I didn’t read it that way. What I’m saying is this article doesn’t show whether the industry can or can not survive without unpaid externalities, it only shows that the fines are way too low to be a deterrent. It also seems like there is room to spend at least some extra $30K on reasonable salaries and habitation, and still make a profit.
Likewise, mankind would move away from oil if all externalities were accounted and paid for.
That’s what they used to say in the early 2000s about “carbon offsets”: make the externality accounted for, and… well, we can see how that one is working out, can’t we?