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Ask Slashdot: Can a City Really Sue an Oil Company For Climate Change? (wired.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The city of Richmond, California, is suing Chevron, its largest employer and its largest public-safety scourge. But while industrial accidents like refinery fires are commonplace in the low-lying industrial town, that's not what this lawsuit is about. Richmond and six other California cities are suing oil companies for contributing to the changing climate, which threatens to inundate their shorelines. "In an era of federal deregulation and rising seas, these lawsuits feel increasingly urgent," writes deputy editor Adam Rogers. "The question is whether the courts will even see them as plausible."
The lawsuits face two big legal hurdles: getting scientific proof that climate change (and specific companies causing climate change) are to blame for the cities' woes, along with overcoming oil companies' contention that cities can't sue them at all, since at the federal level, they're beholden to the Clean Air Act. But the urban plaintiffs have a plan for that. They are not asking for new regulations or bans; they're asking for reparations for a problem they say oil companies willfully hid from them. "Oil and gas, like cigarettes, are products. The companies that sell them are liable for the damages they cause," says Sharon Eubanks, an attorney at Bordas & Bordas who was lead counsel in the Justice Department's RICO case against the Philip Morris tobacco company. "They have misled the public about the product's dangers."
The lawsuits face two big legal hurdles: getting scientific proof that climate change (and specific companies causing climate change) are to blame for the cities' woes, along with overcoming oil companies' contention that cities can't sue them at all, since at the federal level, they're beholden to the Clean Air Act. But the urban plaintiffs have a plan for that. They are not asking for new regulations or bans; they're asking for reparations for a problem they say oil companies willfully hid from them. "Oil and gas, like cigarettes, are products. The companies that sell them are liable for the damages they cause," says Sharon Eubanks, an attorney at Bordas & Bordas who was lead counsel in the Justice Department's RICO case against the Philip Morris tobacco company. "They have misled the public about the product's dangers."
As long as the people of the city drive cars and burn various fuel oils, it's their fault, too.
And David doesn't win. The oil companies have revenue that is larger than the GDP of some countries. They have infinitely more legal power as well. I doubt this will go anywhere and the only folks that suffer are the tax payers of Richmond, CA. Their tax dollars are going to get wasted on a folley.
Even the POTUS doesn't believe in climate change (induced by men)
Yes, he absolutely does.
Don't make the mistake of believing anything Trump says. Like anyone else, by their actions shall you know them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The problem is people buying the oil and burning it. Don't go blame the company selling it to you.
Suing a company for providing what customers want and need? It would be different if they were NOT giving what people wanted or were misleading their customers or they were directly damaging the environment or workers during/in production. Suing for climate change really makes little sense. This is a regulatory issue. It would be like suing car makers because cars create traffic jams, suing cattle ranchers because cows emit methane, suing paving companies because people are killed on roads more than when not on roads, or suing salt miners because salt is used a lot in winter climate areas and can contaminate the surrounding soil.
If you want to address climate change, then first and foremost, create innovative and competitive alternatives. Find ways to minimize the impact of existing systems. Find ways to reduce demand through efficiency. Educate people and consumers. And down the list, use sensible economic incentives to stimulate the above.
Yes, a city can sue an oil company for damages because they've already done it.
Also, as soon as the PLCAA is overturned (that's the 2005 law that makes firearms manufacturers the only industry that is exempt from civil lawsuits when their products harm people), you will see an overwhelming avalanche of lawsuits that will flip the entire gun control discussion in the US. Making corporations accountable for the external costs of what they do will be the legal trend of the coming decades. They've been getting a free ride long enough.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Money and power don't always win in court. See Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein for example.
True, we're all complicit in climate change for using fossil fuels. But the allegation here is that Chevron actively lied and suppressed information about their product. That might be tough to defend.
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it's about the oil companies running a decades long campaign to hide the effects of fossil fuels on the environment, often to prevent research into alternative and cleaner fuel sources.
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No, all plaintiffs benefited far far more from fossil fuel use than any possible downside. Longer life, healthier life, prosperity, amazing materials (metals, plastics, etc.)...all due to burning hydrocarbons.
It's like suing the surgeon that saved your life because he left a scar. Fossil fuel use saved humanity.
Now, I'll agree the stuff pollutes and we have better alternatives now that we should accelerate adoption, our sun puts out enough energy to power a thousands civilizations, only counting what hits earth.
but blaming or suing the mongers of the fuel that got us to this point? Stupidity.
Re: "modern industrial civilization STILL runs primarily on Fossil Fuels."
which by your "logic" means that can't change, right?
And certainly means it can't change fast enough to meaningfully impact the global warming hole we've dug for ourselves, right?
See that's where you're wrong. We CAN change, using the same smarts (both political and technological) that got us all the fossil-fuel based tech and economy, and not only that, we would be fncking stupid not to organize to change as fast as possible, knowing what we know about the problem now.
Believing only in the status quo fundamentally means lacking both motivation and imagination. Don't be one of those slackers.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Not really. Methane is a smaller contributor to greenhouse gas than CO2, and most of that methane is not from cows but from natural sources and industrial leaks.
Why sue one individual oil company when the disaster is caused by an industry on a global scale? Wouldn't it be more suitable to sue an organisation such as OPEC?
Why not go after the car industry as well for having actively decommissioning public transport in favour of cars in some areas?
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
The argument is that the oil companies have knowingly spread false information about climate change - false information that they knew to be true based on their own internal research - resulting in delays in legislation.
So their deception and the damaging results thereof are what the companies are being sued for.
Just like cigarettes. The customers were assured that the product had minimal downsides, so they adopted it enthusiastically, to the point where they became dependent on it. But they may well have made different choices if they'd known the full truth.
There are alternatives to fossil fuels. If the public hadn't been deliberately mislead by the industry, and if the full costs of burning fossil fuels (health as well as environmental) hadn't been systematically minimised and swept under the rug, then we could have better developed those alternatives much sooner, starting 50 years ago.
You can't claim the oil companies are blameless when they have been caught red-handed burying and buying unfavourable science, hiding the truth about their own product while spending hundreds of millions to trash the alternatives. We need lawsuits like these to establish how much of the blame falls on their shoulders. Not to mention the discovery phases should be very interesting..
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?