Watch this space: “Carrboro v Duke Energy

For the latest readers arriving to this blog, I periodically have short descriptions of upcoming material under the “Watch this space” title. Up next: …. and the hits just keep on coming. Barely 9 days after Maine v BP was filed, now we have this Dec 4 filing. Unlike the supposedly ‘independently led’ lawsuits that copy from each other that copy from the boilerplate copies of the Sher Edling law firm, this one seems to be an outlier – an ambitious one, maybe – but still apparently an outlier when it comes to its reliance on the worthless “reposition global warming” memos (PDF file page 24 para. 91 in Carrboro) that are falsely attributed to the Western Fuels “Information Council for the Environment” public relations campaign. Carrboro plunges off that same accusation cliff, just in a different way.

If I may mention one other thing in this interim time between my full post dissection of this latest lawsuit, let me illustrate the following facts: Despite Fiona Wild being the top
“Climate Change and Sustainability” administrator for the Australian mining company BHP back in 2015, she was still labeled as a ‘climate criminal,’ appearing on ‘Wanted’ posters plastered around Paris for the COP21 UN climate conference. Despite Arch Coal renaming itself more benignly as Arch Resources while taking a knee in reverence of UN-style global governance, they were still named as a defendant in Municipalities of Puerto Rico v. Exxon. Despite Duke Energy holding the basically anti-science position of wanting to achieve ‘net-zero CO2 by 2050’ . . . well, you get the point by now. No amount of appeasement toward the enviro-zealot left will be protection against them targeting a corporation for total destruction.

Meanwhile, please do scroll down this page for my completed posts, and return soon to see how the next one coming up will fill in this space.

Municipality of San Juan v. Exxon Mobil Corp.

Basically all of the other “ExxonKnew”-style lawsuits needed long dissections on my part — one needing a 2-part blog post to ultimately point out obvious faults with people who promote this law fare — to detail what fell apart within their accusations about what’s implied to be ‘liars-for-hire employed to carry out disinformation campaigns created by fossil fuel companies.’ When I say this ‘technically’ johnny-come-lately San Juan v Exxon lawsuit, filed on December 13, 2023, is easy for me to dissect, I’m not kidding. In fact, in the sheer simplicity of taking apart San Juan v Exxon only underscores the massive problem with the other lawsuit that needed two blog posts to reveal all its faults. So, the question needing to be answered about San Juan is: why it was filed at all? Continue reading

People of the State of California v. Exxon Mobil Corporation

Throw another one onto the “growing number” (growing number!) of “Exxon Knew”-style lawsuits which insinuate that ‘Big Oil’ knew the burning of fossil fuels harmed the environment but deceived the public by employing ‘shill’ climate scientists in ‘disinformation campaigns’ to say there was no harm. This latest Sept 15, 2023 filing appears to be no different than the 31 other “Exxon Knew” lawsuits I’ve dissected where it fits a pattern of repeating (plagiarizing?) material out of the others, from dubious ‘science certainty’ assertions to corruption accusations worded carelessly enough that they potentially stray into reckless disregard territory. I’ll get into how this latest one fits that pattern, but first, let me illustrate how the ‘news reports’ about it reinforce the problem that we no longer have an objective news reporting media, we have a propaganda media telling the public – working at the most basic of intellectually dishonest levels – about these lawsuits. Continue reading

County of Multnomah v. Exxon Mobil, et al.

When the news of this Oregon County lawsuit, filed on June 22, 2023 happened, I was in the midst of a complicated, distracting, time-consuming switch of residences. In my rapid first screensearch into the filing for ye olde “reposition global warming” memos ‘evidence,’ which is the cornerstone ‘evidence’ hallmark (worthless as that memo set is) of these mindlessly repetitive “Exxon Knew”-style lawsuits, I initially thought a dissection of this latest lawsuit would be just a quick checklist comparison to my Puerto Rico v Exxon lawsuit dissection — they both contained identical wording and identical errors concerning the “reposition global warming” memos.

It would be a simply matter to then point out that this identical lawsuit blunder was committed by a law firm 3700 miles away from Puerto Rico, thus the plain overarching question implied by deep examination and comparison of all these lawsuits is elemental: who actually are the dummies writing this “Global Warming / #ExxonKnew Show”?

However, when I finally had time to sift deeper through this Oregon filing, it turns out the same question obviously applies, but the blunders within this one pointing to the Puerto Rico filing and other lawsuits in a key way are … well … not quite that simple. Continue reading

State Of Vermont v. ExxonMobil Corp. et al.

The U.S. House Oversight Committee wasn’t the only major governmental entity to bring up ye oldevictory will be achieved” leaked memo set within the last few weeks as a “smoking gun” piece of evidence to indict the fossil fuel industry of conspiring with skeptic climate scientists to spread disinformation undercutting the certainty of catastrophic man-caused global warming. Just two days before that Committee sent out its September 16th intimidation letters to energy company officials, which prominently quoted the “victory” memos, Vermont’s Attorney General Thomas Donovan Jr filed his Vermont v. ExxonMobil lawsuit on September 14th, which featured that memo set’s notorious phrase on page 28.

AG Donovan’s same day press release succinctly summarized his lawsuit:

The lawsuit alleges past and ongoing violations of Vermont’s Consumer Protection Act for concealing crucial information and disseminating misleading statements and advertising about fossil fuels and climate change …

Vermont consumers were given false and misleading information about the dramatic effects of these products on the climate. Vermonters have a right to accurate information in order to make informed decisions about the products they purchase.”

The gift AG Donovan hands on a silver platter to the energy companies is how those last two bits could be turned 180° away from the fossil fuel industry and aimed instead at the enviro-activist global warming industry, emphasizing how AG Donovan apparently didn’t undertake elemental due diligence on whether his cornerstone evidence had any validity, and emphasizing how the mainstream media’s abject failure to ask tough questions about the origins of that ‘evidence’ and the core clique of people surrounding it has ultimately led to AG Donovan possibly relying on that core clique for the “smoking gun evidence” in his lawsuit. Continue reading

Connecticut v. ExxonMobil Corp.

Borrowing what I said at the top of my June 30, 2020 dissection of the 6/25/20 D.C. v. ExxonMobil filing, this apparently ‘independently led’ Connecticut v Exxon lawsuit (word-searchable version here) only crashes half as badly compared to the majority of the other global warming lawsuits, concerning worthless ‘leaked memos’ it relies on for its claim that the fossil fuel industry hired shill skeptic climate scientists to engage in disinformation campaigns. Continue reading

City of Hoboken v. ExxonMobil, et al.

These lawsuits suing energy companies ‘to recover the costs’ of damages from global warming are really stacking up now. In addition to Imperial Beach, San Mateo, Richmond, Santa Cruz, Rhode Island, Baltimore, Honolulu, the District of Columbia — just to name a few — Hoboken, New Jersey is among the very latest communities to unwisely join this collection with their with their September 2 filing, Why is this unwise? If the industry defendants’ lawyers decide to prominently challenge the veracity of the core accusation within the lawsuit, namely that fossil fuel industry executives employed ‘shill’ skeptic climate scientists in disinformation campaigns to deliberately deceive the public about the harm of global warming, it could not only expose how Hoboken officials didn’t undertake basic due diligence to check the basic veracity of the accusation, it could also torpedo all the rest of the lawsuits across the country in a similar manner, while further exposing how the mainstream media completely overlooked the obvious faults in these lawsuits and in the 25 year+ history of the basic accusation and the core clique of people who’ve promulgated it. Continue reading