Environmental Biology 12-13: Muckraking

Corruption is not new in Washington, every company on the planet has used some less than legal tactics to get lawmakers to support them. Bribery, soliciting votes, and fraud have all been used to increase the perks received by corporations from people in power. One of the largest industrial in the world is energy, with most of our energy coming from petroleum products. The American Petroleum Institute is an entity that represents the interests of Exxon, Shell, BP, and many other oil giants. They put the spin that they want people to believe on issues of huge importance, and they pay government officials to back them up. While they are not alone in these dirty practices, they sure do it a lot more than everyone else does.

The API pays officials and lobbyists such that their concerns are delegated more talking time, importance, whatever. API tells them what to say and how to say it. The APi says that oil is good for us, we aren't harming the environment, and that we'll have plenty for many decades to come. But none of that is true, they know it isn't true, but they spout it so they can keep filling their coffers regardless of the consequences to our health our planet and our future. Petroleum puts CO2, CO, and many other harmful chemicals into the atmosphere that decrease not only the lifespan of the average organsim, but of the earth as well. The average temperature of the earth has risen greatly over the past few decades, and will continue to do so unless we fix the problem. That problem is perpetuated by a society based entirely on wealth that allows companies like API to do something they shouldn't be able to do: further themselves at the cost of bringing irreparable harm to others.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that causes more sunlight to be trapped within the atmosphere, causing the temperature to rise. As this graph shows, the industrial revolution and continued abuse of fossil fuels has exponentially increased the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere to levels that have been untouched for at least the last 400, THOUSAND, years. That is a very long time. This increase in temperature causes dramatic shifts in climate across the earth, and will result in mass flooding and huge changes in what can be grown where, and what can live where as well. Entire ecosystems will be tossed around, leaving little left to survive. While we can just throw on the A/C and use filters to keep out the toxins produced by burning petroleum, we will be unable to save most livestock and nearly all edible plant life. That is the future we are heading to if we do not quell our use of fossil fuels.

The API knows all of this will happen, but they figure that if they have all the money, they'll be able to perpetuate their own existences long past ours, as we're the dumb consumer who gave them all the money just so they could kill us. We give them money, they buy parts of the government, they can then pollute more legally, and by that point we have to refill our tanks. It's good business, they know exactly what they have to do to make money. They're missing one thing though: we can't buy their product if we're all dead. It is in the API's best interest to invest in alternative energy, to continue their monopoly on energy. Why they don't I have no clue, but they better figure out what they're going to do before we've lost our environment and can never get any of it back.