2 ms·
Coastal city building has a heck of a larger web of at-fault parties and rights issues in play. For starters: oil companies understood climate change was linke
by ethbr0 5y ago
Coastal city building has a heck of a larger web of at-fault parties and rights issues in play.
For starters: oil companies understood climate change was linked to greenhouse gas emissions (because their own experts told them so, and they funded counter-arguments). They made profits on something that generated ~12 gigatons of emissions.
Those profits are directly related to (a) something they wilfully did and (b) that they knew would cause harm.
In coastal building, who's the analogous party that fulfills those criteria? The homebuyer? The developer? The local zoning board?
- engineer_22 5y agoTo play devil's advocate again: These companies were providing goods and services demanded by US civil society, industry, and military. Surely US citizens and the US Government enjoyed the benefits of inexpensive fossil energy. Are they also not culpable?
- ethbr0 5y agoMorally? Yes. Practically? No. Artificially cheap fossil fuels and active lobbying retarded earlier development of alternative energy sources. Which meant there was no energy alternative for those customers to buy. Which ultimately unfolds into the "How much is the fossil fuel industry responsible for taking actions to protect itself and increase its profits?" debate. And while that's certainly a question with a lot of valid answers, the answer definitely isn't "not at all."