WFB: California cities suing Exxon and four other oil companies have reworded a portion of their original complaint after being rebuked by the presiding judge.
The cities of Oakland and San Francisco are arguing that Exxon knew of the effects of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels decades ago, but carried on with business as usual and ignored the possibility of environmental harm while covering up their knowledge of potential dangers.
The cities had initially pointed to a 1996 internal memo from an industry group, the Global Climate Coalition (funded by the America Petroleum Institute), which said that, “a doubling of carbon dioxide levels over pre-industrial concentrations would occur by 2100 and cause ‘an average rate of warming [that] would probably be greater than any seen in the past 10,000 years.'”
However, the memo was referencing an assessment by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and was not the independent findings of the GCC’s work.
If the GCC had reached this determination on their own, the memo had a higher likelihood of showing that those in the oil industry knew of potential harms from climate change because they were relying on their own independent research and conclusions.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup said the IPCC’s conclusions were widely known, and therefore, “it’s hard to say [Exxon and the other companies] were secretly aware” of impending environmental harm.
Alsup said in a hearing last week the wording of the allegation in the original complaint implied “there was a conspiratorial document within the defendants about how they knew good and well that global warming was right around the corner,” according to Legal NewsLine.
“And I said, ‘Okay, that’s going to be a big thing. I want to see it,'” Alsup continued. “Well it turned out it wasn’t quite that. What it was was a slide show that somebody had gone to the IPCC and was reporting on what the IPCC had reported, and that was it. Nothing more.” more here
The oil companies should ask them why they continue to make use of fossil fuels and driving cars that use their product when they believe they cause this problem. What about retard Brown’s unicorn train – what do they think is going to power that?
BTW – a new Intellectual Froglegs – very appropriate – Libtard Farm
greater than any seen in the past 10,000 years.’”
how they knew good and well that global warming was right around the corner,
Sounds like we already have a 10,000 year old plan in place to deal with it.
Not to mention that they can’t reliably predict the weather even a few days in advance.
isn’t this basically how they got the tobacco companies ?
“Exxon knew of the effects of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels decades ago, but carried on with business as usual and ignored the possibility of environmental harm while covering up their knowledge of potential dangers.”
Greater warming than any time in the last 10,000 years, as long as you ignore the period after little ice age.
@bill:
“isn’t this basically how they got the tobacco companies ?”
Yes, and it’s exactly the same people. Lefist attorneys made billions off the tobacco lawsuits and are using that money to fund new lawsuits, like this one.
So all people knew this too, right? And continued to buy gasoline, use electricity, etc.???
We are all complicit! Sue everyone!
Give it a rest! Is this sounds another way to spend tax money on stupidity.
Why not sue all of Kaliphornia’s millionaires and billionaires who know gasoline causes global warming but still buy gas guzzling cars, airplanes, and boats? I’d like to see how many of those lawyers rode their bicycles to court.
What was the alternative? Remain stuck in the middle ages? Coal and oil provided cheap and dependable energy which benefited billions of people, and not many of them are complaining.
Hydro-electric is pretty cheap and reliable, as is nuclear power. However, the environmentalists dislike both intensely. Solar panels didn’t really exist until fairly recently in the big scheme of things, and both solar and wind have proven to be not so cheap or reliable.
Modern society relies on massive amounts of inexpensive energy to exist. In fact, I would argue that Oakland and San Francisco would not exist, at least in their present form, without the energy provided by coal and oil. Uh, maybe on second thought that’s not such a bad thing.