And guess who is making donations, hiring nephews, and making up parts of portfolios. What the parent was saying is that externalities don't matter to these people because we don't value externalities as a society.
It's a winning strategy. Not only in the US, but across most of the Anglo sphere. As an added bonus it provides huge payoffs to billionaires at the cost of the poor and middle class.
Not in the UK. Coal use has plummeted by 84% in 5 years (84 million tonnes in 2014 to 8 million tonnes in 2019), while renewable energy has been hugely expanded. All under “right wing” (Conservative) governments.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/09/is-this-...
And their target demographic isn't too interested in facts, so they'll never learn the reality that it was deregulation lead to a natural gas boom, which lead to the free market dealing the death blow to coal. So they can keep selling evil job killing regulations as the reason for the decline of everything great in this country.
Renewables get the headlines, but those coal plants are mostly being replaced with natural gas ones. The media reports "renewables overtake coal for the first time," which gives the false impression that solar and wind are displacing coal. But that's not what's really happening, which is that those former coal plants now burn natural gas because it's cheaper.
Not true in the UK. Natural gas use has also declined, albeit only slightly, in recent years. There has also been a net loss of capacity in the past decade as more old NG plants have closed than new ones built.
Meanwhile, coal, which produced 42% of all UK electricity as recently as 2012, has almost gone to zero while renewables (the bulk of which is offshore wind) are at 37% - and growing every year.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Natural-Gas-Has-Replaced-Ov...
Or should they consider these against long-term costs incurred by everyone? Surely there is a middle ground that works for everyone. It’s not as if major oil companies are struggling to survive.
We don't live in a world where we get to speculate on what the intended role of government ought to be.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
That’s a narrow-minded view. Sure, environmental regulations cost oil and gas companies money.
But this fails to consider the external costs to society: increased healthcare costs and reduced life expectancy due to air and water pollution, future costs of global heating including property damage to coastal cities from rising sea levels, agricultural regions becoming less productive, etc.
Secondly, reducing dependence on fossil fuels (many of which are imported, even in America) will improve energy security and reduce energy costs in the long term. Great economic benefits, as well as environmental ones.