Apparently, the fossil-fuel industry's strategy is to convince the American people that we should just burn all the way through the last of our oil and coal reserves.
The American Republican Party is the last political bastion of the fossil fuel industry - now so in tow to the fossil fuel industry that it cannot face up to the realities of carbon pollution and climate change.
About half of all potential future global warming emissions from United States fossil fuels lie in oil, gas and coal buried beneath our public lands, controlled by the federal government and owned by the American people - and not yet leased to private industry for fuel extraction.
Of course methane is a fossil fuel, but as long as it is burned efficiently and fugitive emissions of methane gas are minimised, it is a less harmful fossil fuel than coal and oil and is an important way-station on the global journey towards low-carbon energy.
We promote new fossil fuel infrastructure, from airport expansion and coal mines in the U.K. to oil pipelines in the U.S. Investments are meant to build and secure our shared future - but all these fossil fuel investments are directly fuelling the climate crisis that threatens to undermine that future.
When you think about the current present value of the fossil fuel reserves that are on the books, the current fossil fuel companies, the last time that that much wealth was at stake was when the South fought the Civil War.
There is an urgent need to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, dramatically reduce wasted energy, and significantly shift our power supplies from oil, coal, and natural gas to wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources.
We cannot afford to burn the vast majority of known fossil fuel reserves.
Most Republicans are not prepared to stand up to the fossil fuel industry because they get a lot of their campaign funds from the Koch brothers and other people in the fossil fuel industry. That tells me why we have to reform our campaign finance system.
With only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, oil isn't enough. This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy. A strategy that's cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.
We're clearly coming to the end of the fossil fuel era. We have the technology to shift to renewable energy, we have the will of the people. The only thing that's keeping us back is the fossil fuel industry's hold on our political system. That's what we need to change.
Instead of giving preference to oil imported from overseas, Washington should look to North American coal, oil shale and oil sands, all of which provide an affordable, abundant and alternative source of fuel. In addition to increasing cost effectiveness options for the government, it will also increase America's energy security.
The fossil fuel industry will inevitably have to experience major cutbacks and, over the longer term, near-total demise. There is simply no choice in the matter if we believe the research produced by climate scientists. The profits of oil, coal, and natural gas companies will have to yield to the imperative of sustaining life on earth.
If your child gets asthma, the fossil fuel industry doesn't pay. Or if there's a natural disaster, the bill is paid by the taxpayer, not the fossil fuel company.
If you say the world is totally dependent on oil in many parts of the world, coal and certainly natural gas, we are fossil fuel, that is modernity, modernity has two elements: individualism and oil. Now to move toward a more enlightened sustainable world, we have to transform with lots of technology, with even differences in the way we see the world and how we live in the world. That`s going to take decades.
The power the fossil fuel industry exerts over Congress is polluting American democracy, the propaganda it emits through its front groups is polluting our public discourse, and, of course, its carbon emissions are polluting our atmosphere and oceans - it's a triple whammy and a disgrace.
Regardless of how you feel about peak oil or global warming, the increased use of natural gas is a positive thing because it is being found at a rate that is faster than that of new oil reserves, it is relatively abundant, and our reserves are longer lived than our oil reserves... It does not get the kind of attention it deserves.