We need to make a move immediately from BLACK energy to GREEN energy. Our oil conglomerates have had it too good for too long. There is an expression that goes, “When you have them by the balls, their mind and heart follows.” Nothing is more true than this, for the oil companies profits exceed all other considerations. There is too much money to be made to give concern to the environment and long time consequences of this environmental nightmare.
What an incredible setup the oil companies have, we need gas to propel our cars, and oil for the engine, our tires are made out of oil and the roads we drive on are made of oil. All of the plastics we use, all of the toys, the plastic bags and bottles and containers and cosmetics and a million other products are made with oil. Our food is packaged in plastic or styrofoam, oil is all around us and in us, it is everywhere and it’s time to ween off the big teat of big oil. When you consider the real cost of oil you have to take into consideration environmental damage and the cost to clean up these disasters, let alone the ecological damage to fish and birds and micro biological damage to our very ecosystem, the coral reefs decline, the unbreathable air. The long term effects of our polluting our environment with BLACK energy will be devastating. Oil is poison, just take a little gasoline and poor it on a nice little patch of grass and see what happens. Everything that comes in contact with oil dies. Pesticides are made of oil, and pesticides are bad for all living things. Still we spray our foods with these pesticides because the corporate farms and bIg oil and chemical corporations have decided what’s best for us. Take into consideration that these people that are producing our food have nothing but quarterly profits in mind.

The big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell—made a total profit of nearly $1 trillion over the past decade. The three oil companies that have reported their 2010 profits nearly doubled their profits compared to 2009.

Their profits closely follow the rise in oil prices from 2005 to 2008, when the average price rose from $55 to $95 per barrel. Profits for the major oil producers rose from $13 to $21 per barrel. ExxonMobil did much better than its competitors, with profits rising from $16 to $25 per barrel.

Big Oil companies have invested a huge percentage of their profits into buying back shares of their own stock over the last few years, which helps drive up the price of the remaining shares. (read more from excerpts at americanprogress.org)

Oil companies pay less in U.S. taxes in part because they receive generous tax subsidies. These subsidies will cost the U.S. government about $3 billion next year in lost revenue and nearly $20 billion over the next five years. (read more at http://www.americanprogress.org)