this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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We should not expect companies to choose a less immediately profitable route that ensures long term sustainability. That's just not what they are incentivized to do on their own. Consumers can sometimes influence those incentives, but there is not always enough market choice to put that kind of pressure on corporate behavior. Instead, if there is a significant public interest in such a change, such as with climate change from burning fossil fuels, it is up to governments to change those incentives.
If green energy is less profitable than fossil fuels, the government can cap production, increase taxes, rework trade deals, add regulations, etc. to limit the profitability of fossil fuels. They can also increase the profitability of green energies by providing grants into research, tax breaks to producers, tax incentives to adopters, subsidize installation and maintenance for green energy production, fast track infrastructure, etc.
If fossil fuels companies can make an easy buck by switching to green energy, they will or someone else will outcompete them. But while they can still profit off more off of the thing that is worse for the world, they'll still do it becuase the profit is the goal. Always. Duh. Welcome to the horrific consequences of unfettered capitalism.
We should expect that. It is not that "companies" are creatures with their own will. Humans own them, humans work for them and it is humans making decisions and we should expect them to do better for humankind.
I refuse to buy into the ~~boys are boys~~ companies are companies saying, it is changeable. So many businesses have no whatsoever problems to adapt, but the people leading these WANT to adapt, they want to plan for the long run, they want their business to make money and do the right thing and it is possible.
Yes the government needs to step in with laws and force them to do the right thing, but still we need to call the humans out that decide by free will to f*ck us all over and use a business to do it, again the business does nothing, it is humans who do it because they want to, they are not forced to do it. That's why we should not say BP does this, we should name the responsible people behind the business name and hold them responsible one by one.
The real answer is that the people who are in control of these companies, the people who generally succeed in business enough to take control of these businesses, are not the kind of people who understand, believe in, or care about climate change. On the whole, they are more selfish, deluded, and short-sighted than the average person because those are the kind of people that are good at making a quick buck for the shareholders, getting a big bonus, and then bailing out when when things get hard. They're also the kind of people who will virtue signal their intent to do something popular to see if it helps their bottom line and then quietly back off when it doesn't.