[Kivalina, Alaska, is suing Exxon Mobil and 24 other fossil fuel companies over climate change.]
My latest Science Progress column is up: It's about the growing potential for global warming tort cases--in which aggrieved parties directly sue polluting companies and seek damages--to succeed going forward. As I note:
...courts are beginning to notice the swell of cultural change that we see rising all around us on the climate issue. We're moving closer and closer, as a society, to fully accepting our responsibility to deal with global warming, and the courts--which have often served as a kind of barometer of social change--are moving right along with us.
You can read the full column here.
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No way. No way, Chris, this is ridiculous. I have plenty of sympathy for Alaska natives impacted by global climate change from Atka to Kivalina, but there's no way they're going to be able to prove this.
Because in order to do so, you need to prove negligence, which means prior knowledge. And the change that we're seeing now is due to emissions that are many decades old, far older than the scientific findings that show the definitive link between greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change. There's no reasonable way to hold oil companies accountable for this; they're not liable for this.
How soon until Bush pushes through the Free Beer, Healthy Mother, and Fossil Fuel Industry Retroactive Immunity Act?
If the oil companies are at fault, we're at fault. Every one of us gets into our cars, rides our planes, and turns on the light switch. They might as well sue the whole of the USA.
It might be a good idea if the US set up funds for dealing specifically with the problems associated with climate change, so the issue isn't about suing, but fixing or relocating. There's going to be a lot more needed, like how do we move plant species in California that can't spread fast enough to keep up with shifting environments?
"If the oil companies are at fault, we're at fault. Every one of us gets into our cars, rides our planes, and turns on the light switch. They might as well sue the whole of the USA."
Yes, they should. Each and every time, since the oil crisis of the 1970's, that the US has been offered a solution or an new technology that might take us away from harmful oil based emissions, we have said no thanks. We continue to be a car first, electricity hogging behemoth unwilling to move to 21st century technologies because . . . . such a move might require us to do something. And considering how few politicians we have turned out of office for failing to implement new innovative technologies, I'd say we are all doubly guilty.
And sadly, as one who works inside federal natural resources policy implementation, I can tell you first hand that agencies generally do nothing unless and until sued.
People said the same things about cigarette companies: "Even idiots know smoking is bad for you. How can you sue?" But the lawsuit was more about the cover-up tobacco companies engaged in than in the actual hard done.
Similarly, if it can be proven that oil companies mounted a concerted effort to conceal scientific evidence that global warming was more harmful, more immediate a threat, and more directly linked to the burning of fossil fuels than they wanted the public to learn...then I say a lawsuit has a good chance of winning.