From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-redford/fossil-fuel-subsidies_b_1605146.html
Robert Redford
06/18/2012
06/18/2012
Every year, around the world, almost one trillion dollarsof
subsidies is handed out to help the fossil fuel industry. Who came up
with the crazy idea that the fossil fuel industry deserves our
hard-earned money, no less in economic times of such harsh human
consequence? We fire teachers, police and firemen in drastic budget cuts
and yet, the fossil fuel industry can laugh all the way to the bank on
our dime? Something doesn't add up here.
We should not be
subsidizing the destruction of our planet. Fossil fuels are literally
cooking our planet, polluting our air and draining our wallets. Why
should we continue to reward companies to do that?
As they go
after more expensive and harder to access fossil fuels, it is like
drilling a hole in our pocketbooks. We pay more at the pump. We pay in
taxpayer subsidies to a highly profitable industry. And we pay in the
rising costs of climate change in the form of floods, storms and
droughts that hurt our homes and communities.
Our world leaders
are gathering in Rio over the coming days for a historic meeting twenty
years after the first Earth Summit. We are looking to our governments to
show leadership and commit to real timetables and actions for fighting
climate change, including ending fossil fuel subsidies. Sure, they've
made commitments to stop these unnecessary payouts. But commitments need
to become action to have any meaning. And despite strong words, we are
not yet seeing action on the ground.
In the United States, President Obama has repeatedly proposed
cutting $4 billion in annual federal subsidies to the oil and gas
industry and several bills to cut fossil fuel subsidies are stalled in
Congress.
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