4 ms·
The World Blows over $5T a Year on Oil and Gas Subsidies: Report
- panarky 7y agoAnd that $5.2 trillion doesn't include compensation for the 4.2 million people who die every year due to fossil fuel pollution. https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/ https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/
- spoiledtechie 7y agoand that 4.2 Million people doesn't include the 7 Billion people in the world that need fossil fuels in order to have power. Cars, buildings etc. Because of fossil fuels, life has been much better for the 7 billion.
- consp 7y agoI would not include all in that equation. Victims of increased heavy precipitation might disagree with that statement, not as a whole but at least in some parts.
- yeahitslikethat 7y agoBy "Need" you actually mean want and "better" than what? We are living in a big house that is burning down. But a big house is better? You're making all this a means to an end, but we haven't gotten to the end yet. The end the means of petroleum created is death. That's neither needed nor better.
- gridlockd 7y agoPeople don't die "due to fossil fuel pollution", but rather "air pollution contributes to their mortality" (according to your source). There's a lot of things that contribute to mortality, sitting in front of a computer screen and writing HN comments being one of them. Attributing these deaths to pollution is a statistical cherrypick.
- panarky 7y agoIf there were no air pollution from fossil fuels, more people would live longer, healthier lives.
- gridlockd 7y agoAs it stands, that statement is obviously untrue. With the introduction of fossil fuels, human life expectancy has gone up massively, as has the population. You implicitly assume some sort of "100% renewable transportation" scenario that is very far into the future, if at all feasible.
- JamesBarney 7y agoThey count as subsidies the difference between optimal carbon taxation and current taxation. Which in some analyses needs to be counted but subsidies can be a misleading term for it.
- Wohlf 7y agoThat is an incredibly misleading definition, to the point the term loses all meaning. It would be more honest to say "by not accounting for all negative externalities".
- alexandercrohde 7y agoAgreed. I think externalities need to be accounted for, but regardless, intentionally using misleading language "for the right cause" is never justified imho.
- gridlockd 7y agoEven if we counted it as subsidies, the calculation would still be complete bogus, or "controversial" as the paper puts it. It goes like this: Take the "excess death" figure from the WHO (already a questionable number) and multiply it by the "economic value" of that person. That would be two million dollars for an Australian, $300,000 for a Chinese person and still about a $100,000 for someone from Tanzania. In other words, we're not assuming those excess deaths are the old and sickly who eventually succumb to a lifetime of pollution, but the young and healthy who have decades worth of earnings ahead of them.
- challenger22 7y agoLack of externality-cancelling taxes is not equal to a subsidy.
- malcolmgreaves 7y agoHow is the effect different? It's a cost that the private company should be paying, but is not. EDIT - if your comment is pointing out that these things are techincaly different words/phrases, then ok. However, to me, that doesn't make for good discussion: talking about the effects and results, and not fighting about term meanings in the trenches, leads to points of productive conversation.
- nathan_long 7y agoIf a town allowed a restaurant to dump their trash in a public park for free, would you consider that a subsidy?
- gridlockd 7y agoNo.
- nathan_long 7y agoLOL
- nathan_long 7y agoCompeting restaurants and whoever is in charge of the park cleanup budget would disagree with you quite strongly
- frankbreetz 7y agoHow far would this amount help to switch over to renewable energy?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- randyrand 7y agoDisregarding the fact that this is not what “subsidy” refers to, it’s disingenuous to only count negative externalities without counting positive ones. air travel, cars, snow blowers, truck transport, train transport, bus transport, natural gas house heating, propane fork lifts, front loaders, orbital rockets (gps anyone?). Imagine life without these things. To calculate the true cost of oil you need to include its benefits as well. Electric batteries are only just becoming feasible for most of these things. Of those airplanes and orbital rockets still have no feasible battery alternatives and won’t for some time.