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The easiest approach is to remove the billions (nearing trillions) in annual fossil fuel subsidies. People fight against subsidies to clean energy, forgetting h
by gibolt 5y ago
The easiest approach is to remove the billions (nearing trillions) in annual fossil fuel subsidies. People fight against subsidies to clean energy, forgetting how much more flows into an industry that is killing us.
- wang_li 5y ago>forgetting how much more flows into an industry that is killing us. It's not very much. People who write white papers for their think tank or who want to push a particular agenda like to say that not taxing something or someone is the same as subsidizing them. Which is definitely not true in reality. It should be simple enough to see that not taxing has a floor at $0.00, while subsidizing something has no limiting bound at all.
- scatters 5y agoAbsorbing the negative externalities of a process is the same as subsidizing it. The subsidy value here is bounded above by the net present value of the negative externalities in question.
- wang_li 5y agoWhat are the externalities of extracting fossil fuels? Or are you attributing the consumption of fossil fuels to the extraction companies? How many degrees removed does one continue to be responsible?
- scatters 5y agoThe externality is in removing the carbon from the geosphere and introducing it into the biosphere, since it'll end up in the atmosphere eventually. So yes, the responsibility for the externality is attributable to the extracting companies.
- shiftpgdn 5y agoThis is a weak talking point. There are no direct subsidies to US oil and gas companies. None. The subsidies people frequently talk about are “externalities.”