This is what-aboutism and sealioning taken to a disingenious level
Total world oil revenues: $4.2 trillion in 2025, market cap of $7.2 trillion in 2023
Total world solar/wind revenues: estimate $500 billion, so 1/8th. Market cap between $1.02 trillion and $1.51 trillion in 2024.
Oil, gas, and coal have spent: $150 million on federal lobbying in 2024, and has consistently spent over $100 million annually since 2006.
At the state level, hard to get data for. In CA alone, it was estimated $40m in 2024.
For the renewables industry in 2024: $60 million in federal lobbying in 2024. That has increased over the years, unlike oil and gas.
At the state level, renewables spent in CA: $4.68 million on state-level lobbying, or 1/10th.
In conclusion: oil and gas have been consistently spending hundreds of millions of dollars to convince politicians alone to support their cause for years, whereas renewables has been increasing their spend and is only a fraction of it.
Yes, both sides are putting money into it. No, both sides are not equal. FWIW, democrats support oil and gas just fine: under Obama oil and gas exports and refining grew to record highs, just as they did under Trump, and as they did under Biden.
The US is the largest oil exporter in the world. That has happened despite the mix of politicians holding majority of SCOTUS, Congress, and President. That has happened despite the small fraction of spending from renewables.
We prefer renewables because, unlike oil and gas, they aren't rejecting their role in climate impact: renewables do studies to understand them, and they are always far lower than oil and gas, an inconvenient truth the anti-renewable crowd wants to deny because they want to shout a wind turbine killing some birds is somehow equivalent to the millions of birds coal kills every year, along with the cancers it causes in humans, and the climate change, and the dirty business of mining the coal, and the water needed to cool the turbines. Yes, renewables obviously have some environmental impact. Its always less in total.
We prefer renewables because they aren't profitting to TRILLIONS of dollars and poisoning political discourse to spread lies about climate change. We prefer renewables because it means less cases of asthma. It means less control over the world's stage by extractive autocratic regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Russia. It means less cancer, less pollutants, less damage overall. Less oil spills.
Maybe we prefer renewables because we have a lot of reasons to prefer them, despite the relatively small amounts of cash flows desperately trying to prevent oil and gas from KILLING their industry. Which, btw, oil and gas have now successfully done. Renewables are significantly hampered under this administration.
