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I agree. Spain did this with river toxic waste. Companies found that it was cheaper to leak everything into the river and pay the fine than to fix the problem.
by Hokusai 6y ago
I agree. Spain did this with river toxic waste. Companies found that it was cheaper to leak everything into the river and pay the fine than to fix the problem. Then the law was changed, if you pollute the river you need to shut down until is fixed. That works. Rivers health improved by a lot.
- alkonaut 6y agoif the fine was the actual cleanup fee (which is an almost unlimited number given hor hard it is) then I think that would work too. The risk is that too large fines are bankruptcy events so companies gamble on polluting and then shut down after making a few years of profit. Companies that get environmental permits such as mines or chemical industry, should have to deposit the money required to restore the environment - even after bankruptcy.
- kzrdude 6y agoYeah there is no realistic full cleanup. Some of the pollution reaches the ocean before anyone even notices, much less brings the court process to a conclusion. So, we need to fix it before the emissions are made.
- Hokusai 6y ago> too large fines are bankruptcy events so companies gamble on polluting and then shut down after making a few years of profit It didn't happened like that. And it was not a fine, big or small. It just has to shutdown operations until the problem is fixed. So, it auto-scales with the size of the factory. It works, it's proven, why not use it for tech ?
- alkonaut 6y agoI meant that’s what has happened a lot in the world with e.g. mines so it’s not a perfect solution for environmental problems, because bankrupt companies are handled by the public. For tech there is obviously no environmental “cleanup” after bankruptcy.
- marcus_holmes 6y agoThis is common practice in the mining industry - create a company for the specific mining operation, funnel the profits back into the parent company, and then let the cleanup costs bankrupt the operational company when the mine runs out. It'd be interesting to see if the tech giants could use the same approach - create a child company in Europe, funnel the profits and user data back to the parent (offshore, of course), then let the regulatory fines bankrupt the child company. Repeat at will.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Filligree 6y agoThat form of shenanigans works only so long as the government is willing to play along, and depends on part on opaque corporate structures. The EU doesn't seem willing to play along, and branding is important for tech companies. We'll never see a search engine that's secretly Google.
- pkaye 6y agoYou probably need to fix the international tax treaties to really fix it. Even with the EU, they have a tough time getting Ireland in agreement not to help Apple and Google evade taxes.
- majewsky 6y agoThis is not just limited to toxic waste in rivers. If nuclear power plant operators had to pay forward for all future expenses required to manage their waste products, nuclear power would never have been viable.
- marcus_holmes 6y agomeh, they would still have needed the weapons material, so it would have cost more to make nukes but not made the whole industry unviable.
- alkonaut 6y agoIndeed, so that’s why it’s basically a nation state venture even if private corporations are part of it. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, but socialized risk should mean socialized profits too.
- sudosysgen 6y agoYes. That's exactly why nuclear energy doesn't work as something done by private industry, and must instead be done by the public sector.
- elliekelly 6y agoIsn’t this the purpose of Nuclear Decommissioning Trust Funds? More here: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/decommissioning.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/d...