How Big is Big Oil/Coal/Gas?

The power of the fossil fuel industry appears overwhelming.  They are making billions in profits every month, they buy senators and congressmembers with ease, they take out full page ads in newspapers and magazines to make sure these publishers know not to cross them, and they continue to spread disinformation about climate change. 

All this seems insurmountable.  But is it?  While oil, coal, and gas companies stand to lose if we take global warming seriously, what about the rest of the economy?  What about industries such as computers, pharmaceuticals, construction, electronics, tourism, and everyone not tied to the fossil fuel industry?  It used to be that the auto companies saw their interests intimately tied to the oil industry, but with electric cars now coming on, that is no longer true. 

Based on a quick google check and some arithmetic, the total capital value of the oil companies on the New York Stock Exchange is about $1.4 trillion.  Natural gas companies not already counted in the oil totals (e.g. ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Conoco also own lots of natural gas), come to about $132 billion, and coal companies come to a measly $8 billion.  Now that all sounds like a lot, but the value of all the other companies on the NY Stock Exchange and NASDAQ comes to around $18 trillion.

In other words the fossil fuel industry is less than 10% of total corporate wealth.  If the 90% of the corporate wealth begins to act rationally--i.e. accept science and their own senses--the oil companies suddenly don't look so big. 

And that doesn't even count the greatest power of all--people power.  If people grasp what is at stake--their jobs, food supply, family's future. . .--the oil companies will look very small indeed.

Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.--Victor Hugo