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Don't Let Big Oil Lead Us To Energy Independence |
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Written by Finn McCool
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Thursday, 21 August 2008 19:31 |
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It seems like every other commercial on television is about how an oil company or oil man is working to solve the quote un quote “important” issues of our time like global warming and the exploding costs of oil and gas. They are spending millions of dollars on commercials to assure us that they are putting our best interests first and that the climate crisis is under control thanks to them. Every time I see one of these ads I cringe at the audacity of these giant corporations. They are enjoying record, windfall profits while the average person is barely able to pay for their home. Just because an oil company can pay large amounts of money to advertise that they are helping the environment doesn’t mean that they are really helping the environment. The truth is that big oil companies profit from people burning oil. They have a vested interest in keeping us driving cars and using systems that burn oil. The last thing they want to do is kill their golden goose, oil. They will do anything in their power to sustain a global economy dependent on them, Big Oil. The only reason they spend a small fraction of their huge profits on an environmental public relations campaign is to try to deceive us. They are attempting to construct an image that diametrically opposes their true identity, greedy world poisoning and polluting corporations. We can’t allow these corporate giants to blatantly trick us into apathy and inaction. We need to be able to read in between the lines to decipher the true meaning of this barrage of advertisement. We need to realize that everything ExxonMobil and Big Oil does is to increase profit.Oil companies like ExxonMobil are spending more money on their environmental advertising campaign than on ventures committed to creating oil and gas independence. The billions they are spending on advertising could actually be spent on the science and technology that we need to create to end our dependence on oil. Why does ExxonMobil need to advertise anyway? I’ve never filled up at a gas station called ExxonMobil. It seems to me that they have adopted a strategy right out of the Phillip Morris tobacco industry playbook to try to mitigate future damages by denying that they are the cause of any of our problems. The oil industry has lobbyists, elected public officials, and judges that allow them total amnesty from any accountability. The courts and our government have repeatedly lowered punitive damages in cases where oil companies have negligently destroyed ecological systems. Big Oil has been given tax breaks to move their operations overseas. Big Oil is at this very moment financing terrorist groups in the Middle East by paying Arab countries billions of dollars for the right to drill in their backyard. Big Oil profiteers are one of our largest impediments on the road to American Energy Independence. The longer we stand by and allow them to dictate when and how to solve our problems, the longer we will continue to be shackled to a global system that is destroying the earth through climate change and terrorism. We as citizens need to take collective action to debunk any attempt by Big Oil to solve our addiction to oil. This is only common sense. Don’t let the fox guard the hen house.
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