> We don't really subsidize fossil fuels. If we allowed a restaurant to dump its trash for free in a public playground, we would be subsidizing that restaurant

> We don't really subsidize fossil fuels. If we allowed a restaurant to dump its trash for free in a public playground, we would be subsidizing that restaurant with taxpayer dollars. When we allow fossil fuels to be burned and dump pollution for free into the public atmosphere, we are subsidizing the usage of fossil fuel. In the trash scenario, we'd make the restaurant pay for cleanup, pay medical costs for the kids who got ill, and pay for its future trash disposal. Burning fossil fuels causes asthma, climate change, flooding, etc, and remediation costs should be borne by those who cause the damage. If you consider the billions of dollars we all spend dealing with fossil fuel companies' waste, it's quite a subsidy. The least we can do is make them compete on a level playing field.