ExxonMobil Throws in the Towel

By Alan Caruba

I don’t know why it was news on January 9 that the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ExxonMobil favored a carbon tax as the most efficient way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Rex W. Tillerson had signaled in June 2007 that the giant energy company would seek the path of least resistance to the global warming hoax, based as it is on the claim that greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide, were causing a massive heating of the Earth.

What Tillerson didn’t want was the United Nations Kyoto Protocol that mandated a “cap and trade” system involving a vast and fraudulent scheme of “carbon credits” being bought and sold so that industries could continue to use energy sources such as oil, coal, and natural gas in order to function.

Addressing an International Business Leaders Program in London back in 2007, he said, “It has become increasingly clear that climate change poses risks to society and ecosystems that are serious enough to warrant action by individuals, by businesses, and governments.”

Well, yes, there has been climate change. The Earth has become increasingly cooler since 1998 and even Pravda, Russia’s famed newspaper, is now predicting a coming ice age.

What really concerns Tillerson and ExxonMobil is “Achieving a uniform and predictable cost of carbon across the economy (that) will enable market mechanism to work effectively to this end.” No one likes surprises and business likes surprises even less than most people. Thus, opting for a carbon tax is the lesser of evils since everyone will be playing on a level field as opposed to the insane buying and trading of bogus carbon credits.

When you’re trying to run a huge corporation like ExxonMobil, one that depends on billions of dollars of high risk expenditures on exploration and extraction of oil, you want some semblance of stability in the marketplace. The huge run-up of the cost of a barrel of oil made for short-term profits, but it has been followed by a significant down-turn in the cost of the same barrel of oil.

Who ultimately pays that carbon tax? Not the corporation. It merely collects the tax from consumers and passes it along to the government. If you fill up your gas tank, heating your home or business, or use any of the thousands of products that have an oil derivative, you are paying the tax.

But why would you even want to pay a tax on the emission of carbon dioxide when it has absolutely nothing to do with a non-existent global warming or, as it is called these days, climate change?

Would you be a bit more bothered if the government announced it was going to tax the air, i.e., the oxygen you breath?

Carbon dioxide’s contribution to the Earth’s atmosphere is 0.038%. It plays virtually no role in determining the overall temperature of the Earth whereas common water vapor is a significant factor.

There’s a reason the incoming Obama administration wants to institute decreases in taxes. Putting more of the money that people earn back in their pockets will do more to stimulate the economy than any other factor.

Enacting a carbon tax is just a really bad idea based on a totally false assumption. ExxonMobil, if it has to make a choice will support it, but it would serve everyone’s interest far better if it just came out and explained why it is against everyone’s interest and a further drag on the economy.