Humanity Will Pay The Price For Esso's Greed.

On the same day that experts warned that the Greenland ice sheet is melting and that climate change is now unstoppable, with possibly devastating implications for the future of mankind, Exxon Mobil profits were reported to be up by 42% to $36 billion, a new world record.

That’s $99 million a day, or $4 million an hour, or $68,493 a minute, or $1,142 a second.

This makes the gas and oil giant the 49th biggest economy on Earth, with profits ahead of the gross national product of some 125 countries.

Bigger than Nigeria or Finland or Peru or New Zealand for instance. Bigger than Uzbekistan, Lithuania, Kuwait or Slovenia. Bigger than Ethiopia, Croatia, Guatemala or Ecuador. Bigger than most countries on the planet.

Just to get this into perspective: Nigeria has a population of nearly 140 million. In other words, a company employing 126,000, with a Board of Directors consisting of twelve people, has more income, more power, more economic clout than the entire population of Nigeria. Add to this the fact that the company directly profits from the continued exploitation of oil and gas resources, one of the main causes of global warming, and we begin to see the source of at least some of our problems.

Exxon Mobil trades in the UK as Esso, by the way, just so we know what we’re talking about.

Actually, when I say that the continued exploitation of oil and gas resources is one of the main causes of global warming, there appears to be some debate on the matter. Does global warming exist? The overwhelming majority of climate scientists are firmly convinced that it does exist. All the evidence points to this conclusion.

Exxon Mobil, on the other hand, spent $8 million last year funding various groups whose main aim was to prove that it doesn’t exist.

In other words, there is no real debate. The consensus is that climate change is upon us, whether we like it or not. Exxon Mobil just spent $8 million muddying the waters a bit.

I wonder why?

Friends of the Earth have estimated that this single company is directly responsible for 5% of global, man-made, climate changing carbon dioxide emissions since the mid-19th century.

It is also one of the companies lobbying to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil exploration.

Meanwhile, the head of an intergovernmental panel on climate change, Dr. Ragendra Pachauri, said recently that the world has about a ten-year window to make very deep cuts in our carbon fuel use, if, as he put it, “humanity is to survive.” Scientists have already documented that the deep oceans are warming, the glaciers are melting, the icecaps are falling apart. We're seeing freak weather and an increase in violent storms. We’re seeing a change in the timing of the seasons.

All of this is from one degree of warming. Predictions are that by the next century warming will be in the region of three to ten degrees.

You’d think that such facts as these would worry even the executives at Exxon Mobil.

And yet, when asked why his company fails to invest in renewable energy resources, the ex-Exxon Mobil CEO, Lee R. Raymond, said:

“We don’t invest to make social statements at the expense of shareholders returns.”

In other words: it’s profits first.

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More of Chris' works may be found at:

• C. J. Stone author of The Trials of Arthur, about a modern-day King Arthur, Fierce Dancing, The Last of the Hippies, and Housing Benefit Hill, a compilation of his Guardian Weekend columns.