Meet Philip Cooney, lawyer, former chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and former lobbyist with the American Petroleum Institute. Cooney made news back on June 9th when it was revealed that he made final edits to a report that deliberately played down scientific findings regarding climate change.

Initially I found it a little odd that a lawyer and former oil lobbyist was somehow qualified to be making changes to a scientific report. I would think that role would best be left to hmmmm, whats the word? Oh yea, scientists. I know the oil industry is one of the foremost leaders in the world when it comes to caring about the environment and all, and I’m sure that someone with ties to them would have the concerns of the public and not the coffers of ExxonMobil’s CEO’s in mind when altering a climate change report. And most definately, he surely wouldn’t be using this action as a way of sucking up to the world’s largest oil company because he might possibly be looking for a new job. Not a chance, not a chance at all.

Fast forward to yesterday, and this AP story. Here are some excerpts, just to highlight my point.

A former White House official and one-time oil industry lobbyist whose editing of government reports on climate change prompted criticism from environmentalists will join Exxon Mobil Corp., the oil company said Tuesday.

The White House announced over the weekend that Philip Cooney, chief of staff of its Council on Environmental Quality, had resigned, calling it a long-planned departure. He had been head of the climate program at the American Petroleum Institute, the trade group for large oil companies.

The White House made no mention of Cooney’s plans to join Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest oil company. Its executives have been among the most skeptical in the oil industry about the prospects of climate change because of a growing concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. The leading greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.

Yea, totally unrelated I am sure. Coincidence, absolutely.

Just this week, General Electric became the latest corporate convert in the “debate” over global warming.

GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt recently announced that his company, which reports $135 billion in annual revenue, will spend $1.5 billion a year to research conservation, pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases. Joining him for the announcement were executives from such mainline corporations as American Electric Power, Boeing and Cinergy.

I’m sure ExxonMobil will deny it until the bitter end, or at least until it becomes unprofitable, especially now that they have Cooney on board and his climate change expertise.

How long are we going to let our government and its financial backers in the oil business destroy our planet in the name of maximizing profits? How long are we going to keep plugging away in a system of life that is utterly unsustainable, destructive, and built on exploitation? What will it take for us to realize that if there is going to be any future for Western society it is going to have to be us, the ordinary people, who rise up from the magical world of dreams and illusions that the power elite has created for us to wallow around in like pigs in our own filth while they fill the family vault? Is it already too late? Questions that our media should be asking, yet they don’t.

Everything is fine, there is nothing here to see.