Ain't that the truth. If car companies were ISPs, you'd get to choose between Chrysler and Kia. Both would suck ass and be worse than what is available to the rest of the world. Your car would be sold lease only with low payments for the first year, plus a nice surcharge for a steering wheel, billed monthly. They would advertise "Up to 100 MPG!" and not tell you that that was downhill with no traffic. Actual mileage might only be 10MPG on average. You'd take it into one of their shops because it doesn't get the advertised mileage, they'll make you wait 10 minutes before a tech tells you that it must be the gas you put in it and refuse to fix anything.

I know I'll get flamed for this... Motor fuels:

1) They are all selling an identical product (made to meet standards, with any slight differences being indistinguishable in performance benefits in a laboratory.
2) Their prices are advertised on huge signs so that people can easily price shop.
3) Pipeline transportation is regulated as a utility so that companies can't give preferential treatment.
4) There are still many companies involved in the refining, transportation, and marketing of fuels.

Sure the government meddles, but at least for now is mostly meddles evenly across all companies, so the net effect of the loss is still even across the industry.

No, but I'm just saying the IRS wouldn't accept my word that I didn't hide income and assets if they were doing an audit. Sorry, I lost all my paper records would not be an excuse.

Well according to their word the President didn't know about it. Sadly it seems all records of any conversations about it were lost...

Yes, because I work for an oil company and when the government comes to investigate a pipeline leak they suspect was due to intentional decision making and my emails were lost in a hard drive crash and the drive was thrown away is a completely valid excuse and I'm sure the EPA will let us off the hook for any potential negative information that may have been contained in those emails.

Rock Lobster? ROCK LOBSTER!

Super-glue plus pebbles it a type of rock... It's called conglomerate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

They had to kill him and dispose of his body without an independent verification of death so that conspiracy theorists would be able to make books and movies for years. I mean seriously, we can't just be letting facts and evidence ruin a good government conspiracy theory...

I work for an oil company. An oil company that bends over backwards to comply with government regulators that are morons. A company that spends ridiculous amounts of money to protect against infinitesimal risks. A company that still makes a very fat profit, a profit that is heavily taxed. And subsidies (also known as deductions and credits) are not unique to oil and are general construction and industry tax provisions. We pay for cleanup and related problems long after any environmental damage is present.

You talk about "big oil" like there is some sort of cabal of companies running everything out to milk profits and destroy the environment as part of an evil scheme. You seem pretty biased and indoctrinated to me. Am I biased, sure... But at least I'm informed of how the industry works.

See, you lost me at your response to 1. You lost any credibility as a rational, unbiased, scientific person. You talk about "big oil" and how they don't care about the environment except for minimal fines. They don't have a long term perspective, oil is running out, blah blah blah. And then you went full idiot and mentioned tax breaks, subsidies, and other bullshit. This argument is done, I can't reason with someone who is indoctrinated.

Ohh I love math. The atmosphere has a mass of about 5.15×10^18 kg. Of that 0.039% is CO2. If we burn all the hydrocarbons in known reserves of the top 17 oil producing countries (1.3x10^12 bbl) assuming 443 kg of CO2 per bbl of oil (found online) and let's assume that all the H2O released falls as rain (making the water problem easier too!). Also, let's neglect the loss of oxygen from all that combustion since we have plenty of excess... So we have:
2x10^15 KG current mass of CO2
5.8x10^14 KG additional mass of CO2

So now with all that burned oil we are at 0.05% CO2 an increase of 0.01%. But you just said tiny percent changes aren't significant...

Here's my problems:
1) I don't find a big oil conspiracy any more convincing than a big science conspiracy.
2) The warming science may be settled, but there is a flaw in the science. It fundamentally cannot be tested. All of these predictions are based on models that are based on research and science, but we don't have a model that has actually produced predictive forecasting. Nor do I think we will ever be able to. The temperature fluctuations on the planet are based on tons of variables and human influence is a part of it, but how much a part changes depending on the other variables.
3) The part that really gets me is all the talk of horrible catastrophes. Humans have adapted to many changes and migrations throughout history. Now we are saying that a 10' ocean rise over 1000 years will be so horrible we must make changes today that will cause demonstrable harm. Also, where are the positives of global warming? It doesn't seem very scientific to research all this ocean depth/acidification/desertification/severe storms/whatever other disasters will happen if the planet gets warmer and leave out potential new farmland, longer growing seasons, increased crop production, new livable areas. It seems to me looking at a globe that there is far more landmass that can't sustain human settlement because it is too cold than there is because it's too hot.
4) 1000 years ago, there were little to no permanent human settlements on the coasts in North and South America. Today the population along the coasts in just the US is probably comparable to the world human population 1000 years ago. (actually I looked it up, looks like around 125 million in the US live in a coastal county and the estimated world population in the year 1000 was around 300 million, but still interesting point)

Hmm, those seem to all be years where we had digital thermometers...

Right, it's even worse... They say it's not very bad now, and it won't get any worse in any of your lifetimes, but it'll get REALLY bad when no one can verify these claims. We SWEAR! The computer models say so!

Citation needed... In the US only 39% live in a county that borders an ocean. Of course, even the cover picture of this article shows people living on a coast that wouldn't be detrimentally affected by a 10' rise in sea level. Annnnnd, I doubt any of those structures will still be around in 1000 years. Of course that's America for you. Now Europe, those buildings probably will be around for another 1000 years. But I think the people will slowly move away as the coast move inland.