramco and Gazprom.
They and 14 other companies
have drilled and pumped out
the equivalent of 480 billion tonnes
of carbon dioxide since 1965.
Billions of us around the world
use their products every day
to fuel our cars or heat our homes.
So we're all
partly responsible.
But the fossil fuel industry
was warned about the risks
a long time ago
yet it has funded campaigns
since then to spread doubt
about climate science.
In 1965 the US president's
Scientific Advisory Committee
warned that fossil fuels
were causing more carbon dioxide
which was altering the air
on a global scale with
huge risks for humankind.
Soon after that,
the head of the American
Petroleum Institute
warned the industry that
“Time [was] running out"
to deal with this.
In 1981, an internal Exxon
memo warns
“it is distinctly possible”
that CO2 emissions
from the company’s 50-year plan
“will later produce effects
which will indeed be catastrophic
(at least for a substantial
fraction of the earth’s population).”
But then, 20 years later,
Exxon decided to take out
an ad in the New York Times
and deliberately tried to
play down the connection.
Skip forward another two decades,
and Chevron, Exxon, and BP
each donate more than
half a million dollars
to the inauguration campaign
of Donald Trump,
perhaps the world's most
famous climate denier.
Given the sheer weight
of scientific knowledge
and public concern,
you’d think the petroleum industry
would be trying to pull
less oil and
gas out of the ground.
But you’d be wrong.
They’re actually planning
to pump out more, which would destroy
any chance we have
of keeping global
temperatures
at a safe level.
So reining in our dependence
on fossil fuels, and ramping up
the transition to renewable energy
has never been more important
both for us and
countless generations to come.
But that's not just about
personal choices.
It’s about political action.
