[munch117]

Sure. Fossil fuels are valuable to society. They made the industrial revolution possible. If they were to disappear tomorrow, much hardship would ensue.

They are, however, overused, because the negative externalities are not properly accounted for.

> And even if I've got the definition wrong, the oil and gas producers are creating huge amounts of value that are being captured by other actors in the economy (like me).

That's how all market transactions work: Whenever you buy something, it's because the value you derive from the purchase is higher than the price you pay. All business has this value-add aspect. When you buy a jacket so you don't freeze to death in the winter, that doesn't mean you are beholden to the clothes manufacturer for your life.

[roenxi]

> If they were to disappear tomorrow, much hardship would ensue. They are, however, overused...

No, that isn't true. There is a reason the environmentalists have had so much trouble getting their policies to catch and it is the fact that statements like this are manifestly wrong. The hardship caused by fossil fuels is minute compared to the benefits. If anything, oil and gas are underused. There is little question that if we could get more people more oil & gas, lifestyles would improve more than damage done by negative externalities. We've seen this play out in multiple countries. The only reason not to be pushing them like mad is that we're about to run out of useful reserves.

The benefits of a modern economy powered by cheap energy substantially outweigh the negatives. More cheap energy pretty much inevitably increases the general good. Taxing that energy doesn't help.

> That's how all market transactions work: Whenever you buy something, it's because the value you derive from the purchase is higher than the price you pay.

Yeah, but that isn't an externality. An externality is something that happens to a third part to a transaction - which is my relationship to the fossil fuel industry. I purchase very little fossil fuel.

The externality is they enable other deals to happen that would otherwise be impossible. Like my groceries.

[cubic_earth]

>"lifestyles would improve more than damage done by negative externalities"

Just because you assert this doesn't make it true. Tragedy of the commons is at play - we have no good way to measure if your statement is true or not - which is it's own issue.

It is easy to imagine how your statement could be wrong, despite what we see. Starting with a non-industrialized society, you add in some tech, like cars. Some people use them for personal benefit. Of course a few cars don't cause everything to go suck just by themselves, and even so, the benefit for their users outweigh the harm to them personally, so they use them! Some other people are now going to need to use cars to compete with the people who do use them. Eventually the harms really become apparent, but there is no going back. And even if some people would choose not to use cars because of the harm, it is much harder to choose to abstain when practically speaking, things are still going to suck because everyone else is.

So, taking cars as an example, how do you know you are right?