Most everyone's losing sleep over what'll happen to our species and the rest of life on earth as human-driven climate change rips our planet a new one. Capitalists? Not so much: some are too busy hustling to ensure that other capitalists pay for the fiscal hurt that the Earth's bid to evict us all is putting on their bottom lines.
From The Calgary Herald:
In a letter addressed to Calgary-based Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. dated Nov. 15, Whistler Mayor Jack Crompton said the town’s taxpayers “are paying 100 per cent of the costs” associated with climate change events such as “drought, flooding, and extreme weather.”
He’s asking CNRL to pay in to “the costs of climate change being experienced by Whistler,” including the municipalities’ “$1.4 million investment in community wildfire protection activities” for 2018.
“As a town with a population of less than 15,000 people, this is a significant cost to bear along with costs associated with impacts to winter and summer sports tourism,” he said in the letter.
Sure, Whistler only has a population of less that 15,000 people, but the majority of them are filthy rich–you have to be to live there. I have a feeling that the town does okay on property taxes, especially since the one thing that Whistler has more of than mountains and rich people are Whistler's insidiously expensive hotel and resort properties.
Whistler's not the only town in Canada looking for oil producers to pay up for putting their municipalities in the red. According to The Calgary Herald, over one dozen other towns have stepped forward asking oil and gas companies to fork over some cheddar to help them balance their books in the face of extreme weather caused in part by carbon emissions.
It's understandable why cities and towns are looking for help from oil and gas producers: the money's there to be had, provided the companies are willing to part with it. However, asking for handouts from the petroleum industry in this manner has the feel of city counsels looking out for Number One when they could be using their leverage as pretty substantial legal weight to pressure the industry to change for the common good.
Image: By Philippe Giabbanelli – Opera propria, CC BY 3.0, Collegamento
