According to the Wall Street Journal, CEOs of big oil
companies averaged almost $14 million in 2010. That’s “total direct
compensation” for each one. Not bad for a day job. In 2013 Marathon blessed its
Executive Chair with $22.5 million. He probably felt no guilt.
For the rest of us, this is obscenely unjust. Big Oil is
sucking up huge profits while Big Carbon is intensifying the Earth’s weather
system to increasingly destructive levels. This is happening today. What will happen
when Greenland and Antarctica ice caps break off, lifting ocean levels a meter
or two?
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| How do we get carbon numbers down? It's a little like lowering high blood pressure. |
It makes sense for oil executives to deny the scientific
reality of climate change. They are accumulating huge profits. How easy for
them to subsidize dubious research to deny the problem and delay corrective
actions. This explosive situation will all come to a head in Paris at the COP21
talks to be held by the UN in December.
Transport Numbers
Podcars are but one tool for governmental policies and programs
to reverse course to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the USA, transportation
(all modes) accounts for 27 percent of GHG emissions. Industrial uses are a bit
more at 28%. Residential and commercial consumption are 17% each.
Forty-three percent of the transportation carbon volumes come
from cars, 22% trucks, 18% light trucks, 8% aircraft and 3% boats. Urban
mobility is a big chuck of the whole. How much can be shifted to green modes --
walking, biking, rail, electric buses and podcars? Traditional rail won’t go
away. In fact, it will be fortified by sound podcar interfacing.
These numbers can be questioned, but the ballpark that
emerges is the same. In the long run, a 50% carbon reduction from transport is
possible if strong climate protection measures are taken around the world. Podcars can be key in a 13 percent reduction
of the world’s carbon problem. But that
if is a BIG if.
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| The spacious control center at the privately built pod system in Las Colinas outside Dallas. |
Such as shift will hit Big Oil hard. No wonder oil CEOs and
managers need huge salaries. They’re saving up for the difficult years ahead.
Exxon Exhortation
It recently came to light that ExxonMobil executives knew of
causal links from carbon emissions to climate stability and public welfare back
in the 1970s. Influential environmentalist Bill McKibben got himself arrested
at an Exxon gas station in Vermont last week to call media attention to it.
The disclosure is being compared to corporate memos in the
1990s that forced Big Tobacco to pay out big - financially and politically. What
can we expect from Exxon, Shell, BP and other carbon-pushers when McKibben and
friends work it through our courts?
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| Elaborate are the ramps at this station of the Morgantown PRT. Shouldn't Exxon be assessing this 1970 gem for a greener future? |
Given Big Oil cash flows, assigning a faction of a percent
to sustainable mobility infrastructure would do a lot to jumpstart the podcar
industry. Come explore the possibilities at PCC9 in two weeks.
