These Teens Adopted an Orphaned Oil Well. Their Goal: Shut It Down. Students, nonprofit groups and others are fund-raising to cap highly polluting oil and gas wells abandoned by industry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/climate/orphan-wells-capping-methane-leaks.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uU0.hWXM.HlITXpT8WPSm

It's a serious policy failure that this is happening; the people paying to cap wells should be the ones who became wealthy by extracting the oil, not a bunch of random teenagers.

138 points · 6 comments · view on lemmy.world

6 Comments

DarkGamer@kbin.social · 30 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Privatized profits socialized losses

lettruthout@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 2y

And...

"We're the cleanup crew for a party we were too young to attend." - Kevin Gilbert, from a song on the album Thud

thejevans@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 2y (1 reply)
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Chainweasel@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 2y (3 replies)

This is definitely going to sound counterproductive, but I think they should have kept the first well they acquired and as a source of income and then used that income to buy and shut down other wells, then cap it.
Make the oil finance its own demise.

thejevans@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 2y
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Badeendje@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

Or drilling rights should come with a required deposit that will pay for the capping once done.

DaDragon@kbin.social · -1 pts · 2y
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tsonfeir@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y

Next week: Teens become rich by adopting oil well.