Comments

As an engineer, you should then understand the implications of long term costs/versus short term costs. With a sound understanding of economics as well, you'd understand that successive short term financial gains are what drive free market forces. You'd also understand that long term maintenance of a product, be it large or small scale, devastates its economic potential since it is a constant capital sink (yet the original contractors or production company don't feel this immediately since they make their immediate profits in the short term). Normally, if the long term disfunctions caused by a product (or say something of larger scale like light rail transit) are a result of short-comings by the contractor/production company, then the only solution would be case by case litigation to decide which consumers/purchasers should get compensation for shoddy work or planning. In terms of pure free market economics, which you seem to be a major proponent of, this is one of the few ways of deterring companies from being so short sited (since I assume you don't seem to support up front regulations). Now, let's compare this directly to the situation. You say we should continue powering our society with the cheapest and (currently) most economical sources available. If we did that entirely, then cities around the world would all look like Beijing with hazy brown-gray skies. Sick days would increase, health care costs would rise, and productivity would likely fall. This wouldn't be a deterrent to the power/energy companies unless there was a possibility of huge litigation - which would bankrupt the corporations since the costs caused by suing for damages caused by the pollution; like increased rates of cancers, asthma, bronchitis, etc; would far surpass the profits made by following the most economic path for them in the short term (that is, assuming you actually allow people to sue for the damages caused by the pollution).