While I strongly agree with the need for climate litigation as a primary strategy against fossil fuel companies, I believe our current legal arguments are disastrously ineffective and that this new strategy strategy simply doubles down on that mistake.
Fossil fuel companies have nearly unlimited resources to defend themselves against litigation, so in the best case scenario they will drag out litigation for a decade or long, pay a fine that is negligible to their earnings and environmental damage, and continue causing harm.
Further, the current legal strategy against fossil fuel companies— ie they knew about climate change decades ago and did nothing — is a relic of Tobacco lawsuits and is out of date with current Big Oil practices. The U.S. government has officially declared that carbon capture is 1) essential and 2) that it is a clean energy technology, and therefore, fossil fuels are a source of clean energy. As a result, fossil fuel companies are invulnerable to litigation in the U.S.
Climate scientists proposing new models for climate litigation is exactly the model we need to abandon. Climate scientists cannot solve the crisis of change. We need engineers. We need transformation.
Likewise, think tanks like the Union of Concerned Scientists represent the problem, not the solution. The fossil fuel industry is not having a debate with them. It is not having a debate with anyone. They have direct control over U.S. policy thanks to corruption. It's that corruption that needs to be exposed, and that corruption leads directly to corrupt research centers within elite U.S. universities — MIT, Stanford, Columbia, to name the to three. That's where we have to focus litigation to stop the fossil fuel industry.
I don't understand why we can't simply hold these companies responsible for the pollution that they release into the air. This simple control would extend to reducing the impact on the environment as well as hold the company responsible for the damage to the local area. Climate change is a wonderful phrase to use to enact "taxes" that will probably be used for who knows what. But these legislations do not seem to take into account the damage done to people nor do I see that it provides compensation to the victims of the emissions and pollution. How do the victims that suffered health consequences benefit from all of this?
While I strongly agree with the need for climate litigation as a primary strategy against fossil fuel companies, I believe our current legal arguments are disastrously ineffective and that this new strategy strategy simply doubles down on that mistake.
Fossil fuel companies have nearly unlimited resources to defend themselves against litigation, so in the best case scenario they will drag out litigation for a decade or long, pay a fine that is negligible to their earnings and environmental damage, and continue causing harm.
Further, the current legal strategy against fossil fuel companies— ie they knew about climate change decades ago and did nothing — is a relic of Tobacco lawsuits and is out of date with current Big Oil practices. The U.S. government has officially declared that carbon capture is 1) essential and 2) that it is a clean energy technology, and therefore, fossil fuels are a source of clean energy. As a result, fossil fuel companies are invulnerable to litigation in the U.S.
Climate scientists proposing new models for climate litigation is exactly the model we need to abandon. Climate scientists cannot solve the crisis of change. We need engineers. We need transformation.
Likewise, think tanks like the Union of Concerned Scientists represent the problem, not the solution. The fossil fuel industry is not having a debate with them. It is not having a debate with anyone. They have direct control over U.S. policy thanks to corruption. It's that corruption that needs to be exposed, and that corruption leads directly to corrupt research centers within elite U.S. universities — MIT, Stanford, Columbia, to name the to three. That's where we have to focus litigation to stop the fossil fuel industry.
I don't understand why we can't simply hold these companies responsible for the pollution that they release into the air. This simple control would extend to reducing the impact on the environment as well as hold the company responsible for the damage to the local area. Climate change is a wonderful phrase to use to enact "taxes" that will probably be used for who knows what. But these legislations do not seem to take into account the damage done to people nor do I see that it provides compensation to the victims of the emissions and pollution. How do the victims that suffered health consequences benefit from all of this?