[di456]

“We are confident that, once we show what the fossil fuel companies knew about global warming and when, and what they did to deny, delay and deceive the public, the jury will not let the fossil fuel companies get away with their reckless misconduct.”

[nroets]

Oil companies also know that their products are critical to the production and distribution of food and a long list of other modern day necessities. Should they cease operation and let us starve ?

[d4mi3n]

I think the argument here is that they shouldn’t deceive the public about the realities of their operations in order to raise or sustain their profits.

If the service is essential, the consumers of said goods can make their own decisions about how essential they are without all the smoke and mirrors.

[tfourb]

By that logic everything that has any positive externality at all would be legal. The plaintiffs specifically argue that the companies behaved recklessly motivated by profit seeking. They actively misled the public about a negative externality associated with their product. That is basically the same argument that plaintiffs made against tobacco companies. Cigarettes were legal, they brought satisfaction to consumers, but the producers actively misled their customers about negative side effects in a reckless manner.

[outside1234]

The argument should be that these externalities get priced into oil to help with climate change effects and transitioning to clean energy. The analog I think are cigarettes and how we have taxed them out of existence

[mbgerring]

The word “critical” used in this sentence suggests there is no way to produce or distribute food or other commodities without fossil fuels, which is plainly, obviously false.

[whatever1]

No but they should at least not do buybacks and pay dividends, before cleaning up the mess that their production & product causes. This way an even competition field would form. Oil drilling is not a ludicrous business if you consider the actual costs for production (aka capturing carbon, decommissioning rigs, cleaning up production sites).

[elchief]

Ya we didn't have food before oil...