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Worst corporate polluters hide in regulatory ‘darkness,’ study finds on August 25, 2023 at 10:00 am Business News | The Hill
Many of the world’s corporations may be responsible for climate damages far greater than their annual profits, a new study has found.
For the biggest polluters worldwide — the fossil fuel-dependent power industry — that means potential legal liabilities around seven times their annual profits, four economists from leading universities wrote on Thursday in Science.
“The average corporate carbon damages [are] economically large,” the economists wrote.
Those climate damages result from a “choice” on the part of regulators, coauthor Michael Greenstone of the University of Chicago told The HIll.
That’s because the key to bringing those emissions down is forcing firms to disclose them — and creating penalties for failing to do so, Greenstone said.
While agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission have proposed making such disclosures mandatory, “to date, that has not been a requirement,” he added.
It has also been politically controversial: The GOP has made a campaign against mandatory climate disclosure a key plank of its platform, as The Hill has reported.
In the absence of rigorous information, the researchers made use of publicly available data based on 15,000 companies’ voluntary disclosures. Then they multiplied those numbers by an estimated “social cost of carbon” — a metric of the damage done by every ton of greenhouse gas released into the atmosphere.
While most firms were responsible for a lot of damage, they write, culpability was not equal.
The team found a wide range of climate costs “across firms, industries, firms within industries, and countries.”
Among “companies who are basically doing the same thing, some emitted more than others producing the same product,” a sign that it’s possible “to produce the product without such heavy emissions,” Greenstone said.
In those instances, government regulators could require particularly high-emitting businesses within a given sector to shift their emissions down; investors could choose not to invest in them; or plaintiffs could sue them.
“You can reduce emissions through many different channels,” Greenstone said. But mandatory disclosure is “the foundation of many forms of carbon policy.
Based on the limited data available, researchers concluded that the average firm worldwide could be liable for damages equal to 44 percent of their annual profits.
That number was a bit lower for U.S. companies — an average of 18.5 percent of profits.
But in this case, averages aren’t very helpful because even in the most polluting sectors — energy, power utilities, transportation and agriculture — have stark variations in their potential carbon damage.
Worldwide, energy companies in the bottom 10 percent of emitters could have caused carbon damages equivalent to 4.5 percent of their annual profits.
But global energy companies in the top 90 percent and above could be responsible for carbon damages of nearly four times their annual profits — or comparatively 100 times as much as those bottom-ranked energy companies.
In the U.S., the 90th percentile polluters in the most carbon-intensive sectors were also responsible for damages in excess of their annual profits.
That meant 234 percent for energy; 178 percent for food, beverages and tobacco; 201 percent for materials, including concrete to petrochemicals; and 342 percent for utilities.
But there’s one big caveat, the authors note: These numbers are likely significant underestimates because they come almost entirely from disclosures that those companies have made voluntarily — companies that face “no penalties for misreporting.”
“This … underscores the need for mandatory and verified emissions reporting,” they write.
They note that financial markets can’t “discipline” high polluters through lower stock prices if they don’t know how many tons of greenhouse gasses those companies release — a core demand of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement.
Finally, the need to share their emissions — a source of potential embarrassment and even legal liability — creates a good incentive for companies for bring them down, they wrote.
While many companies worldwide have net-zero policies, those claims are difficult to evaluate against the company’s actual actions.
The economists argue that climate legislation without legal teeth to punish companies that don’t comply, or that mislead investors will struggle to be anything more than “ad hoc.”
Greenstone cautioned it was “inappropriate and incorrect” to lay all this blame at the feet of the companies themselves. When it comes to parsing out the relative responsibility between companies and consumers, he said, “we don’t have the data for it.”
More to the point, he argued, such blame isn’t necessary: regulatory change is. “Companies respond to the regulatory and policy playing field,” he said.
“If there was a carbon price of $200 a ton, the companies would figure out how to deal with it, they might be painful for them, but they would figure out how to do it.”
But right now, he noted, “our national carbon price is effectively zero.”
The findings in Science do not specifically focus on the idea of litigation to make companies pay those damages. But their publication comes amid a new wave of litigation against fossil fuel companies and the legislatures that have reflexively encouraged and subsidized their use
Equilibrium & Sustainability, Business, Energy & Environment, News, Climate change, climate disclosure rules, pollution Many of the world’s corporations may be responsible for climate damages far greater than their annual profits, a new study has found. For the biggest polluters worldwide — the fossil fuel-dependent power industry — that means potential legal liabilities around seven times their annual profits, four economists from leading universities wrote on Thursday in Science. “The average corporate carbon…
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Google Accused Of Favoring White, Asian Staff As It Reaches $28 Million Deal That Excludes Black Workers
Google has tentatively agreed to a $28 million settlement in a California class‑action lawsuit alleging that white and Asian employees were routinely paid more and placed on faster career tracks than colleagues from other racial and ethnic backgrounds.
- A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge has granted preliminary approval, calling the deal “fair” and noting that it could cover more than 6,600 current and former Google workers employed in the state between 2018 and 2024.
How The Discrimination Claims Emerged
The lawsuit was brought by former Google employee Ana Cantu, who identifies as Mexican and racially Indigenous and worked in people operations and cloud departments for about seven years. Cantu alleges that despite strong performance, she remained stuck at the same level while white and Asian colleagues doing similar work received higher pay, higher “levels,” and more frequent promotions.
Cantu’s complaint claims that Latino, Indigenous, Native American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Alaska Native employees were systematically underpaid compared with white and Asian coworkers performing substantially similar roles. The suit also says employees who raised concerns about pay and leveling saw raises and promotions withheld, reinforcing what plaintiffs describe as a two‑tiered system inside the company.
Why Black Employees Were Left Out
Cantu’s legal team ultimately agreed to narrow the class to employees whose race and ethnicity were “most closely aligned” with hers, a condition that cleared the path to the current settlement.
The judge noted that Black employees were explicitly excluded from the settlement class after negotiations, meaning they will not share in the $28 million payout even though they were named in earlier versions of the case. Separate litigation on behalf of Black Google employees alleging racial bias in pay and promotions remains pending, leaving their claims to be resolved in a different forum.
What The Settlement Provides
Of the $28 million total, about $20.4 million is expected to be distributed to eligible class members after legal fees and penalties are deducted. Eligible workers include those in California who self‑identified as Hispanic, Latinx, Indigenous, Native American, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and/or Alaska Native during the covered period.
Beyond cash payments, Google has also agreed to take steps aimed at addressing the alleged disparities, including reviewing pay and leveling practices for racial and ethnic gaps. The settlement still needs final court approval at a hearing scheduled for later this year, and affected employees will have a chance to opt out or object before any money is distributed.
H2: Google’s Response And The Broader Stakes
A Google spokesperson has said the company disputes the allegations but chose to settle in order to move forward, while reiterating its public commitment to fair pay, hiring, and advancement for all employees. The company has emphasized ongoing internal audits and equity initiatives, though plaintiffs argue those efforts did not prevent or correct the disparities outlined in the lawsuit.
For many observers, the exclusion of Black workers from the settlement highlights the legal and strategic complexities of class‑action discrimination cases, especially in large, diverse workplaces. The outcome of the remaining lawsuit brought on behalf of Black employees, alongside this $28 million deal, will help define how one of the world’s most powerful tech companies is held accountable for alleged racial inequities in pay and promotion.
At just 29, Luana Lopes Lara has taken a title that usually belongs to pop stars and consumer‑app founders.
Multiple business outlets now recognize her as the world’s youngest self‑made woman billionaire, after her company Kalshi hit an 11 billion dollar valuation in a new funding round.
That round, a 1 billion dollar Series E led by Paradigm with Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, CapitalG and others participating, instantly pushed both co‑founders into the three‑comma club. Estimates place Luana’s personal stake at roughly 12 percent of Kalshi, valuing her net worth at about 1.3 billion dollars—wealth tied directly to equity she helped create rather than inheritance.
Kalshi itself is a big part of why her ascent matters.
Founded in 2019, the New York–based company runs a federally regulated prediction‑market exchange where users trade yes‑or‑no contracts on real‑world events, from inflation reports to elections and sports outcomes.
As of late 2025, the platform has reached around 50 billion dollars in annualized trading volume, a thousand‑fold jump from roughly 300 million the year before, according to figures cited in TechCrunch and other financial press. That hyper‑growth convinced investors that event contracts are more than a niche curiosity, and it is this conviction—expressed in billions of dollars of new capital—that turned Luana’s share of Kalshi into a billion‑dollar fortune almost overnight.
Her path to that point is unusually demanding even by founder standards. Luana grew up in Brazil and trained at the Bolshoi Theater School’s Brazilian campus, where reports say she spent up to 13 hours a day in class and rehearsal, competing for places in a program that accepts fewer than 3 percent of applicants. After a stint dancing professionally in Austria, she pivoted into academics, enrolling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study computer science and mathematics and later completing a master’s in engineering.
During summers she interned at major firms including Bridgewater Associates and Citadel, gaining a front‑row view of how global macro traders constantly bet on future events—but without a simple, regulated way for ordinary people to do the same.
That realization shaped Kalshi’s founding thesis and ultimately her billionaire status. Together with co‑founder Tarek Mansour, whom she met at MIT, Luana spent years persuading lawyers and U.S. regulators that a fully legal event‑trading exchange could exist under commodities law. Reports say more than 60 law firms turned them down before one agreed to help, and the company then spent roughly three years in licensing discussions with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission before gaining approval. The payoff is visible in 2025’s numbers: an 11‑billion‑dollar valuation, a 1‑billion‑dollar fresh capital injection, and a founder’s stake that makes Luana Lopes Lara not just a compelling story but a data point in how fast wealth can now be created at the intersection of finance, regulation, and software.
America’s job market is facing an unprecedented crisis—and nowhere is this more painfully obvious than at Harvard, the world’s gold standard for elite education. A stunning 25% of Harvard’s MBA class of 2025 remains unemployed months after graduation, the highest rate recorded in university history. The Ivy League dream has become a harsh wakeup call, and it’s sending shockwaves across the professional landscape.
Jobless at the Top: Why Graduates Can’t Find Work
For decades, a Harvard diploma was considered a golden ticket. Now, graduates send out hundreds of résumés, often from their parents’ homes, only to get ghosted or auto-rejected by machines. Only 30% of all 2025 graduates nationally have found full-time work in their field, and nearly half feel unprepared for the workforce. “Go to college, get a good job“—that promise is slipping away, even for the smartest and most driven.
Tech’s Iron Grip: ATS and AI Gatekeepers
Applicant tracking systems (ATS) and AI algorithms have become ruthless gatekeepers. If a résumé doesn’t perfectly match the keywords or formatting demanded by the bots, it never reaches human eyes. The age of human connection is gone—now, you’re just a data point to be sorted and discarded.
AI screening has gone beyond basic qualifications. New tools “read” for inferred personality and tone, rejecting candidates for reasons they never see. Worse, up to half of online job listings may be fake—created simply to collect résumés, pad company metrics, or fulfill compliance without ever intending to fill the role.
The Experience Trap: Entry-Level Jobs Require Years
It’s not just Harvard grads who are hurting. Entry-level roles demand years of experience, unpaid internships, and portfolios that resemble a seasoned professional, not a fresh graduate. A bachelor’s degree, once the key to entry, is now just the price of admission. Overqualified candidates compete for underpaid jobs, often just to survive.
One Harvard MBA described applying to 1,000 jobs with no results. Companies, inundated by applications, are now so selective that only those who precisely “game the system” have a shot. This has fundamentally flipped the hiring pyramid: enormous demand for experience, shrinking chances for new entrants, and a brutal gauntlet for anyone not perfectly groomed by internships and coaching.
Burnout Before Day One
The cost is more than financial—mental health and optimism are collapsing among the newest generation of workers. Many come out of elite programs and immediately end up in jobs that don’t require degrees, or take positions far below their qualifications just to pay the bills. There’s a sense of burnout before careers even begin, trapping talent in a cycle of exhaustion, frustration, and disillusionment.
Cultural Collapse: From Relationships to Algorithms
What’s really broken? The culture of hiring itself. Companies have traded trust, mentorship, and relationships for metrics, optimizations, and cost-cutting. Managers no longer hire on potential—they rely on machines, rankings, and personality tests that filter out individuality and reward those who play the algorithmic game best.
AI has automated the very entry-level work that used to build careers—research, drafting, and analysis—and erased the first rung of the professional ladder for thousands of new graduates. The result is a workforce filled with people who know how to pass tests, not necessarily solve problems or drive innovation.
The Ghost Job Phenomenon
Up to half of all listings for entry-level jobs may be “ghost jobs”—positions posted online for optics, compliance, or future needs, but never intended for real hiring. This means millions of job seekers spend hours on applications destined for digital purgatory, further fueling exhaustion and cynicism.
Not Lazy—Just Locked Out
Despite the headlines, the new class of unemployed graduates is not lazy or entitled—they are overqualified, underleveraged, and battered by a broken process. Harvard’s brand means less to AI and ATS systems than the right keyword or résumé format. Human judgment has been sidelined; individuality is filtered out.
What’s Next? Back to Human Connection
Unless companies rediscover the value of human potential, mentorship, and relationships, the job search will remain a brutal numbers game—one that even the “best and brightest” struggle to win. The current system doesn’t just hurt workers—it holds companies back from hiring bold, creative talent who don’t fit perfect digital boxes.
Key Facts:
- 25% of Harvard MBAs unemployed, highest on record
- Only 30% of 2025 grads nationwide have jobs in their field
- Nearly half of grads feel unprepared for real work
- Up to 50% of entry-level listings are “ghost jobs”
- AI and ATS have replaced human judgment at most companies
If you’ve felt this struggle—or see it happening around you—share your story in the comments. And make sure to subscribe for more deep dives on the reality of today’s economy and job market.
This is not just a Harvard problem. It’s a sign that America’s job engine is running on empty, and it’s time to reboot—before another generation is locked out.
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