It's time for the Star Tribune's Business section to stop cheering every report of increased oil production out of North Dakota ("N. Dakota sets monthly record for gas output," May 16). The peer-reviewed science is now overwhelming and irrefutable: To avoid the worst of the climate devastation we are leaving our kids, we need to transition to carbon-free energy ASAP. These oil production reports need to reflect the reality that producing and burning fossil fuels needs to be quickly reduced and eliminated. To ignore this crisis is to risk and gamble our kids' futures.
A good place to start would be to end the massive government subsidies we've been giving the fossil-fuel industry since the 1940s. Oil and gas is one of our most heavily subsidized industries, receiving over $20 billion last year in some estimates. Many of these benefits are unique to oil and gas and include first-year deductibility of intangible costs, percentage depletion allowance, master limited partnerships, deductibility of royalty payments (while dividends aren't), royalty income as capital gains, royalty income not subject to the unrelated business income tax, and others. These are far in excess of the soon-to-expire clean energy subsidies. In the meantime, you and I will keep picking up the tab for these dirty-energy subsidies.
The fossil fuel players are desperately using these arcane tax giveaways to tilt the playing field in their favor. The Koch brothers, Chevron and Shell fund lobbyists and editorialists to continue their campaign of misinformation to stall clean-energy initiatives. With billions in profits at stake, they're waging a dark-money all-out war on clean energy supporters.
Whether it's paying their own "scientists" to refute the data, lobbying to increase the tax subsidies they're addicted to or ending the temporary subsidies for clean energy alternatives, you can find organizations funded by the fossil-fuel industry behind it.
I'd like to see the business journalists work with the scientific journalists to state how many additional tons of carbon will be airborne with each increased oil announcement.
Mark Andersen, Wayzata
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I always read meterologist Paul Douglas' words of wisdom and appreciate his good humor and his generally accurate weather forecasts. However, frequently it seems that he is skeptical about climate change. For example, on June 1, he first pointed out that there have been more than 500 tornadoes in one month five times in the last 19 years and asked if these are symptoms of climate change. "Not so fast," he says. This is an "emerging science." Then he mentions that floods are becoming more numerous, saying, "An apparent increase in tornadoes and even large hail may have less to do with climate change and more to do with changes in observation [and] new technology." Regarding whether these are real signals of climate change: "Too early to tell."
According to NASA and other sources, 97% or more of scientists are in agreement that the climate is changing due to human causes. With the world hurtling toward destruction (what will happen to the millions of climate refugees from nearly all coastal areas and islands as the ocean rise?), we need bold leadership who will forecast (that is Douglas' speciality) what is happening and what can be done about it before it is too late (or is it already too late?). Paul Douglas could provide that leadership. If he is not willing to be that leader, then he does not deserve to be the featured meteorologist for the Star Tribune.
Robert Kriesel, Stillwater
VIRGINIA SHOOTING
Be strong in gun reforms so you don't have to be strong in grief
Here we go again. Another "strong" — this time, "Virginia Beach Strong" ("12 dead in Virginia office shooting," front page, June 1). Another massacre we package up like a Hollywood movie. We see all the interviews with city officials praising the ability of the community to come together. They convince us the community will come back better and stronger. We all get some good feels.