44% of PROFITS, not gross income.
Which means that even if companies were actually charged for the mess they made, they would be operating in the black AND their profits would still be 66% of normal.
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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I'll be that guy.. 56% of normal
Oh look here everyone, it's the math guy!
Probably got some fancy education like primary school.
I mean... It's really hard to subtract 44 from 100.
So, they'd still be wildly profitable, then?
Huh.
'Wildly profitable' would not be enough to them.
'Extremely profitable' would not be enough to them.
'Insanely profitable' would not be enough to them.
Infinite growth is one hell of a drug.
See also: any other form of cancer.
Infinite growth, until you kill your host. In this case the host is the whole human population.
Honestly, the whole world.
Will it recover? Maybe. Life is resilient.
But we've already presided over a pretty quick mass extinction that is still ongoing.
Life on earth has recovered from several mass extinctions, life finds a way. Humans are cooked though. Best of luck to the next sapient species to evolve.
Yeah it really drives home just how fucking cooked the situation is.
Sorry kids the biosphere is fucked and human society is an echo of what it once was but there were some rich people who didn't want to be slightly less rich than they already were.
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Huh that's very reasonable actually. Generous even. Now let's see what they can pay workers.
As little as they can get away with. And then they'll brag about record profits.
Yeah, I was thinking… only of their profits? So they can afford to still make a shitload of money and not put out all that pollution?
I mean this is paying for damages, not fixing the pollution
I’d like to see a calculation for that. It seems expenses to be more careful would be comparable, but who knows.
So, 44% of their profits are in fact 100% of our futures? That money didn't come from nowhere. All of us will pay that debt. Reporting needs to start reflecting that, and legislation needs to be enacted to get restitution. Until then, it's all toothless.
So what are we waiting for? Fuck em
Boo fuckin' hoo. Pay up, shitbags.
Narrator: ... and so they never did and also got away with it.
So in other words, they can afford to pay damages for it. Make them pay!
Sounds like a win win
Fossil fuels are the main actors in this. Corporations can only use the energy we provide them with.
Fossil fuel producers will never pay damages for climate change due to political donations. You may get the odd instance now and again, where there is selective scapegoating and that will be that. The tobacco industry (AFAIK) has never paid for the damages they have caused. They poured billions into politics and offset the argument against them for decades. Fossil fuel companies are doing exactly the same thing.
So rather than finger point towards specific actors, we should be sorting our political systems out. Political donations need to be banned. Campaigns should only be allowed to run through a single channel that is funded by the country. All other types of political advertising should be stopped. It is well known that the most successful campaigns have a price tag attached. Therefore it is easy to buy votes with campaigns. Moreso in a FPTP system. While we allow political donations we will never stop egregious profiteering without consequences.
Even with the fine, their huge profits hardly change. This shows that the penalty isn't enough to discourage pollution. Stronger actions are necessary to make companies responsible.
And what if everyone were honest about what these "damages" should be?
Even this fantasy scenario of consequences is an incredibly low-balled Cost of Doing Business of murder.
Corporate pollution and your pollution are the same thing
But they're literally not. I have no way of controlling or even knowing about what corperations emit
Thats whats tripping everyone up, thinking these corporations are off isolated somewhere just producing climate change gases.
No, what theyre producing is what you're buying. When someone says an oil company is responsible for however much greenhouse gas emissions, what they mean is the greenhouse gas emissions when you the customer burn that gasoline in your vehicle. Plus gases emitted processing the oil and getting it to the store for you to buy it.
These companies "taking responsibility" for their emissions would mean halting production of most things you go and buy.
this is a systemic issue, not an individual one. I can't control what a company does, weather they choose to buy 100% renewable energy or not. and what about their suppliers? how could a consumer possible know about their business practices, let alone influence them? this isn't about people buying the wrong products. the rich are lighting the planet on fire for a buck, and they must be stopped.
How did you read what i wrote and get controlling companies? Its your own damn car, im accusing you yourself of emitting the greenhouse gases youre trying to pawn off on someone else.
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Say there is a manufactured necessity. One cannot reasonably make it themselves or go without it. The manufacturer chooses to skimp on pollution controls or illegally dump so that the owners can make more money. How is that my fault?
big oil literally destroyed public transit so we'd be dependent on their products. believe me, living without a car is hard and I'm lucky enough to make it work. and the situation is artificially created for the benefit of the oil and auto industries
Yep, I went without a car for several months in a large US city that theoretically is decent for public transit and my life became much more difficult. I was able to make it work, but it has seemed barely sustainable. Now I live somewhere (not by choice really) that is completely impossible without a car/delivery... unless I spend hours a day walking, which would be very hazardous due to everyone else's cars.
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I mean this more literally than you think. What youre thinking of as pollution isnt as prevalent as you think. Its not a lot of ghg's emitting from factories themselves, and its not factory waste filling dumps. What you throw out as pollution is also the bulk of corporate pollution. Plastic packaging in plastic trash bags in their own packaging to throw out, all of it needing gas burning to ship around. The gas itself being another major "corporate" pollution that oil companies produced but is being burned in your car and the trucks delivering goods to you. You demand all of this pollution.
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Stupidly click baity title. The only corporation that does not pollute is the one that doesn't produce anything. Sure, regulations such as carbon taxes are necessary to contain negative externalities, but if there's a demand for cheap products there will be a lowest bidder that will take all market share.
Lowering our consumption is unfortunately the way to make those companies pollute less.
People don't want to hear about their personal responsibility to consume less, but it's true. Corporations aren't run by Captain Planet villains polluting for the same of pollution. They sell what people buy.
Sure, regulations such as carbon taxes are necessary to contain negative externalities, but if there’s a demand for cheap products there will be a lowest bidder that will take all market share.
If the taxes are accounting for the externalities well enough, even the lowest bidder will be sustainable.
It's one of the things that infuriates me when I hear refusals to address climate change: the "business as usual" way of doing things entails externalising countless costs, meaning comparing costs is an apples-and-oranges endeavour.
@theendismeh @silence7 @climate
The "business as usual" approach reminds me of the saying "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"
Here's a simple idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polluter_pays_principle
Speaking from experience, it can also make teens more responsible with alcohol if they know who will have to clean up in case of overdoing.
They would still be insanely wealthy, even with 44% less profit.
Who gets paid the damages? Countries that will just keep subsidising these industries to the detriment of everyone?
Good.
Corporations make things either for consumers, governments (for consumers), or other corporations (for consumers). There is a lot to be said about what changes in consumption can change
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