How would NYC run without fossil fuels? Police cars, ambulances, garbage trucks (when they aren’t on strike), inspector vehicles, buses, meter maids, the mayors limo. And so much more, and that’s just city operations. How about all the private operations? How about all the taxis, limos, and other conveyances. How about all the trucks which bring in materials that allow all those people to eat? How about all the airplanes at the airports? You know, the ones that all Bill De Blasio to jet off to ‘climate change’ meetings in foreign nations?
New York City sues Shell, ExxonMobil, and other oil majors over climate change
The New York City government is suing the world’s five largest publicly traded oil companies, seeking to hold them responsible for present and future damages to the city from climate change.
The suit, filed Tuesday against BP, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, claims the companies together produced 11 percent of all of global warming gases through the oil and gas products they have sold over the years. It also charges that the companies and the industry of which they are part have known for some time about the consequences but sought to obscure them.
“In this litigation, the City seeks to shift the costs of protecting the City from climate change impacts back onto the companies that have done nearly all they could to create this existential threat,†says the lawsuit brought by New York corporation counsel Zachary Carter, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
These are shakedown suits, much as we’ve seen with all the ones filed by California municipalities, and, once again, these companies should pull their operations out of NYC. Refuse to sell gasoline to the City of New York government. Refuse to sell jet fuel to the airports in NYC. Which we know won’t happen, sadly. But, they could threaten. And, they could call out De Blasio for his own use of fossil fuels, like for his limo, and flying to climate change conferences. Call out the city for their use of fossil fuels.
“To deal with what the future will inevitably bring, the City must build sea walls, levees, dunes, and other coastal armament, and elevate and harden a vast array of City-owned structures, properties, and parks along its coastline,†the suit details. “The costs of these largely unfunded projects run to many billions of dollars and far exceed the City’s resources.â€
The suit does not specify precisely how much money it is asking for from the oil companies in what it calls “compensatory damages,†saying that should be established in the case.
In other words, they’re trying to shakedown the companies. However, we saw ExxonMobil respond to the California suits by demanding discovery of documents, to “depose California state officials and others involved in bringing the cases for “potential claims of abuse of process, civil conspiracy, and violation of ExxonMobil’s civil rights.—
Exxon and the others shouldn’t let the suits be settled or ended or dropped: they should force the cities, like NYC, to go through the whole process, and, if they get dropped, sue back. Why? Because the Warmists lose almost every time, because they cannot provide rock solid scientific proof that ‘climate change’ is mostly/solely caused by Mankind.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
This is what the fossil fuel companies feared: That governments would work to recapture the costs of damages. This is similar to what happened to the tobacco companies.
Market interactions can have “negative externalities”, societal costs associated with the interaction. Pollution is prime example. Lung cancer in tobacco users is another.
” Because the Warmists lose almost every time, because they cannot provide rock solid scientific proof that ‘climate change’ is mostly/solely caused by Mankind.”
They don’t have to. That’s why they do this in civil courts where the standard of proof isn’t scientific certainty, or even legal evidence. it is only required to convince a jury of people who didn’t have anything better to do that day than get appointed to jury duty. I ca tell you with certainty, that the jury pools in NYC and California will be loaded with true believers in global warming, loaded with true believers in sticking it to large corporations, and true believers in wealth redistribution. Not a lot of true believers in law, science, or justice. So, NYC lawyers have nothing to lose and a potentially huge payoff. It’s a no brainer from lawyer point of view. They had to do it. Once you wave that big bag of other people’s money in front of their faces, they can’t pretend they didn’t see it.
Even a legal standard would be:
1. What is the real cost of the harm that has been done to you? Answer: $0.00. Not future potential harm. You have to wait and sue for that in the future.
2. What is the real percentage of that harm caused by my clients: You cannot hold them responsible for all of the cumulative acts of human-kind for the past 100 years. What did these specific clients do to cause you harm.
3. To the extent that you can prove the harm was deliberate or malicious, you may claim punitive damages. The entire civilized world using their product and no responsible government offering to remove that product would invalidate this claim.
And since climate change has always been about wealth transfer and making connected people (like NYC lawyers) fabulously rich, there is no way this doesn’t go to trial.
There is rarely “rock solid scientific proof” of scientific theories. What one does see is the accumulation of consistently supportive evidence that leads to a scientific consensus, a consensus that can be upended with contrary “falsifying” evidence.
There is little doubt in the scientific community around the theory of man-made climate change. It is “proven” to the satisfaction of most scientists. The Earth, the atmosphere and the oceans are warming. CO2 is increasing. CO2 absorbs radiation in the infrared (heat) range. There is less radiation of these wavelengths leaving the Earth’s atmosphere. The increase in CO2 is from humans burning fossil fuels. etc etc etc.
Yet the still elusive subject of proof that CO2 causes warming in a convective atmosphere like the one we have on Earth remains.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true. They just have to convince 12 jurors with sub 90 IQs that it is true. The task is even easier if the government claims it will use the “winnings” to support programs like free phones for black people and expanded school lunches. Then the jury become willing accomplices in the shakedown.
At least if it were a criminal trial they would have to prove a law has been broken.
The never proved in court that cigarette smoking causes cancer. They made the Cigarette companies admit it as a penalty. When billions of dollars are on the line, lawyers will get their payoffs. The gold standard is the creation of a multi-billion dollar slush fund that will be administered by some lawyer “friend of the court”. What ever happened to the $25 billion that BP coughed up for Deepwater Horizon? I hear a lot of environmental groups got very fat with that money. They in turn donated lots of money to their favorite (Democrat) candidates. It’s all about the money and the corruption. And that’s why Hillary didn’t win. America was fed up with corrupt life-long politicians.
It’s no coincidence that many of the same lobbyists and “scientists” who fought for the tobacco companies are also climate change “skeptics”. It’s an ideological cult whose primary dogma is that corporations should be able to do whatever they please.
The evidence that cigarettes cause lung cancer is circumstantial. Most cases of lung cancer are found in smokers or former smokers, and is relatively rare in non-smokers. The chemicals in cigarette smoke have been shown to cause cancers in animals. Not all lung cancers are caused by smoking. Not all smokers get lung cancer. Yet, the scientific consensus is that smoking greatly increases one’s risk to get lung cancer. Do you disagree with the medical consensus? Do you need more “proof”?
Here’s some actual facts around the Deepwater Horizon settlement.
http://eli-ocean.org/gulf/agreement/
Do you think BP shouldn’t have been forced to pay damages? It’s estimated that BP’s negligence will end up costing BP and injured parties some $80 billion. Fortunately for BP, no executives were marched to the gallows for their negligence. The only ones killed were workers on the platform. In 2014, BP petitioned the Supreme Court for relief from the compensation for damages they had originally agreed to but their plea was rejected. They might find a more sympathetic court today.
It is no coincidence that the same groups that sued the tobacco companies need new revenue steams.
The groups that are now bonding together for climate litigation have broken the law but won’t be prosecuted because the lawbreakers are the ones who choose who gets prosecuted.
As for the BP case, lower courts had interpreted the agreement to be far beyond what BP had agreed to. That was the issue.
As for the accident itself, isn’t it amazing that the DeepWater Horizon rig was inspected and found to be in compliance, even though the rig actually hadn’t been inspected according to safety guidelines? Should the inspectors and the states be held accountable for failing to do their jobs as well?
We get it Jeffery. You think the solution to failed government policies is more government policies. (Except, of course, when they apply to you.)
And add to that the fact that the Mugabe administration sat on it’s ass for about 4 months while refusing any help from around the world because of the Davis-Bacon Act.
Talk about making a disaster worse.
Jeff,
I am glad to see you know how to use Google. And sorry to see your ADHD meds aren’t very effective. Try to stay on topic. FOCUS. The topic is: In civil trials, you only have to convince the jury, many of whom are easy to convince, not PROVE anything scientifically. Cigarette settlement is an example. Subtopic: Multi-billion dollar settlements lead to corruption. Example: Deepwater horizon. Your link does nothing to support or refute either of these points. Consensus is not proof. Pie charts showing the broad categories of corruption does not refute corruption.
I realize that at this point, you are just flinging Poo because it’s all you got. Best wishes and happy Friday.
Using the tobacco settlement as a comparison is ludicrous, at best. But then we’re talking about liberals. If one could say “without tobacco, x number of people would have livedâ€, as in the case with fossil fuels, one could maybe make a case. But one can’t. On top of the fact that there’s no evidence that man’s additional CO2 is adversely impacting the weather other than model assumptions, good luck with that law suit.
But then we’re talking about Con Men “thought”.
The poor folks in California beg to differ with your opinion.
forgot to add… but then again j believes that undocumented immigrants are convicted of 72% of America’s drug possessions. LOL. But then we’re talking about a Con Man.
So in other words, J can’t refute the fact that there’s no evidence man’s CO2 is adversely impacting the weather, or he would have said so. Guess what-I’m not shocked anymore, as this is his standard operating procedure. “But then J believes..â€. Actually, those figures were from the US Sentencing Commission provided in a prior link. But nice try.
Does it make sense to you that 72% of drug convictions are of undocumented immigrants? Really? You’re skeptical of CO2 intercepting re-emitted infrared radiation but not skeptical of a claim that 72% of drug convictions are of undocumented immigrants?
As I explained, The Mother-Tucker on FOX intentionally misled you by trying to pass off federal convictions as overall convictions. You fell for it. Not even TEACH shared the dumb Tuck’s lie.
Uh…no..
I suspect that you didn’t watch the segment.
Carlson makes it clear that he is talking about crimes at the federal level. He not only says it, but the graphic he uses is clearly labeled as “Federal Crimes.”
There is no deception other than from you.
Liar Tuck made it seem as if this was hidden data that shed light on some great truth. His goal was to mislead you and by all appearances you fell for it. You didn’t really, did you?
Do you think that 72% of the nearly 2 million drug convictions are of undocumented residents? Does it make any kind of sense to you that 25% of undocumented adults have been convicted of drug possession? Or will you admit that the little Tucker used a tiny subset of data to mislead his hapless viewers?
Did you notice that Tuckface spent most of his time whining that liberals keep claiming that undocumented residents commit fewer crimes than the general population and used this tiny dataset to persuade his hapless viewers that it wasn’t true? Either the tucker is stupid or he meant to deceive. You favor stupid, I think he was misleading his viewers.
Well all oil and gas companies should stop selling to New York city. Lets see how all those city vehicles do
No, liar Jeffery decided that he didn’t need to actually what was said and decided to spread lies.
His goal was to mislead by spreading the truth?
How exactly does that work?
Being that was not what was said, there is no need to respond.
Why are you continually misrepresenting what was said?
Federal convictions are a small subset of data?
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
You mean that you haven’t heard liberals use the argument that illegal immigrants cause fewer crimes than citizens?
(Tiny subset of data still makes me laugh.)
Third option: Carlson pointed out that a liberal talking point isn’t true.
Please show me where I “favor” other than once again, you got caught lying.
We4 all get it Jeffery. You hate facts – especially those that shoot down the liberal lies you espouse. Instead of dealing with the truth, you go for more lies.