Discussion: What is your opinion on Climate Change

Not sure what Exxon’s dividend has to do with anything Coog51 said.

Can one live a sustainable lifestyle physically, yet be invested in oil and gas stock?

i.e. can one own a solar powered-home, drive an EV, eat a plant-based diet, and yet be invested in oil and gas stock

Good question. One factor to consider is I believe all the traditional oil and gas companies are also investing in renewables in various ways.

There has been climate change many times in our past. You can’t point to post industrial anything as the reason when we have had climate change many times in the past.

Do we need to move past carbon based energy, yes. Pollution isn’t a good thing. But you have to find a BETTER alternative. All the freaking plastic is bad for us as well.

But with climate change, you have to look at what has caused climate change in the past.

It is staring at us.

Anyone who thinks this path is ok doesn’t get enough oxygen to their brain…

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And here is the deforestation by year. It lines up with your chart.

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One can take small measures without overanalyzing. Much like having a Diet Coke over a Coke isn’t gonna automatically make you slimmer, but it sure does help.

Intellectual purity is the enemy of the greater good.

I own a plug in hybrid and a gas guzzling Jeep. That’s what I drive, and I’m fine with that. You can have it both ways.

Just try to be aware of your environment (literally) and how you can positively or negatively impact it. That’s it.

Much of the bigger pollution isn’t as controllable by the individual. Hence the methane from farms and pollution from industrial plants, etc.

I agree, oil companies make plastics , airplane fuel , tires etc.

If people hate oil companies then be the first to for go using anything oil related and go back to the 1800s.

Climate change prob is real bc hurricanes and disasters are more common and stronger.

However maybe we need sound proof bc the confusing X factor is simply maybe it’s a normal cycle.

I tend to think it’s real but I use oil products so I’m not demonizing oil companies bc we need them. They are the most taxed industry as is and compare a gallon of gas to milk and you’ll realize how much oil is taxed.

Sound proof…Like maybe if we just logged global temps and graphed them over time?

image
1C = 1.8F for those scoring at home.

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My professor said we are in a cooling trend. I personally think we have to many people on this earth and should quit cutting down trees. We need to take better care of our oceans and land. Too much pollution.

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Yes, it being part of a normal cycle is one of the things I was trying to say in my earlier post.

The only things fighting the proof are sponsored by oil companies. Humans are polluting the earth and causing climate change. Why is something so obvious so hard to say, profit and ease of use. We needed to accept the facts a long time ago

The oil and gas industry is heavily taxed but I have no clue how that relates to your analogy.

Cry me a river before it drys up

The vast majority of that is “implicit subsidies” which is kinda nonsense imo. Certainly unrelated to tax.

Consuming fossil fuels imposes enormous environmental costs—mostly from local air pollution and damage from global warming. The vast majority of subsidies are implicit, as environmental costs are often not reflected in prices for fossil fuels, especially for coal and diesel.

What that doesn’t address is how much foreign governments tax oil. That’s just a US look. For example, Norway taxes extractive earnings at 78%, Nigeria at 84%, UK and Australia at ~50%. We don’t do that in the US.

That said, we do hit US extractive revenue with a state severance tax which can be quite significant. And we tax motor fuels (gas and diesel) at anywhere from $.40-1.00+/gallon. Not all industries deal with those and that’s just a couple of examples.

As for your link, a lot of that is misunderstood and/or overstated. Looking at key takeaways.

  • Several major tax benefits are available for oil and gas companies and investors that are found nowhere else in the tax code.

As I mentioned, there are also oil and gas specific taxes others don’t pay.

  • Tangible costs, which pertain to the actual direct cost of the drilling equipment are 100% deductible but must be depreciated over seven years.

This is a timing difference. And everyone can deduct their tangible costs over some period. This isn’t unusual. Oil and gas companies can just do what everyone else does.

  • Intangible drilling costs generally constitute 65-80% of the total cost of drilling a well and are100% deductible in the year incurred.

This is also timing. It’s also not applicable to all oil companies. The majors can’t deduct 100% in year 1.

And these costs look a lot more like expenses than capital expenses.

  • Lease operating costs and all administrative, legal, and accounting expenses can also be deducted over the life of the lease.

Other industries can deduct these immediately. This is a hurt.

So are they overly taxed or overly subsidized? Or just right?

Overly taxed, at least in how it’s done. It also depends on where.

A carbon tax would be a different ballgame. And some of the majors support it.

It sorta ties in bc people do want to tax companies more that negativity affect the environment so I pointed out that oil companies already pay a lot of taxes bc that issue will pop up in this type of discussion. The oil business is complicated and risky and a gallon is still cheap for all they have to go thru to create 1 gallon for a car. I’m for helping the environment but I don’t want to stop using plastic in cars, planes etc unless we all do. One solution which is least painful is to maybe get rid of all gas cars and trucks and go electric but electricity uses gas to generate it so it’s not 100% getting away from oil.

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