Comment by cmrdporcupine
5 hours ago
All of this can be true and at the same time it's massively harmful to use.
It remains true that the actual total costs of using hydrocarbons are not factored into their actual real world market exchange rate. And every time we've made modest steps to try to make that happen (carbon taxes, regulation) the resistance has been swift and brutal.
I never said HC economy is not without externality. However I do believe forcing HC substitutes before nature (depletion) forces them may be a net utility loss. The evidence is very thin a little sea level rise and a little temperature rise is worse for humanity in net than losing tecnological society.
They're not going to deplete, every time we make an estimate on that we just find more or more ways to extract. We just keep finding more. And if we did run out of oil and gas somehow, people with this mentality will just burn coal again.
Until there is a regulatory model which forces the externalities to be accounted for, it's just a race to the bottom.