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>Explicit subsidies that cut fuel prices accounted for 8% of the total and tax breaks another 6%. The biggest factors were failing to make polluters pay for the

>Explicit subsidies that cut fuel prices accounted for 8% of the total and tax breaks another 6%. The biggest factors were failing to make polluters pay for the deaths and poor health caused by air pollution (42%) and for the heatwaves and other impacts of global heating (29%). I really don't like this "literally every bad thing we can put a price on is a subsidy" logic.

marcusverus 5y ago
It really is an egregious lie. By this definition of subsidy, the government is also subsidizing your dog, since no-one is being taxed to pay for its methane emissions. Redefining words to make a point is just a fancy way of lying. If they cared about the truth, the media would treat these liars the same as they treat the Dan Rathers of the world. But when you think about it, the media derive a lot of their influence from their ability to freely navigate the space between 'telling the whole truth' and 'not lying'. So I suppose it's not surprising that they're happy to have the bar for 'truth' set as low as possible.
- relativ575 5y ago
  Is this now the fashion to blame the media by default? Subsidy is the exact term the study uses: > This paper provides a comprehensive global, regional, and country-level update of: (i) efficient fossil fuel prices to reflect their full private and social costs; and (ii) subsidies implied by mispricing fuels https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Still-Not-Getting-Energy-Prices-Right-A-Global-and-Country-Update-of-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-466004 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Sti... While it's a stretch to lump together all of the costs as subsidies -- maybe neglected externalities is the better term -- it is still important to call them out. Renewable or EV websites are often inundated with calls for ending subsidies for renewable energy, ignorant or not. They always conveniently forget the externalities of fossil-based energy, in no small part because of the lack of quantifiable cost. After all, if it isn't priced in, then the society has to shoulder it.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    > Is this now the fashion to blame the media by default? Subsidy is the exact term the study uses: Do you think the Guardian would run the honest version? Would it make the front page of HN? Does it matter if we blame the chicken or the egg? The effect should more people like GP exposing that this isn’t real. Not that someone has to cover for the poor defenseless media that seemingly can never be held accountable for their part.
    - tim333 5y ago
      I think they might do more good saying fossil fuels have unpriced externalities of $11m/minute. Otherwise economically literate folk look at the headline and say not true while the others won't understand what they are on about. The misuse of language and accounting is annoying because if prevents clear discussion and analysis of the problems in an area where that is important.
  - marcusverus 5y ago
    > Subsidy is the exact term the study uses I'm saying that they intentionally misused the word to confuse readers. The word subsidy has a specific and well known definition. A subsidy is a sum of money paid to an individual/organization/industry to achieve some goal. Or it is a tax break which is given specifically to an individual/organization/industry. The study uses subsidy to mean A hypothetical tax break given on a nonexistant tax, imagined by the authors, which would make companies pay for their externalities. Not a subsidy. Imagine we levied a tax to right the wrongs of misinformation. Under this tax, the guardian would be paying billions, billions in damages for articles like this! But they're not paying my imaginary taxes. So the goverment is subsidizing the Guardian to the tune of billions of dollars. It's a friggin' fairy tale. Further, the difference between the terms 'subsidy' and 'externality' is not trivial nor accidental. It's the difference between "your government is funneling money into industry x" (this message carries personal implications for the reader, making it likely to result in an emotional response) and "industry x harms the environment" (which is an old song and unlikely to generate an emotional response or reader engagement).
noahtallen 5y ago
But you have to admit there is a line where it does make sense. Approaching this from a property rights point of view, no one has the right to encroach on your property. If a plant next door to you is reducing the air quality on your property, that is a violation of your rights. Imagine that’s the case. There’s a plant next door to you which pumps very dangerous emissions into the air. The air you breath is now poisonous, and you die. The plant is (or should be) directly at fault for killing you. (Indeed, there are plenty of examples of factories that have done just this. Today, maybe killing less people, but definitely killing the surrounding ecosystem.) Fossil fuels do this, just at a much larger scale with impacts that are less local and more global. In other words, it is harder for you to specifically identify how your rights were infringed because the impact is global instead of local, and it’s gradual. That’s why it’s hard to get people on board with these proposals. But your rights are being violated nonetheless. What environmentally-conscious people want is for industry to stop polluting. Since slapping a law on everything saying “don’t pollute” is probably impossible, carbon pricing is an interesting alternative. It takes a free-market approach to making the externalities of a certain process matter to the company. Since companies are focused only on profit, they won’t care if they’re polluting because it’s the cheapest option. But if it costs money to harm the environment, that should make the company “care” about the externalities. Along with that, it should incentivize the market towards less-harmful solutions in a dynamic way. So the “externalities cost” is built into things like producing a solar panel. That way, everything competes on a level playing field instead of a politically charged one, or even one where companies aren’t accountable to their externalities.
Proven 5y ago
> The biggest factors were failing to make polluters pay for the deaths and poor health caused by air pollution (42%) Like the climatists plan to have renewable energy producers pay for health care and deaths of people who can't afford to pay for heating in Europe right now (or for airconditioning someplace else)

marcusverus 5y ago

It really is an egregious lie. By this definition of subsidy, the government is also subsidizing your dog, since no-one is being taxed to pay for its methane emissions. Redefining words to make a point is just a fancy way of lying. If they cared about the truth, the media would treat these liars the same as they treat the Dan Rathers of the world. But when you think about it, the media derive a lot of their influence from their ability to freely navigate the space between 'telling the whole truth' and 'not lying'. So I suppose it's not surprising that they're happy to have the bar for 'truth' set as low as possible.

relativ575 5y ago
Is this now the fashion to blame the media by default? Subsidy is the exact term the study uses: > This paper provides a comprehensive global, regional, and country-level update of: (i) efficient fossil fuel prices to reflect their full private and social costs; and (ii) subsidies implied by mispricing fuels https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Still-Not-Getting-Energy-Prices-Right-A-Global-and-Country-Update-of-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-466004 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Sti... While it's a stretch to lump together all of the costs as subsidies -- maybe neglected externalities is the better term -- it is still important to call them out. Renewable or EV websites are often inundated with calls for ending subsidies for renewable energy, ignorant or not. They always conveniently forget the externalities of fossil-based energy, in no small part because of the lack of quantifiable cost. After all, if it isn't priced in, then the society has to shoulder it.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  > Is this now the fashion to blame the media by default? Subsidy is the exact term the study uses: Do you think the Guardian would run the honest version? Would it make the front page of HN? Does it matter if we blame the chicken or the egg? The effect should more people like GP exposing that this isn’t real. Not that someone has to cover for the poor defenseless media that seemingly can never be held accountable for their part.
  - tim333 5y ago
    I think they might do more good saying fossil fuels have unpriced externalities of $11m/minute. Otherwise economically literate folk look at the headline and say not true while the others won't understand what they are on about. The misuse of language and accounting is annoying because if prevents clear discussion and analysis of the problems in an area where that is important.
- marcusverus 5y ago
  > Subsidy is the exact term the study uses I'm saying that they intentionally misused the word to confuse readers. The word subsidy has a specific and well known definition. A subsidy is a sum of money paid to an individual/organization/industry to achieve some goal. Or it is a tax break which is given specifically to an individual/organization/industry. The study uses subsidy to mean A hypothetical tax break given on a nonexistant tax, imagined by the authors, which would make companies pay for their externalities. Not a subsidy. Imagine we levied a tax to right the wrongs of misinformation. Under this tax, the guardian would be paying billions, billions in damages for articles like this! But they're not paying my imaginary taxes. So the goverment is subsidizing the Guardian to the tune of billions of dollars. It's a friggin' fairy tale. Further, the difference between the terms 'subsidy' and 'externality' is not trivial nor accidental. It's the difference between "your government is funneling money into industry x" (this message carries personal implications for the reader, making it likely to result in an emotional response) and "industry x harms the environment" (which is an old song and unlikely to generate an emotional response or reader engagement).

noahtallen 5y ago

But you have to admit there is a line where it does make sense. Approaching this from a property rights point of view, no one has the right to encroach on your property. If a plant next door to you is reducing the air quality on your property, that is a violation of your rights. Imagine that’s the case. There’s a plant next door to you which pumps very dangerous emissions into the air. The air you breath is now poisonous, and you die. The plant is (or should be) directly at fault for killing you. (Indeed, there are plenty of examples of factories that have done just this. Today, maybe killing less people, but definitely killing the surrounding ecosystem.) Fossil fuels do this, just at a much larger scale with impacts that are less local and more global. In other words, it is harder for you to specifically identify how your rights were infringed because the impact is global instead of local, and it’s gradual. That’s why it’s hard to get people on board with these proposals. But your rights are being violated nonetheless. What environmentally-conscious people want is for industry to stop polluting. Since slapping a law on everything saying “don’t pollute” is probably impossible, carbon pricing is an interesting alternative. It takes a free-market approach to making the externalities of a certain process matter to the company. Since companies are focused only on profit, they won’t care if they’re polluting because it’s the cheapest option. But if it costs money to harm the environment, that should make the company “care” about the externalities. Along with that, it should incentivize the market towards less-harmful solutions in a dynamic way. So the “externalities cost” is built into things like producing a solar panel. That way, everything competes on a level playing field instead of a politically charged one, or even one where companies aren’t accountable to their externalities.

Proven 5y ago

> The biggest factors were failing to make polluters pay for the deaths and poor health caused by air pollution (42%) Like the climatists plan to have renewable energy producers pay for health care and deaths of people who can't afford to pay for heating in Europe right now (or for airconditioning someplace else)