This is pretty classic nuisance extortion through the courts. What were the oil companies meant to do in order to avoid this lawsuit? Shut down their entire businesses? So that instead Oakland could sue the new oil companies that would inevitably spring up, since our entire civilization still runs on the stuff?
Also, though the article doesn't say it outright, it looks as if there's not even given any evidence of current damages, just hundred-year-out projections. (And the record of long-term predictions in this domain is certainly not precise enough to base legal arguments on.) So they're meant to pay now for hypothetical damages that may happen later, as punishment for providing the energy that runs our whole society. Okay?
This law suit is absolutely ridiculous. What's next, let's sue farmers for farming cows that belch methane into the atmosphere? Or how about we sue all parents for creating people, since people create so much environmental damage. No matter where you stand on the policy of climate change, this law suit sets a dangerous presedent: Using the courts to afflict political change that should be done through other means.
I'm all for reducing climate change. But there are ways to do that. First of all, get rid of all the oil subsidies! That's the first thing that should be done. Then, tax the oil industry and others pollutants proportionately to the amount of climate change produced, perhaps measured by the amount of resultant Co2.
This is a joke. You need standing to sue. You can’t sue unless you have actually suffered a harm.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a lower court ruling on Crawford et al concerning FATCA; the 6th Circut overturned the precedent set by Susan B Anthony List v. Driehaus by adding a heightened requirement for standing; harm doesn’t need to just be credible to give rise to standing, it has to be credible AND certain.
Interestingly the recent 6th Circuit decision on Crawford gutted Roe v. Wade as well — essentially making the standing of any woman suing doubtful. Crawford rewrote the standing requirements of Roe v. Wade — and if applied to this current case, the cities will have the case thrown out because a harm from rising sea levels might be credible, but it definitely isn’t certain. That seas levels will rise at all is credible but also not certain. And beyond standing, the question is: did the oil company cause the harm? It could be argued that if an oil company caused a harm by supplying oil, Oakland and San Fran harmed themselves by using gasoline and oil for years and years themselves. So who is culpable? The addict or the dealer? How about city building codes that didn’t properly address the credible harm from rising seas? If such a harm were known and Oakland et al chose to ignore it and continue to issue building permits, then it casts doubt as to the credibility of that harm. If they issued a construction permit while being knowledgeable of the harm, they are negligent; if they don’t actually think it’s a harm enough to change building codes, then it’s obviously not harm enough to get paid by oil companies.
I realize that the 6th Circuit doesn’t apply to California, since they are in the 9th, but it’s highly likely Elena Kagen will grant Cert to the Crawford case — a case that’s going to have an incredible effect on standing requirements for lawsuits such as these.
If I make a device that lets half of society sit on its ass for 100 years then murders everyone, I think the costs should be factored in by sueing me before everyone is dead. But maybe that's just me.
Up until now, oil and fossil fuels have done way, way more good than harm to humans. They have enabled farming techniques that can produce food for billions of people. They have enabled global distribution of goods. They have enabled mass commercial air travel. They have enabled the greatest lifting of people out of poverty in human history. Abundant, reliable electricity most often powered by fossil fuels enabled the digital revolution.
This suit is very disingenuous and nothing but political grandstanding.
Oil companies have been compensated for those benefits by people paying for oil. They have largely not had to pay for those harms. Allowing them to be sued brings their compensation more in line with what it should be.
Shouldn't the cities be suing individuals who use the fuels? The oil companies are merely manufacturing a product that can be used, it's the responsibility of end-users for the destruction they cause.
The equivalent would be states suing gun companies for manufacturing handguns that are used in crimes, even though those same guns are used by police officers to uphold the law.
Don't energy companies produce energy resources that help impoverished people obtain clean drinking water and protect against environmental threats?
At least in the case of Exxon, the company actively engaged in a misinformation campaign regarding climate change and its link to oil. This is more similar to how the tobacco companies operated in regards to cancer.
No. Exxon knew what was happening since the 70s and pumped propaganda and fake research to fool the public into believing otherwise.
We have governments and companies with experts to allow normal people to just live their lives. When companies act in bad faith we need to hit them hard. My main problem with capitalism is that we're not hitting the same shareholders that existed back when all these shenanigans were going on.
There have been several lawsuits filed against gun companies for making legal weapons. I'm not aware of any actually ending in a judgement against the company, but I know a few have ended in settlements. It was a minor political issue when Congress gave handgun companies immunity against some of those suits when George W. Bush was president.
Years ago governments tried suing gun manufacturers for handguns used in crimes. To my knowledge though they've never sued automakers for making get-away cars.
Nice consistent trend going back 167 years. 1.94mm/year, +/- 0.19mm, for as long as we have been keeping records.
There is NO increase in the rate of sea level rise here, or anywhere in the US, that is above long-run trends going back to the start of record keeping. A quick glance at official government data will prove it. In fact, many West Coast stations (as well as Hawaii), show a decrease in sea level, due to continental rebound and volcanic rise.
No increase in the rate does not mean no increase. Clearly there is an increase. You want a hockey stick? Wait for Greenland to melt. You may well live to see that.
* "The legal complaints also cite an internal Exxon document from 1982. Its authors predicted that global temperatures will rise 3 degrees Celsius before the century ends."
* "The defendants “promoted fossil fuels and fossil fuel products for unlimited use in massive quantities with knowledge of the hazard that such use would create,” the San Francisco suit says."
Can't wait for gaz stations to be like cigarette packaging/advertising (in most of the western world except the US): un-branded and with large warnings about the health/environmental consequences.
> "The legal complaints also cite an internal Exxon document from 1982. Its authors predicted that global temperatures will rise 3 degrees Celsius before the century ends."
If I were an Exxon exec, I’d be less worried about lawsuits, and more worried about future lynchings by an enraged and suffering world populace. In particular, when a particular kind of person connects the dots between fossil fuels, climate change, and mass migration they’re going to flip.
What a waste of taxpayer money.
I am all for moving away from fossil fuels, into renewable energy, but this is just ridiculous.
The oil enabled the developed world we live in today, without oil we would never get to the point where SF is one of the richest cities on earth. If anything the oil companies should sue the city for a share in revenue.
For such a bold lawsuit I thought a Scientific American article would surely post some trend data about what sort of sea level rises these specific cities faced. What a let down.
This is ridiculous case
- lets sue sugar manufacturing for making sugar, which caused us to gain weight and other over weight related problems.
- heck, lets sue the farmer that grew the sugarcane and beet that were used to manufacture sugar.
The lawyers of Oakland and SF don't drive cars? Or travel on planes?
If the intention is to put pressure on the Oil companies to stop lobbying against clean energy - I don't think, this is the right approach.
This is also done for other things like having tobacco companies or alcohol companies finance health care and treatment programs.
Actually, for oil companies that is not even new. They usually pay quite a bit to account for the local damage they cause to the environment, so adding global damages as well seems very reasonable.
The only weird thing is why Oakland and SF are suing and not, say the federal government or the UN.
This is actually really nice to see. If they can prove that the oil companies were knowingly causing harm, the entire conversation around climate change will shift.
I'm disappointed in the discussion here so far. When did we become a community of "be nice to the big guys"?
I'm not sure that's a reasonable comparison. If Coke and Krispy Kreme had research 50 years ago that showed the link between their products and diabetes and then funded misinformation and contradictory research for the following decades to convince people otherwise it would seem warranted to sue them?
There was a case of somebody suing McDonalds with the claims "that the combined effect of McDonald's various promotional representations ... was to create the false impression that its food products were nutritionally beneficial and part of a healthy lifestyle if consumed daily" and "that its use of certain additives and the manner of its food processing rendered certain of its foods substantially less healthy than represented" ( http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1181336.html ). The suit was dismissed because the lawyers who wrote the complaint didn't claim that the affected customers actually believed the advertisements.
And at the same time the shoulders of the highways in the Bay Area (280 and 101) are literred with trash, the roads in San Francisco have so many potholes that you need an SUV to drive on them, and South of Market you need to be very careful not to step on piles of used syringes that are seeping off homeless encampments. And yet the city of SF is suing oil companies for rising seas. When will this dysfunctional ideologue city government be voted out, if ever?
This is such bullsh!t. Suing oil companies while, I'm sure, both Oakland and San Francisco benefitted from their wares for sale. In fact, without them, I'm sure both cities would have fared much worse in the past few decades.
This is a classic example of looking a gift horse in the mouth. Putting regulations on oil companies would benefit all, rather than this frivolous lawsuit which would benefit the two cities ONLY.
The defendants “promoted fossil fuels and fossil fuel products for unlimited use in massive quantities with knowledge of the hazard that such use would create,”
Why not Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota, Boeing...? Hey, I sell gasoline /diesel, one of the many (legally available) fuels, you either buy it or you don't.
[+] [-] alethiophile|8 years ago|reply
Also, though the article doesn't say it outright, it looks as if there's not even given any evidence of current damages, just hundred-year-out projections. (And the record of long-term predictions in this domain is certainly not precise enough to base legal arguments on.) So they're meant to pay now for hypothetical damages that may happen later, as punishment for providing the energy that runs our whole society. Okay?
[+] [-] pascalxus|8 years ago|reply
I'm all for reducing climate change. But there are ways to do that. First of all, get rid of all the oil subsidies! That's the first thing that should be done. Then, tax the oil industry and others pollutants proportionately to the amount of climate change produced, perhaps measured by the amount of resultant Co2.
[+] [-] briandear|8 years ago|reply
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a lower court ruling on Crawford et al concerning FATCA; the 6th Circut overturned the precedent set by Susan B Anthony List v. Driehaus by adding a heightened requirement for standing; harm doesn’t need to just be credible to give rise to standing, it has to be credible AND certain.
Interestingly the recent 6th Circuit decision on Crawford gutted Roe v. Wade as well — essentially making the standing of any woman suing doubtful. Crawford rewrote the standing requirements of Roe v. Wade — and if applied to this current case, the cities will have the case thrown out because a harm from rising sea levels might be credible, but it definitely isn’t certain. That seas levels will rise at all is credible but also not certain. And beyond standing, the question is: did the oil company cause the harm? It could be argued that if an oil company caused a harm by supplying oil, Oakland and San Fran harmed themselves by using gasoline and oil for years and years themselves. So who is culpable? The addict or the dealer? How about city building codes that didn’t properly address the credible harm from rising seas? If such a harm were known and Oakland et al chose to ignore it and continue to issue building permits, then it casts doubt as to the credibility of that harm. If they issued a construction permit while being knowledgeable of the harm, they are negligent; if they don’t actually think it’s a harm enough to change building codes, then it’s obviously not harm enough to get paid by oil companies.
I realize that the 6th Circuit doesn’t apply to California, since they are in the 9th, but it’s highly likely Elena Kagen will grant Cert to the Crawford case — a case that’s going to have an incredible effect on standing requirements for lawsuits such as these.
[+] [-] remline|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|8 years ago|reply
This suit is very disingenuous and nothing but political grandstanding.
[+] [-] haltingthoughts|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] assblaster|8 years ago|reply
The equivalent would be states suing gun companies for manufacturing handguns that are used in crimes, even though those same guns are used by police officers to uphold the law.
Don't energy companies produce energy resources that help impoverished people obtain clean drinking water and protect against environmental threats?
[+] [-] dgllghr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3pt14159|8 years ago|reply
We have governments and companies with experts to allow normal people to just live their lives. When companies act in bad faith we need to hit them hard. My main problem with capitalism is that we're not hitting the same shareholders that existed back when all these shenanigans were going on.
[+] [-] maxlybbert|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wingspar|8 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerc...
[+] [-] lallysingh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FreeInFlorida|8 years ago|reply
Here's the sea level data for San Francisco, CA since Abraham Lincoln was President:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station....
Nice consistent trend going back 167 years. 1.94mm/year, +/- 0.19mm, for as long as we have been keeping records.
There is NO increase in the rate of sea level rise here, or anywhere in the US, that is above long-run trends going back to the start of record keeping. A quick glance at official government data will prove it. In fact, many West Coast stations (as well as Hawaii), show a decrease in sea level, due to continental rebound and volcanic rise.
[+] [-] sulam|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mgbmtl|8 years ago|reply
Two key quotes from the article:
* "The legal complaints also cite an internal Exxon document from 1982. Its authors predicted that global temperatures will rise 3 degrees Celsius before the century ends."
* "The defendants “promoted fossil fuels and fossil fuel products for unlimited use in massive quantities with knowledge of the hazard that such use would create,” the San Francisco suit says."
Can't wait for gaz stations to be like cigarette packaging/advertising (in most of the western world except the US): un-branded and with large warnings about the health/environmental consequences.
[+] [-] lliamander|8 years ago|reply
Did it rise 3C?
[+] [-] goatlover|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] QAPereo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] booblik|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexasmyths|8 years ago|reply
Cars, planes, trains do about 35% of it.
Manufacturing most of the rest.
I find this all rather populist, I'm not sure it's the best approach.
[+] [-] 5ilv3r|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jxramos|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amatai|8 years ago|reply
The lawyers of Oakland and SF don't drive cars? Or travel on planes?
If the intention is to put pressure on the Oil companies to stop lobbying against clean energy - I don't think, this is the right approach.
[+] [-] diffeomorphism|8 years ago|reply
Didn't we do exactly that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax
This is also done for other things like having tobacco companies or alcohol companies finance health care and treatment programs.
Actually, for oil companies that is not even new. They usually pay quite a bit to account for the local damage they cause to the environment, so adding global damages as well seems very reasonable.
The only weird thing is why Oakland and SF are suing and not, say the federal government or the UN.
[+] [-] 5ilv3r|8 years ago|reply
I'm disappointed in the discussion here so far. When did we become a community of "be nice to the big guys"?
[+] [-] c517402|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s0rce|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxlybbert|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cft|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BFatts|8 years ago|reply
This is a classic example of looking a gift horse in the mouth. Putting regulations on oil companies would benefit all, rather than this frivolous lawsuit which would benefit the two cities ONLY.
[+] [-] jasonmaydie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goatlover|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notruthallowed|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] gwatch|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] valuearb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsomctl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tryingagainbro|8 years ago|reply
Why not Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota, Boeing...? Hey, I sell gasoline /diesel, one of the many (legally available) fuels, you either buy it or you don't.