Climate 'makes oil profit vanish' (BBC News)

[Up2Late]

(Maybe this will get thier attention, but some how, I doubt it.)
Thursday, 9 February 2006, 23:47 GMT

Climate 'makes oil profit vanish'

By Richard Black
Environment Correspondent, BBC News website

The huge profits reported by oil and gas companies would turn into losses if the social costs of their greenhouse gas emissions were taken into account.

That is the conclusion of research by the New Economics Foundation (Nef). Nef found that the £10bn-plus profits just reported by Shell and BP are dwarfed by costs of emissions associated with their products.

Nef also suggests UK Treasury revenues from oil and gas may be a disincentive to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The comments come in an article for The Green Room, the BBC News website's weekly series of opinion pieces on environmental issues.

Reporting previously undisclosed figures, Nef's policy director Andrew Simms writes: "Our new calculations from research in progress with WWF, based on Treasury statistics, show that UK government income from the fossil fuel sector - conservatively estimated at £34.9bn ($61bn) - is greater than revenue from council tax, stamp duty, capital gains and inheritance tax combined.

"Policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions could therefore have a major impact on the government coffers; a serious disincentive to action."

(more at link below)

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4699354.stm>

[madmark]

1. external costs should be taxed

[400Years]

2. externalization of costs is a standard capitalist practice

the easiest example to understand is the dumping of toxic waste into rivers.

[formercia]

3. Just like the social cost of smoking

should be calculated into the tax imposed on producers. Even tobacco taxes are no where near enough to offset the cumulative social cost generated by the consumer. The same should be taken into consideration with any other product that generates cost over lifetime.
Another good example is nuclear power. If the sum of all costs from initiation of the fuel cycle to end of life storage were taken into consideration, nuclear energy would not be economical either. The reason Fearless Leader is pushing for nuclear power is that his friends see an opportunity to get a windfall profit by using nuclear fuel from decommissioned nuclear weapons and almost no cost in the name of converting weapons grade uranium and plutonium into nuclear waste. The taxpayer paid to produce the fuel and the taxpayer will pay for the eventual disposal and long-term storage of the waste.
Last year, weapons grade plutonium was sent to France to be converted into fuel for a new class of reactor that other countries have tested and found to be uneconomical in the long term. It's all about short term profits.

[Up2Late]

5. You got that right!

Everything the Bush Cabal is about is Short-term profits, and letting future generations worry about the mess they make.

[Massacure]

6. Storing nuclear waste is miniscule compared to stopping global warming

Especially without nuclear power.

[freefall]

4. companies should be forced to pay external costs up front. n/t.