7 trillion in 1 year? That would be over 1000$ per taxpayer, can that be correct? Also Im assuming the number is much higher for developed countries, have I been paying thousands of dollars every year for others to pollute the environment?
yes. You have been paying with your tax dollar for others to pollute the environment, prevent the development of better systems for energy, heating and transportation and for murderous regimes like in Saudi Arabia to support terrorist organizations attacking Western countries, torture and murder journalists and commit thousands of war crimes. If you are older you have also paid for the CIA to help Fascist regimes in central America to smuggle Cocaine into the US and guns into the Middle East. You have also paid for inhumane medical experimentation on Black Americans or on college kids that later turned terrorists because of the psychological damage they received. Should i go on?
$7 trillion? With a “T”???
That’s insane. With how much profit this industry produces, I guess I just assumed no government would consider them eligible for subsidies.
I wonder what the true cost of gas would be if you took into account the subsidies we’re paying for through our taxes.
The number is kind of misleading. There’s about $1-2T of direct subsidies, with the remainder being uncharged externalities (remediating environmental damage, etc) that’s paid for later with public funds. I’m not sure how they come up with those numbers, but if they really wanted to count externalities, the number should be orders of magnitude higher, like what’s the cost of actually removing that fucking carbon from the atmosphere, how do you price the inevitable mass starvation and collapse of industrial civilization, etc.
there is also things like tax exemptions for fossil fuels, where other energy carriers are taxed. For instance airplane kerosine is not taxed in Europe. Diesel has a tax exemption over gasoline in Germany that is worth 60 Billion annualy. These are neither direct subsidies nor externalities, but favor fossil fuels over other systems.
