I don’t always regard my day job as particularly relevant to reality (although it is in many ways!). I do remember my old boss’s Slack status or bio or something along those lines was makethembuy. While that may be the job of a marketer (or anyone in business really???), and necessary if one wants to collect a paycheck, lately I’ve been feeling like making my personal motto into makethempay.
By “them,” I don’t mean any of my bosses, most of whom have been quite pleasant if occasionally ineffectual (and really, the capitalist machine is optimized to chug on far beyond the influence of any individual, isn’t it?). I mean the fossil fuel companies responsible for creating, covering up and profiting from the climate crisis. So lately I’ve started trying to understand how “we” (anyone!) can make them pay for their decimation of the climate and human rights by ushering in what we really need–that is, a zero-emission economy. Is it possible? Fossil fuel profits ($174 billion in the first three quarters of last year) might give us a start.
Recently, the Philippines Commission on Human Rights found that the world’s largest fossil fuel companies had “engaged in willful obfuscation and obstruction to prevent meaningful climate action.” While obviously true, potential penalties are less clear. As Inside Climate News describes it, “While the commission [sadly! - Ed.] has no power to compel companies or governments to act on its findings, legal experts said its report carries broad implications for other cases.” Part of the forcefulness of the evidence presented came from the way it demonstrates the impact of climate change on specific human rights, like health and food security.
While it’s certainly true that fossil fuel companies’ operations (and all of the activity they enabled, from turning on the lights to driving cars to flying planes) generated this climate crisis, we could also argue that other corporate activities have led to other crises, like those in housing prices (tech companies driving up rents in the Bay Area, for example) or agricultural production (Monsanto’s dedication to developing crop-devastating products needed for successful monocultures, perhaps). I’m also interested in how those contributions should be paid for by corporate actors, especially if considering collective impact instead of individual plaintiffs. (At least Elon’s interested in offering shelter?)
Still, “Pollution is still the largest existential threat to human and planetary health and jeopardizes the sustainability of modern societies,” as Philip Landrigan, a director of the Global Public Health Program and Global Pollution Observatory at Boston College, told Inside Climate News. The publication adds that ”Michael Brauer, a professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington… noted that the 9 million annual deaths attributable to pollution were almost unchanged in the past five years.” That makes it certainly seem worthy of large-scale legal action.
Additionally, fossil fuel operations stand ready to continue disrupting human life": even as they consider a shift away from oil and gas, they are moving to a new area: plastic. “More than 60 percent of oil demand is expected to come from plastics and chemicals in the next decade,” according to Inside Climate News’ conversations with Marty Mulvihill, a chemist and co-founder of Safer Made. And even babies can’t avoid them: petrochemicals are being found in pregnant women, in all of our bodies. (Gives a new meaning to the human energy company, eh? There’s a little Chevron in all of us!)
Anyway, I am not a lawyer or able to advise anyone on how to effectively bring a suit that won’t get bogged down in standing or jurisdiction (THE WORLD, obviously, probably even the solar system?) whatever, but following the tobacco settlement, here are some half-baked ideas I have about how fossil fuel companies should pay:
Eliminate oil and gas subsidies (which added up to nearly $6 trillion in 2021), which would raise gas prices. Gas prices already rising due to global conflicts, and expensive gas might be a big driver in getting people to switch to EVs. According to the Yale School of the Environment, “Setting the price of coal, oil, gas to reflect their true cost — say, with a carbon tax — would cut carbon dioxide emissions by around a third, helping to put the world on a path to keeping warming below 1.5 degrees C.” Of course, we’d also need some kind of bridge funding to help people transition from wildly expensive gas to affordable electric. Fund it!
Include all true climate costs, including the negative externalities of burning fossil fuels, from $820 billion in health costs to climate costs, in the price of gas. This could bump up the price even more.
Eliminate or regulate advertising, including reining in oil companies’ greenwashing. It’s great that you’re making some efforts now (slow clap); when, if ever, will they begin to outweigh your damages? Provide that calculator and we’l talk.
Make fossil fuel companies pay for EV subsidies for low-income individuals, home electrification and electric transit. While they’re at it, fund an EV charging station for every gas pump. (Echoes of Appendix D.)
Anyway, they made the money by killing us all (and decimating our resources), and their actions had the most adverse impact on the people who can least afford it. Least they could do is pay it all back, right?