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Both. Pollution externalities are basically unpriced, and oil production is massively subsidised. Governments suffer from hyperbolic discounting - they would rather keep gas prices low for the next election than deal with the expensive and difficult long-term process of transitioning to more sustainable sources of energy.



that's an interesting take

"hyperbolic discounting" is an interesting phrase, I'm curious about to what degree that has been studied as an economic/political phenomenon

seems like its something that govenments clearly do, but its not obvious how long they can do it

also all economic actors discount the future at varying rates


"also all economic actors discount the future at varying rates"

Which future are you referring to, the near future? Economic actors generally care about the profit which is closest to them, any consideration of the future beyond that is considerably weaker.

Also, consideration of economic actors is an abstract idea, what is being discussed is the reality of what exists today. What would you propose for ensuring the overall costs were more completely reflected in the final price?


well, I mean some actors are more future oriented than others, but everyone prefers a dollar today to a dollar a year from now,

politicians probably have a weaker future orientation than most, but they're not unique in discounting the future

I don't philosphically have any problem with carbon taxes, or some legal liability scheme to capture overall costs




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