‘Major Victory’: New Law Makes NY Second State to Hold Big Polluters Accountable | “The billions begin to add up. This is, more or less, how the states slowly and then quite rapidly took down the tobacco industry,” said climate leader Bill McKibben.

2 comments

1. This is going to backfire, and badly at that.

   The average science-illiterate person in the high-emitting countries, the type who thinks “doing something” is slapping a climate change bumper sticker on the SUV they drive to the airport a half dozen times a year, is going to see this and think that the oil industry is going to somehow “fix” climate change. Because that’s how they’ll interpret “hold accountable.” Any incentive they may have had to make changes in their own lifestyle are going to be lost, replaced with, “Well, I can keep doing whatever I want because the oil industry is going to be required to address this.”

   The recent acceleration in climate change is only going to accelerate even faster as a result.

   As for taking down the tobacco industry? Please. McKibben should have done his homework. Not only did they move a lot of their sales overseas, where sales increased from 400 billion “sticks” in 1992 to 900 billion by 2010, they’re now heavily invested in the vape market, which despite claims to the contrary is still incredibly dangerous to a person’s health.

2. Oil companies’ profits are due in part from not having to cover the full cost of their product. Destruction from sea level rise, climate change, health costs from air pollution, etc…. Other industries have the secondary costs of their products baked in to its prices. Oil companies have passed these costs to the consumer on a massive scale.

   Consider the car companies: from prior litigations, they are required to build in safety features and perform rigorous testing before a vehicle model is to be sold. They also deal with safety recalls for defective components and poor designs. All these costs are baked into the price tag of the product itself.

   This legislation is a start… a little too late, in my opinion, but there needs to be many more of these. DRIVE THE PRICE OF FUEL UPWARDS. It will make alternative energy solutions even more attractive and push our civilization away from the oil-addiction gambit we are in and towards a more sustainable future.

   Unfortunately, we will still have to deal with the irreversible effects of over a century of liberating millions of years of trapped carbon into our atmosphere.

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