ExxonMobil's recent purchase of oil and gas rival Pioneer Natural Resources for $59.5 billion creates the single largest producer in the biggest U.S. oilfield, according to Reuters. The completed deal injects upwards of 700,000 barrels of oil and gas into the global market every day. Lower costs and more efficient production mean that consumers will enjoy lower oil and gas prices for a decade, according to ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods.
But, at what cost? And who will carry the burden?
The merger offers an illustration of how a small handful of corporate executives make profit-driven decisions for shareholders that have long-term negative consequences for the public, the poor, future generations, and the biosphere itself, including climate change.
U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for extreme weather disasters caused by global warming to the tune of $2.6 trillion dollars, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. The frequency of disasters, their intensity, the diverse kinds of extreme weather events, and the cost in money and lives have all increased over the decades. And the trendline points to an even more extreme future of suffering and destruction.
NOAA reports that last year, 18 extreme weather events caused $165 billion in damages. This year by October, the number stood at 24 extreme weather events, each causing a minimum of $1 billion in damages.
The public cost—in disaster preparedness and recovery—is staggering and exacerbated by the continued private investments in fossil fuel extraction. The government aides and abets by permitting companies to continue the destructive practice and even by subsidizing by trillions of dollars each year oil and gas extraction. Taxpayers get screwed coming and going by subsidizing the industries that worsen climate change, and then paying disaster clean up after extreme weather events displace and destroy.
Worse still, hidden in the profit driven economic calculations and investments in fossil fuel extraction are horrible ethical positions that pit wealthy elites and mass consumers alike in the US against the world's poorest people now, and against future generations.
Pope Francis pointed out this ethical failing in his recent, "Laudate Deum," as reported in the Times. In clear and precise language, he identified the extraction and use of fossil fuels as the prime cause of rapid climate change, wrote in detail of the harsh consequences suffered by the world's poorest because of these changes, and blamed wealthy elites, corporations, and singled out the United States and the obscene level of mass consumption that goes on there, as key culprits.
It isn't only the poor that get shafted with despoiled land, polluted water, and heightened vulnerability to extreme weather disasters. Our kids, grandkids, and great grand kids get the same treatment.
ExxonMobil's investment says, in effect, future generations and the biosphere on which all life on earth depends are worth less tomorrow than private gain today. And phalanxes of company executives, investors, politicians, and consumers demanding low priced fossil fueled energy cheer the disastrous future onward.
NOAA describes this costly extreme weather as "becoming the new normal." This means unlivable heat, drought, and hunger impacting millions of the poorest, most vulnerable people in places like Yemen, Pakistan, and India, as well Alabama and Texas. It means more severe storms and rising sea levels that displace people and destroy infrastructure and private property, even in the richest areas of the world like Miami, Florida, and North Carolina's Outer Banks. It also means worsening health risks for humans and even the destruction of habitable environments for humans and animals precipitating the sixth mass extinction.
The new normal, however, is not simply happening to the people on earth because of an act of God or Nature. Rather, here is the point that readers must try to grasp, this calamity is created in large part by a small, concentrated group of decision makers who run multinational corporations like ExxonMobil and the other largest oil and gas behemoths that extract fossil fuels for mass consumption like Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Saudi Aramco, Chevron, Gazprom, Peabody Energy, and ConocoPhillips, to name a few.
The continued investments by oil and gas industry giants, like ExxonMobil, are morally bankrupt decisions carried out by a small number of people attempting to maximize profits for investors. These decisions have private benefits for a relative few, but mass negative consequences for the public and for future generations who will pay an untold sum of suffering.
Jacob L. Stump is a Senior Lecturer in DePaul University's Department of International Studies. He teaches international political economy. And writes about Appalachia sometimes.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
