Global dirty energy subsidies total more than $550 BILLION!!!

I just read this article in the Financial Times (limited free subscription available), which previews a forthcoming report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA is completing a study that should be an eyeopener to those "conservative" types who misguidedly believe they are champions of free-market capitalism.

The IEA estimates that in 2008, 37 large developing countries spent about $557 billion in energy subsidies devoted to oil, natural gas, and coal consumption, about 75 percent more than previously thought.

Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and China are the top "subsidizers" of fossil fuel production, and while my choice of the term "conservative" (above) may suggest that I place the onus of this problem on those members of our US society who -- for some reason that continues to shake my understanding of the much heralded idea of "free-market capitalism" as well as the definition of the verb "conserve" -- seem to support these subsidies that place clean, alternative energy at a competitive disadvantage, I do not suggest that a global crisis like our fossil fuel addiction is one that the US or conservatives must address alone. The problem belongs to all of us, and so must any real solution. What really gets my goat is the unwillingness of profiteering fossil fuel executives and their government bedfellows to answer for or even admit to creating a problem for the entirety benefiting the few while assisting not at all in the development of a lasting solution.

BP has no right to destroy my Gulf and Massey Energy has no right to destroy my Appalachian Mountains. Likewise, they, aided by our elected government, have no right to cripple capitalism in ways that force the American economy toward dirty energy that continues to slowly make this planet uninhabitable to thousands of species who called it home long before we did.

Furthermore, these subsidies are a drain on our respective economies at a time when we can ill afford to be putting more money from the Treasury into the pockets of the Don Blankenships and Tony Haywards of the world.

I think some people need to go back to 6th grade Social Studies class and refresh themselves on the basic principles of capitalism. The rest of us need to get on with this revolution.

______________________

Judson Brehmer is the project manager of the Red Lodge Clearinghouse, a forum for citizen participation in natural resources policy. He holds a J.D. and a Certificate in Environmental Law from the University of Oregon and is a research faculty member with the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado Law School.