Quandary: The Oil Industry Is Both Important and Destructive
Re: my post on the subsidies for and taxation of the oil industry the other day, frequent commenter and 2GreenEnergy opposionist writes: The oil industry is already America’s largest taxpayer and most valuable taxpayer…..Attempting to build into the tax system vague concepts such as “externalities” is detrimental and unworkable.
Re: his first point, I understand that the oil industry is an important component of the U.S. economy. But it’s also ruining the planet in dozens of different ways, so it’s worth a discussion as to how “We the People” get it to morph into something sustainable. The problem is that the wealth and power of the industry provides it with a considerable stranglehold on the U.S. law-making process, making a change in the status quo very difficult.
Re: his second point, I don’t know why he deems externalities to be “vague,” or taxing them “unworkable.” Esteemed and objective sources, like Harvard University, are very good at establishing the cost associated with fossil fuel consumption, as they did here, pegging the cost to human health of burning coal at half a trillion dollars per year.
Craig,
I’ve noted you seem to have become very thin skinned when it comes to accepting any critic, and far less willing to participate in constructive debate.
Defining me as a ” 2GreenEnergy opposionist “, is more than a little gratuitous. Without challenging information or propositions, how can any balanced opinion be achieved ?
Academic’s at Harvard, or any university are not an unchallenged repository of truth.
( I’m not sure how you extrapolate the “externalities” of Coal to justify an attack on oil)
I said, “vague and unworkable” , because the dynamics of any assessment are impossible to access. It becomes a matter of speculation and a lot of selective data in support of advocacy.
You appear to have your mind made up, and find any critical examination offensive, but at the risk of creating further offense I will provide an example.
Consumption of diesel fuel must create, especially in urban areas, some effect on human health. (It’s a hard statistic to define).
Yet in calculating the “externalities”, no study calculates the beneficial impact of diesel. When a fire engine arrives and extinguishes a highly pollutant fire, no study measures the impact on human had the fire been unattended.
The point I was trying to make, is ” externalties” are very difficult to measure. Attempts are bound to become confused by political bias, and just another battleground.
The US economy, like every nation, must remain competitive. If industry finds the US to restrictive or expensive, it simply moves elsewhere. The US consumer still uses the product, the atmosphere is still polluted, by the US is less economically viable.
Since the US is the powerhouse of creative thinking and innovation, a weak US economy retards the world’s ability to transition to better technology.
It’s a matter of balance.