Pollution is ultimately a violation of property rights, which is a pretty fucking fundamental concept in our legal system. If I own land, and someone dumps coal on it, that’s a violation of my rights. If someone dumps coal that seeps into water that seeps onto my land and then poisons me when I drink my water… it’s the same concept.

Generally, when individual humans violate other people’s rights, we’re extremely strict. When companies do it at a large, systemic scale, we for some reason let them off the hook. Even when they have exceptionally good income & financial outlook.

It follows that the system is fundamentally broken.

Sometimes it seems like the job of rules is to have exceptions to break them.