In a March 11 letter, Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez, a Long Beach Democrat, asked owner and Chairman Mark Walter “to end the Los Angeles Dodgers’ sponsorship deals with fossil fuel companies.”
“Ending the sponsorship with Phillips 66,” which owns the 76 brand (formerly Union 76) that partners with the Dodgers, “would send the message that it’s time to end our embrace of polluting fossil fuels and work together towards a cleaner, greener future.”
Gonzalez naturally recited all the usual talking points and buzz words associated with climate and energy issues: public transit, sustainability, the state “leading the way in climate action and decarbonizing” the economy, and “common-sense public health measures.”
She also blamed “the recent devastating wildfires in Los Angeles” on “fossil fuel pollution,” which not only is “responsible for not only the climate crisis,” she insists, “but also the persistently harmful air quality in the region.”
Let’s break this down a bit.
First, the “climate crisis,” which we’ve been told over and again is being caused by carbon dioxide emissions from man’s use of fossil fuels. Despite the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed Washington to regulate CO2 as a pollutant, it is not a pollutant as most of us understand that word. (Defined by Merriam-Webster as “something (such as anthropogenic waste) that makes an environment unsuitable or unsafe for use,” with examples such as formaldehyde and radon mentioned.)
“Is carbon dioxide – two pounds of which each of us exhales daily – a pollutant?” asks Gregory Whitestone, executive director of the CO2 Coalition, an organization of more than 80 scientists and researchers. “And are catastrophes increasing as a result of higher concentrations of the gas? Physics – along with a few other branches of science – says no.”
Whitestone supports his assertion with facts that have accompanies the increases in CO2 emissions since the Industrial Revolution: shrinking deserts, “re-forestation not de-forestation” over “the bulk of the planet,” a greening of the Earth, a decline in natural disasters, lower hurricane activity and fewer strong tornadoes.
“Our air and water are cleaner today than in modern history. The majority of North American heat records were set 90 to 100 years ago. Where is the crisis?” he asks again. “There is none.”
Massachusetts Institute of Technology emeritus professor of atmospheric science Richard Lindzen simply reminds of our grade-school educations. Carbon dioxide is “not a pollutant,” he says, “it’s a product of every living creature’s breathing, it’s the product of all plant respiration, it is essential for plant life and photosynthesis.”
Second, Gonzalez’s claim that “fossil fuel pollution” is the source of “the persistently harmful air quality in the region” is deceptive. She surely bases it on the fact that, though the company makes thousands of goods from crude oil, the primary product made by Phillips 66 and 76 make is gasoline, which is used almost exclusively in automobiles. Yes, cars and trucks emit carbon dioxide. But today’s vehicles are almost zero-emission machines.
The federal government says so.
“New passenger vehicles are 98-99% cleaner for most tailpipe pollutants compared to the 1960s,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile, modern “fuels are much cleaner – lead has been eliminated, and sulfur levels are more than 90% lower than they were prior to regulation.”
“U.S. cities have much improved air quality, despite ever increasing population and increasing vehicle miles traveled.”
When compared to vehicles from the 1970s, “new cars, SUVs and pickup trucks are roughly 99 percent cleaner for common pollutants (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particle emissions). New heavy-duty trucks and buses are roughly 99 percent cleaner than 1970 models,” says the EPA.
Gonzalez’s indictment of Phillips 66 and 76 of course omits the extensive list of everyday, life-enhancing and lifesaving products the company makes from crude and natural gas. This is to be expected, because it wouldn’t be useful to the narrative, meticulously crafted for partisan reasons, that says the oil and gas industry is evil.
Kerry Jackson is the William Clement Fellow in California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute.
