[zug_zug]

This actually, according to hard economics, is potentially an optimal solution.

Fossil fuels provide a great benefit to one party but produce negative externalities to other parties (people in hurricane zones, people born into hot regions, people who live in the future). If it's worth it economically because the value is so great, then an optimal economic solution is to say "You can have this thing, but you are accountable for the damages it causes to other parties"

Once we start pricing in the costs of the side-effects of fossil-fuels, the tradeoffs will be more clear, and the market will create faster incentives toward the ideal tradeoff.

[amelius]

The problem is that there isn't a direct connection to negative externalities. If there are now 20 hurricanes instead of 10, who is responsible for those extra 10?

[dmix]

And that's literally what they are claiming, that oil companies are causing hurricanes to hit Puerto Rico

> In the complaint, Puerto Rico says it expects to pay billions of dollars in the future to cope with catastrophes made worse by climate change — including storms like Hurricane Maria, which killed thousands of people in 2017 and triggered monthslong power outages.

[mbrumlow]

Why not the beef or farming industry? Or China? Isolating oil companies alone seems silly. Even more so because the entire world, including Puerto Rico also be benefits from the fruit of the last 100+ years od oil production.

On top of all that, climate change was going to happen. The idea that our climate was ever static and unchanging is silly, and only a child’s view is the history of the world would suggest otherwise. Did the early inhabitants of Austin Texas sue whatever they thought caused their premium glacier front property to drop in value over the last billions of years they receded?

The fact is that humanity is hooked on oil. IRS not going away. Not at least without billions of people suffering and dying. Oil has brought clean water across the world. It has allowed a technology boon by the way of its by products coating the majority of wires made, preventing horrific house fires from the days of paper wrapped wires.

Oil and its byproducts are engrained into humanity and its economical efficiency has been a blessing to humanity and every single last person on this planet has benefited.

[dmix]

The answers pretty simple, it's a wealthy party they have political control over and which they can attempt to extract money from, and if they lose, which is likely, they can double down on victimhood.

[nilamo]

You're right, it's hard. So let's not even bother trying, right?

[amelius]

Your words, not mine. If we keep thinking there is a simple fix, then nothing will change either.

[ToucanLoucan]

And that's not even going into the fact that we would already be pushing for more fuel efficiency in vehicles especially if gas wasn't so incredibly subsidized here in the United States. We pay absurdly low prices compared to basically everywhere else and you cannot convince me that is not a significant factor in why we still have so many massive trucks, SUV's, and V8 sports cars.

And don't get me wrong, I love my sports car and it's big thundering V8. But I also know the negative effects it has and I'm completely fine paying a higher price at the pump to offset that.

[s1artibartfast]

I hear this often, but my understanding is that gas is has very high sin taxes, there are no subsidies, and some tax breaks, but are the type that most businesses qualify for.

Every time I look it up, the results are so full of rhetoric and conflating I can't find an answer.

Most top line numbers count on priced externalities as a implicit subsidy. That's fine and well for some analyzes, but very different than Direct Cash subsidies or tax breaks

[pohl]

> there are no subsidies

I thought the oil and gas industry famously got about $4B in subsidies per year, and about $20B to fossil fuel industries in general. Has that changed recently?

[s1artibartfast]

Thats what Im asking about.

Is that a 20B check the federal government paid them? Is that 20B of tax deductions from carry forward losses that every company in the US gets? Is that 20B of carbon taxes that some analyst thinks would be fair, but there is no law requiring them to pay?

The IMF says things like this[1]:

>This includes $3 billion in explicit subsidies and $754 billion in implicit subsidies, which are costs like negative health impacts and environmental degradation that are borne by society at large rather than producers (i.e., negative externalities).

This link [2] goes a little more into what the "direct subsidies" are:

Intangible Drilling Costs Deduction - Not sure why this is a subsidy. Most business costs are tax deductible for other industries.

Clean Coal Investment and Nonconventional Fuels Tax Credits - These are incentives to decarbonize. I agree that they are subsidies in the traditional sense, but not subsidies to increase carbon production. Something like a 30% tax credit for money spent on upgrades that sequester >75% of the carbon emissions seems like a good thing.

https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-proposals-to-red...

https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subs...

[silverquiet]

No one will ever accuse me of being an optimist, but I'm beginning to have a hard time seeing how this doesn't end with human extinction, and I wonder how that balances on the spreadsheet. It's quite depressing.

[burningChrome]

Humans evolved from some of the most inhospitable climates and continue to live in such environments to this day. Humans will do what we've always done - adapt and overcome.

I mean how many people thought you could build a bunch of casino's in the middle of a desert and think people would move there and it would grow into almost 3M people?