Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

We rightly lament the unfunded liabilities of the nuclear industry, whose clean-up costs (from 1st and 2nd generation reactors) the public must pay.
But the unfunded liabilities dumped on us by the fossil fuel industry are MUCH greater. Example 1:
Thread/
nytimes.com/2020/07/12/cli…

In this case, the investors simply walk away from wells leaking methane and other pollutants. There are similar stories the world over.
The same goes for opencast coal mines. The owners take their massive profits, and leave us with a gigantic hole.
monbiot.com/2015/04/28/a-h…

That's here in the UK. It's even worse in many other countries. But there's hardly a word about it in the press.
Dire as these unfunded liabilities are, they are tiny by comparison to the biggest legacy issue of all:

Greenhouse gases.

The greenhouse gases bequeathed to us by the fossil fuel industry are the definitive example of an externality: a cost incurred but not carried by a business. They walk off with the profits. We are left holding the liabilities.

This liability is, to put it in business terms, potentially greater than the entire planet's assets. In other words, no amount of money can compensate for the harm it inflicts on us. It threatens the destruction of our life support systems.

The fossil fuel industry has made no plans to clean up this existential mess. Had it done so, its profits would have been exposed as illusory. It took the money and ran.

Yes, we should excoriate the nuclear industry, which created a legacy of radioactive waste for which it had no viable disposal programme, and against which it had set aside inadequate funds.

But let us also remember the far greater crimes of its rivals.