Category Archives: Global warming lawsuits

King County v. BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch and ConocoPhillips

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Here we go again, with yet another lawsuit attempt to say ‘the science of global warming is settled, the fossil fuel industry knew this all along but paid skeptic climate scientists to say otherwise, thus victims can sue that industry to recover the costs associated of dealing with this settled science.’ The otherwise uninformed general public expects – rightly so – such lawsuit accusations to stand on their merits beyond any shadow of a doubt. They’re supposed to be open-and-shut cases, welcoming independent corroboration and never having the remotest appearance of hoping nobody checks the veracity of the accusation evidence, or look like they’re using shell game tricks to obscure the origins of a highly questionable solitary evidence source, or give any impression, however slight, that the so-called evidence is actually part of an orchestrated long-term effort to advance a political agenda by marginalizing critics through baseless character assassination.

This latest case not only fails on all those points ….. Continue reading →

The Unending Finite Connections of the Skeptic-Trashing Enviro-Activist Clique

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“Unending,” because it seems there’s no limit to repetitions of the idea that policymakers fail to act against catastrophic man-caused global warming because its settled science is undermined by the fossil fuel industry’s orchestrated efforts which use shill scientists to spread disinformation. “Finite,” because it seems whenever this accusation is heard, it’s always connected to a limited number of people who attained the first major media traction for the accusation. Continue reading →

City of Boulder, Boulder County and San Miguel County v. Suncor Energy, Exxonmobil

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Here we go again. This could be the point in time, though, when these lawsuits are one or two steps less directly connected with the core clique of people who’ve long been pushing the ‘industry-paid skeptic climate scientists’ accusation, compared to the other recent lawsuits. Continue reading →

What’s Up with Chevron?

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This post is outside of my standard dissection of the origins of the smear of skeptic climate scientists; the items I’ll be pointing out here today have no readily discernible connection with the ‘coal/oil corporate-paid lying shill scientists’ accusation. However, the question “What’s Up with Chevron?” as it pertains to that company’s action right before and during the recent ‘global warming tutorial courtroom hearing’ might still be worthwhile for objective reporters to ask, in light of the sheer worthlessness of the ‘coal/oil-paid lying shill scientists’ accusation, and the easily found abundance of science-based material questioning the ‘certainty’ of the idea about catastrophic man-caused global warming. Continue reading →

FreeBeacon: “Calif. Cities Suing Exxon Forced to Walk Back Key Claim”

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From Todd Shepherd’s April 5, 2018 Washington Free Beacon article:

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 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.

The Free Beacon shows the backpedal rewording in their own photo link above, and I reproduce it here for good measure (click image to enlarge):

That specific paragraph section’s wording in its original form is what prompted the title of my prior March 30, 2018 blog post, “If California v. BP Implodes via Insufficient Evidence, so can New York City v. BP.” Read all the way through my blog post, and you’ll see how this ‘lack of evidence to prove a fossil fuel industry conspiracy’ problem with the twin California global warming lawsuits and the NYC one doesn’t end there, it ultimately points a giant red flashing arrow at the clique of people who have tried for 20+ years to say there is ‘a fossil fuel industry misinformation conspiracy to reposition global warming as theory rather than fact.’

The California lawsuits’ reworded paragraph section loses all its teeth as “smoking gun” evidence proving oil companies knew man-caused global warming was settled science. It shouldn’t be reworded, it should be stripped entirely out of the lawsuits, and the main lawyer behind the use of it in both the California and New York lawsuits – Matt Pawa – should be compelled to explain why he didn’t know the evidence was totally worthless ….. or whether he knew it was worthless the entire time. But as I showed in my prior blog post, that same paragraph section appears in Matt Pawa’s 2008 Kivalina v. Exxon lawsuit, as does the supposedly leaked memo subset insinuating skeptic climate scientist shills were paid and instructed under an industry strategy directive to “reposition global warming” which targeted “older, less-educated males” and “younger, lower-income women.”

No such targets or strategy was ever used by anybody anywhere.

The effort to prove the fossil fuel industry conspired to misinform the public about the certainty of man-caused global warming is demonstrably beginning to fall apart. The focus on where the real conspiracy is to be found should be turned 180 degrees in the opposite direction, to a particular small group people who’ve apparently conspired for years to misinform the public about the certainty of corporate-corrupted skeptic climate scientists.

If California v. BP Implodes via Insufficient Evidence, so can New York City v. BP

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With regard to the most recent series of municipalities suing energy companies to recover the ‘costs of man-caused global warming,’ never forget that these lawsuits are built on two premises: 1) “settled science facts” and 2) “industry-paid shill scientists following an industry-created conspiracy goal to cynically reposition global warming as theory rather than fact.” In a sinister way, no less. The presiding judge in the CA v. BP Oakland version of twin California lawsuits just indicated that there is no evidence for the conspiracy accusation. This spells doom for the other People of the State of California v. BP P.L.C. et al. San Francisco Superior Court Case and for the City of New York v. BP case. In this post, I’ll explain how that is. Continue reading →

“SEPP is exploring if, as a party possibly slandered in the City of Oakland complaint …”

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That’s one of the pair of global warming lawsuits I covered in my October 6, 2017 “People of the State of California v. BP P.L.C. et al” blog post. The People of the State of California v. BP P.L.C. et al. San Francisco Superior Court Case is the other one; both are basically identical. Within that post toward the end, I briefly described what was suspect about a particular line in the lawsuits, regarding Science and Environment Public Policy (SEPP) founder Dr S Fred Singer. Since the news over the weekend concerned SEPP’s mention of “slander,” I thought it would be worthwhile to show why it is that SEPP would say such a thing. Continue reading →

Flipping Daubert: Putting Climate Change Defendants in the Hot Seat

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A student lawyer wrote a prize winning essay about how to get testimony from skeptic experts excluded from such cases. When you see what evidence this essay is based on, the question arises on whether the prize should be revoked and the writer reprimanded for not undertaking basic due diligence to find out if the “evidence” he cited was actually reliable. Continue reading →

County of Santa Cruz v. Chevron Corp. et al.
City of Santa Cruz v. Chevron Corp. et al.
City of Richmond v. Chevron Corp. et al.

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Might as well save the trees and lower the carbon footprint of ink by either having one big 60 page+ lawsuit printout labeled “Fill-in-the-blank v. Various Oil Companies et al.,” or better yet, a single piece of paper brought to all future courthouses with “Fill-in-the-blank v. Any Energy Company We Can Think Of et al.” at the top, and “See County of San Mateo v. Chevron Corp. et al.” in the middle. Problem is, the recent craze of communities suing to recoup costs associated with man-caused global warming only amplifies the fatal problem within all of these lawsuits. Continue reading →

City of New York v. BP PLC, et al.

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Regarding this particular January 9, 2018 lawsuit filing*,[3/13/18 Author’s edit: that link now doesn’t function, but the archive of it does] I will say I am mildly surprised on how tame it is compared to others regarding citations of evidence which supposedly prove skeptic climate scientists and organizations associated with them are paid fossil fuel industry money to lie to the public. But when it concerns this lawsuit’s ties to the same old people surrounding that accusation, what’s found within this lawsuit is no surprise at all. Continue reading →