undefined | Better HN

0 pointstoomuchtodo2y ago0 comments

Think of the shareholder value though. /s

People are going to scream about the cost of remediating all of this (hundreds of billions, if not trillions), but it was just shareholders through limited liability corporations stealing from taxpayers (who will end up with the remediation bill through taxes) by way of the market and government, with enormous aggregate harm a second order effect. So long, and thanks for all the poison.

> The estimated cost to the federal government of cleaning up environmental contamination, referred to as environmental liabilities, was $613 billion in fiscal year 2021. This is an increase from $465 billion in fiscal year 2017.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104744

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/news-and-stories/groundbreaking-... ("Groundbreaking study shows unaffordable costs of PFAS cleanup from wastewater")

https://gispub.epa.gov/oeca/WOS/ ("Superfund Settlements and Work Orders Mapper")

0 comments

rtkwe2y ago

So many industries are only profitable because their costs for pollution and environmental damages aren't included and by the time that bill comes due the company and all the shareholders are long gone and the cost gets dumped on the public.

yifanl2y ago

Man, really puts into perspective how silly it is for me to be paranoid about deploying a change for a webapp with 100 DAU, while agricorp businesses have no problems accidentally poisoning the planet.

thfuran2y ago

It's not always accidentally.

jaggederest2y ago

Same as with the fossil fuel industry - the chloralkali industry as a whole is going to end up net negative all time, with the cost of cleanup exceeding all the total profits of that entire chemical company subcategory. We've already seen it with asbestos, it's going to be playing out similarly for a number of industries.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse