I agree with Theresa Taylor’s “I think we need a plan...” But simply “making polluters pay” is not a plan. A well-thunk plan includes consideration for possible outcomes with appropriate end-game strategies in anticipation of the worst.
Oil companies will surely pass the cost of their pollution on to consumers to the extent they can, and their lawyers will invoke creative legal challenges for decades, before finally filing bankruptcy to protect their shareholders (which is self-serving as their Officers, Boards of Directors and employees have life-savings at stake in XOM stock).
Exxon dragged the Valdez $5 billion punitive damages litigation out over two decades and settled with a $500 million fine. But you know the wildcatters and shell-company start-up frackers in the Permian all disappeared when their cash flow from quick-depleting wells failed to cover the fat-cat CEOs’ ginormous paychecks.
A domino cascade of industry bankruptcies will destroy American society, our economy, civility, logistics supply chains from hand-to-mouth groceries to just-in-time industry—you name it.
Has any renowned economist, revered institution, think tank or NGO bothered to model the breakdown and collapse that will result from big oil and shell companies protecting their assets? What’s the plan?
“I don't think engaging with [Exxon] will work,” said Theresa Taylor, CalPERS President. “ I think we need a plan...To say that we are very disappointed [is not enough].”
Ms Taylor is right, and we owe it to ourselves to listen to her. We do need a plan.
“Making them pay” is not the right plan. It treats the problem as a moral failing of bad actors acting badly who we must punish for their bad actions as retribution for their moral failing.
Making them pay treats the climate problem as a pollution problem that is caused by polluters and can be remedied by those very same polluters.
That framing is consistently ending in inaction.
It’s time for a new framing. COP28 gives us this new framing: “transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner”.
We cannot transition away without transitioning towards. So we need a plan for a global initiative to rapidly redesign and reconstruct our global energy ecosystem- core technologies and supporting infrastructure- that will be purpose-built for energy sufficiency complete with habitat longevity and social equity.
Such a purpose-built global redesign and reconstruction will require money with a global purpose at planetary scale.
Politicians don’t control that money. They are constrained to act within national boundaries and accountable to the shifting priorities of electoral politics.
Corporations don’t have that purpose. The corporation is a financing agreement that uses ownership broken up into shares to supply equity to enterprise supplied through the capital markets, in exchange for a promise to give the markets constant growth in share prices that the markets need to deliver liquidity to market participants so that market professionals can make money in those markets through the tumult of Creative Destruction.
Transition is not Growth.
Destruction is not orderly. Neither is it just. Or equitable.
Ms. Taylor, in collaboration with her peers, controls that money. The money she and they control is programmatic. It is future-focused. It is not limited by political boundaries or accountable to electoral politics.
It is the money we need to rally to shape the right enterprises for shaping the right new energy economy for the 21st Century, and beyond.
Automakers should be made to pay as well. They know that burning fossil fuel is bad for the planet. They have known it for decades yet continue to build bigger and bigger vehicles.
So packed with information. Thanks again for keeping us informed.
With regard to "That leverage is financial and legal, and no better example exists than the plan—currently under very active consideration in New York State—to charge the oil companies for the climate damage they’ve caused."
I'm concerned that O&G proponents will make the case that the O&G industry will make the point that they generate a relatively small amount of GHG ( from methane, etc.). It's the users of the O&G products that are responsible, so it is they who should pay. Logically, or course, that is nonsense, but legalistically, it might not be. I hope there is a way to defuse that kind of reasoning, and maybe there is, but I haven't seen it. Meanwhile, good luck to New York State.
"SUPERFUND." ORIGIN OF THE LEGAL CONCEPTS INVOLVED. Perhaps a word or two on where the concept comes from will be useful.
For decades, major corporations manufactured and sold toxic chemicals, particularly pesticides and other chemicals whose full toxicity were not so blatantly evident at the time. They commonly sold these chemicals to small, local companies which in turn sold them to farmers and other users. Leftovers were buried, in a case I worked on 20 years ago or so, in order to get rid of them. But the effect was to poison the groundwater and other areas, rendering the land useless, and impacting the use of water for agriculture and drinking.
LIABILITY LIMITATIONS. Were the local distributors negligent in failing to warn farmers of the danger? Whether they were or not, none of them had the money to pay the enormous costs of remediating the environmental danger. And most of the companies had long ago disappeared from the scene, decades after the sales.
What to do? HOLD RESPONSIBLE THOSE WHO CAUSED THE PROBLEM AND PROFITED FROM SALES, whether they could be proven negligent or not. That was and is the theory and essence of Superfund law. To simplify not too much, if a chemical manufacturer put these toxic substances into commerce, and the environmental damage could be shown, and there was causation, they (among others) were on the hook whatever their knowledge or wrongfulness.
THE SAME SHOULD APPLY TO FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE. IN FACT, THE CASE IS EVEN STRONGER since they had long been aware of the danger and nonetheless refused to change course. The case is stronger, too, because they lied for decades, exacerbating the problems.
WILL THEY JUST PASS ON THE COSTS? Given the fact that oil and gas are international markets, I'm not sure they can get away with increasing gas prices to make up for their increased costs. I suspect that it will just hit the bottom line. In any event, remediation re climate change will be vastly expensive, and government shouldn't pay all of it. IF ANY COSTS WERE PASSED ALONG TO GAS USERS, THAT'S NOT SO BAD. The true cost of gas should include the costs of climate change, and maybe making it do so will discourage to at least some extent gasoline use.
I'm just learning of your new addition to your family, congratulations. My father, who was about your age, became a grandfather after the birth of my oldest, who is now 11 (and acts like it). He passed almost four years ago, so it's special to me.
Is this Drax company the same one I was reading about last year that made its bones in West Indian slavery in the 18th century?
Also, for those of us who have difficulty with 44C, my easy thumb rule is: 37C is normal body temperature, 98.6F. 44C is a killer temperature, over 111F.
As an octogenarian I maybe misremembering the details of your substack, but IMO this current substack surprisingly has more good news than usual. IMO that an increasing number of states are likely to adopt “superfunds” as well as develop “green banks” is very encouraging!
Could one say that on the whole these states are doing more than the federal government to creatively sponsor programs that provide avenues for ordinary citizens to be proactively involved in combating the climate crisis?
I agree with Theresa Taylor’s “I think we need a plan...” But simply “making polluters pay” is not a plan. A well-thunk plan includes consideration for possible outcomes with appropriate end-game strategies in anticipation of the worst.
Oil companies will surely pass the cost of their pollution on to consumers to the extent they can, and their lawyers will invoke creative legal challenges for decades, before finally filing bankruptcy to protect their shareholders (which is self-serving as their Officers, Boards of Directors and employees have life-savings at stake in XOM stock).
Exxon dragged the Valdez $5 billion punitive damages litigation out over two decades and settled with a $500 million fine. But you know the wildcatters and shell-company start-up frackers in the Permian all disappeared when their cash flow from quick-depleting wells failed to cover the fat-cat CEOs’ ginormous paychecks.
A domino cascade of industry bankruptcies will destroy American society, our economy, civility, logistics supply chains from hand-to-mouth groceries to just-in-time industry—you name it.
Has any renowned economist, revered institution, think tank or NGO bothered to model the breakdown and collapse that will result from big oil and shell companies protecting their assets? What’s the plan?
“I don't think engaging with [Exxon] will work,” said Theresa Taylor, CalPERS President. “ I think we need a plan...To say that we are very disappointed [is not enough].”
Ms Taylor is right, and we owe it to ourselves to listen to her. We do need a plan.
“Making them pay” is not the right plan. It treats the problem as a moral failing of bad actors acting badly who we must punish for their bad actions as retribution for their moral failing.
Making them pay treats the climate problem as a pollution problem that is caused by polluters and can be remedied by those very same polluters.
That framing is consistently ending in inaction.
It’s time for a new framing. COP28 gives us this new framing: “transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner”.
We cannot transition away without transitioning towards. So we need a plan for a global initiative to rapidly redesign and reconstruct our global energy ecosystem- core technologies and supporting infrastructure- that will be purpose-built for energy sufficiency complete with habitat longevity and social equity.
Such a purpose-built global redesign and reconstruction will require money with a global purpose at planetary scale.
Politicians don’t control that money. They are constrained to act within national boundaries and accountable to the shifting priorities of electoral politics.
Corporations don’t have that purpose. The corporation is a financing agreement that uses ownership broken up into shares to supply equity to enterprise supplied through the capital markets, in exchange for a promise to give the markets constant growth in share prices that the markets need to deliver liquidity to market participants so that market professionals can make money in those markets through the tumult of Creative Destruction.
Transition is not Growth.
Destruction is not orderly. Neither is it just. Or equitable.
Ms. Taylor, in collaboration with her peers, controls that money. The money she and they control is programmatic. It is future-focused. It is not limited by political boundaries or accountable to electoral politics.
It is the money we need to rally to shape the right enterprises for shaping the right new energy economy for the 21st Century, and beyond.
That’s the plan we need.
Writing postcards to voters helps the cause. Anyone, anywhere can do it. Do a web search for organizations.
Thank you Bill! Your newsletters are always so enlightening. I love to read how you are enjoying your grandson!
Automakers should be made to pay as well. They know that burning fossil fuel is bad for the planet. They have known it for decades yet continue to build bigger and bigger vehicles.
Thanks for the great information. I've read Adams' Scientific American piece. Extraordinary.
So packed with information. Thanks again for keeping us informed.
With regard to "That leverage is financial and legal, and no better example exists than the plan—currently under very active consideration in New York State—to charge the oil companies for the climate damage they’ve caused."
I'm concerned that O&G proponents will make the case that the O&G industry will make the point that they generate a relatively small amount of GHG ( from methane, etc.). It's the users of the O&G products that are responsible, so it is they who should pay. Logically, or course, that is nonsense, but legalistically, it might not be. I hope there is a way to defuse that kind of reasoning, and maybe there is, but I haven't seen it. Meanwhile, good luck to New York State.
"SUPERFUND." ORIGIN OF THE LEGAL CONCEPTS INVOLVED. Perhaps a word or two on where the concept comes from will be useful.
For decades, major corporations manufactured and sold toxic chemicals, particularly pesticides and other chemicals whose full toxicity were not so blatantly evident at the time. They commonly sold these chemicals to small, local companies which in turn sold them to farmers and other users. Leftovers were buried, in a case I worked on 20 years ago or so, in order to get rid of them. But the effect was to poison the groundwater and other areas, rendering the land useless, and impacting the use of water for agriculture and drinking.
LIABILITY LIMITATIONS. Were the local distributors negligent in failing to warn farmers of the danger? Whether they were or not, none of them had the money to pay the enormous costs of remediating the environmental danger. And most of the companies had long ago disappeared from the scene, decades after the sales.
What to do? HOLD RESPONSIBLE THOSE WHO CAUSED THE PROBLEM AND PROFITED FROM SALES, whether they could be proven negligent or not. That was and is the theory and essence of Superfund law. To simplify not too much, if a chemical manufacturer put these toxic substances into commerce, and the environmental damage could be shown, and there was causation, they (among others) were on the hook whatever their knowledge or wrongfulness.
THE SAME SHOULD APPLY TO FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE. IN FACT, THE CASE IS EVEN STRONGER since they had long been aware of the danger and nonetheless refused to change course. The case is stronger, too, because they lied for decades, exacerbating the problems.
WILL THEY JUST PASS ON THE COSTS? Given the fact that oil and gas are international markets, I'm not sure they can get away with increasing gas prices to make up for their increased costs. I suspect that it will just hit the bottom line. In any event, remediation re climate change will be vastly expensive, and government shouldn't pay all of it. IF ANY COSTS WERE PASSED ALONG TO GAS USERS, THAT'S NOT SO BAD. The true cost of gas should include the costs of climate change, and maybe making it do so will discourage to at least some extent gasoline use.
I'm just learning of your new addition to your family, congratulations. My father, who was about your age, became a grandfather after the birth of my oldest, who is now 11 (and acts like it). He passed almost four years ago, so it's special to me.
Congratulations on the grandchild. Being born in a rich country it is highly likely that they will make a net contribution to human welfare.
I have not seen McKibben's objection to my criticism of "hurting" fossil fuel companies (or rather devoting resources to trying), so my criticism remains the same as stated here: [https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/legal-remedies-for-climate-change]
Is this Drax company the same one I was reading about last year that made its bones in West Indian slavery in the 18th century?
Also, for those of us who have difficulty with 44C, my easy thumb rule is: 37C is normal body temperature, 98.6F. 44C is a killer temperature, over 111F.
As an octogenarian I maybe misremembering the details of your substack, but IMO this current substack surprisingly has more good news than usual. IMO that an increasing number of states are likely to adopt “superfunds” as well as develop “green banks” is very encouraging!
Could one say that on the whole these states are doing more than the federal government to creatively sponsor programs that provide avenues for ordinary citizens to be proactively involved in combating the climate crisis?
Of course, they matter. They're blue, after all. They are like Enigma or Misery or Suffering, it never leaves us, like faith ...
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/misery-loves-company
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/suffer-well
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/return-to-innocence-the-kiss-arse
True, life is a reservoir of emotions. My whole Subtract is its arsenal, pure emotions, pure fire!
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/amor-situationship
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/return-to-innocence-the-kiss-arse
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/she-be-like-fucking-with-me
Blue emotion is like Enigma or Misery or Suffering, it never spares or leaves us, like faith ...
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/miss-you-blue
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/misery-loves-company
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/suffer-well