Bloomberg’s $87 Trillion Carbon Fantasy: When Climate Modeling Meets Magical Thinking

Mark Gongloff, an opinion columnist at Bloomberg, recently wrote a piece titled “Corporate America Owes the Rest of Us $87 Trillion.” In it, he claims U.S. companies are causing carbon-related social damages worth 131% of all corporate equity and three times America’s GDP. All based, of course, on models, not measurements.

“The social cost of the carbon emissions of US companies will amount to a cool $87 trillion through 2050.” — Mark Gongloff, Bloomberg

That’s not analysis. That’s climate-themed performance art.

The core of this fantasy is the “social cost of carbon” (SCC), a figure so malleable it practically defines policy-based evidence. Gongloff acknowledges the controversy:

“That hasn’t been easy or uncontroversial.”

Indeed. Under Trump, the SCC was $1/ton. Biden’s EPA pushed it up to $190/ton, conveniently aligning with Net Zero mandates. Gongloff prefers the high end—naturally. The study he cites by Lubos Pastor and Wharton School colleagues simply plugs this inflated SCC into an economic model and—presto!—out comes a multi-trillion-dollar guilt trip for corporate America.

The trick is simple: pick a damage number, apply it across a long enough time horizon, assume compounding effects, and declare catastrophe. That’s not economics. It’s speculation wearing a necktie.

Gongloff sets up skeptics as indifferent obstructionists:

“Modern deniers… fire back that the ‘do something about it’ part is too hard, too expensive to be worth trying.”

This is the typical bait-and-switch. Skeptics aren’t denying costs—they’re questioning whether proposed solutions are worse. Germany’s disastrous energy transition, skyrocketing prices, and blackout risk demonstrate what happens when you ignore reality in favor of renewable fairy tales.

Gongloff’s version of pragmatism?

“Being truly pragmatic means leaving fossil fuels behind as quickly as possible.”

That’s not pragmatic. That’s blind faith. Oil, gas, and coal still supply over 80% of global energy. The “just transition” isn’t happening—because it can’t without destroying the economy.

In a particularly deranged twist, Gongloff endorses holding companies responsible for emissions they don’t even directly produce:

“Most of that falls under the category of ‘Scope 3’ emissions… the gasoline burned in cars and the natural gas burned in homes.”

So now energy producers are to blame for how consumers use their product? This isn’t justice—it’s ex post facto criminalization. Under this logic, Ford is responsible for traffic, and McDonald’s for your waistline.

It also forms the foundation for climate lawsuits, which Gongloff promotes:

“New York state and other places are pushing for polluters to kick into ‘Climate Superfunds.’”

This isn’t accountability. It’s green Marxism, thinly disguised as reparative economics.

Gongloff writes:

“$192 trillion is a bargain relative to the potential costs.”

Only in a fantasy world where averted damages are based on inflated assumptions, infinite foresight, and zero economic friction. BloombergNEF, the source for this figure, assumes global coordination, endless spending, and perfect deployment of technologies still in the prototype phase.

There’s no acknowledgment of risk, trade-offs, or unintended consequences. Just more money, more control, more modeling.

Gongloff even dusts off the IMF’s infamous claim:

“The fossil-fuel industry gets $7 trillion in government largesse every year.”

This number is fake. It counts the absence of carbon taxes as a “subsidy.” If governments don’t charge you an imaginary fee, that’s now a handout. It’s like calling your paycheck a gift because the government didn’t seize it.

Real direct subsidies to fossil fuels are minimal. But the green energy industry? That’s a subsidy black hole, endlessly gorging on mandates, tax credits, and bailouts.

Gongloff sums it up:

“Add it up over 25 years… and $87 trillion starts to seem like a low bid.”

Of course it does—when the number is built on circular logic, unprovable assumptions, and the moral conviction of a missionary. This isn’t journalism. It’s climate absolutism wrapped in pseudo-economics.

And the real danger isn’t the carbon. It’s the crusade to control human behavior, dismantle prosperity, and punish the very systems that made modern life possible—all in the name of speculative models.

Let the markets—not modelers—guide our energy future.