Companies knew for decades that their products caused climate change and posed ‘catastrophic’ risk, but misled the public and continued to make enormous profits
News provided by
City Attorney of San Francisco
13:15 ET
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 20, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Oakland City Attorney Barbara J. Parker announced today that they had filed separate lawsuits on behalf of their respective cities against the five largest investor-owned producers of fossil fuels in the world. The lawsuits ask the courts to hold these companies responsible for the costs of sea walls and other infrastructure necessary to protect San Francisco and Oakland from ongoing and future consequences of climate change and sea level rise caused by the companies’ production of massive amounts of fossil fuels.
The defendant companies — Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell — have known for decades that fossil fuel-driven global warming and accelerated sea level rise posed a catastrophic risk to human beings and to public and private property, especially in coastal cities like San Francisco and Oakland, who have the largest shoreline investments on San Francisco Bay.
Despite that knowledge, the defendant companies continued to aggressively produce, market and sell vast quantities of fossil fuels for a global market, while at the same time engaging in an organized campaign to deceive consumers about the dangers of massive fossil fuel production.
The lawsuits filed Tuesday in the superior courts in San Francisco and Alameda Counties were developed with assistance from the law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.
Like the tobacco companies who were sued in the 1980s, these defendants knowingly and recklessly created an ongoing public nuisance that is causing harm now, and in the future risks catastrophic harm to human life and property, including billions of dollars of public and private property in Oakland and San Francisco.
“These fossil fuel companies profited handsomely for decades while knowing they were putting the fate of our cities at risk,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said. “Instead of owning up to it, they copied a page from the Big Tobacco playbook. They launched a multi-million dollar disinformation campaign to deny and discredit what was clear even to their own scientists: global warming is real, and their product is a huge part of the problem. Now, the bill has come due. It’s time for these companies to take responsibility for the harms they have caused and are continuing to cause.”
“Global warming is an existential threat to humankind, to our ecosystems and to the wondrous, myriad species that inhabit our planet,” Oakland City Attorney Barbara J. Parker said. “These companies knew fossil fuel-driven climate change was real, they knew it was caused by their products and they lied to cover up that knowledge to protect their astronomical profits. The harm to our cities has commenced and will only get worse. The law is clear that the defendants are responsible for the consequences of their reckless and disastrous actions.”
The fossil fuel industry’s own records show that the defendant companies have knowingly misled the American public and the world about the dangers of fossil-fuel driven climate change. Despite their knowledge of the scientific consensus on these issues, and despite warnings from their own internal scientists and/or scientists retained by their trade association, defendants continue to engage in massive fossil fuel production. They also continue to promote fossil fuels, and have developed multi-decade future business plans based upon increased fossil fuel usage even as global warming has progressed into a severe danger zone.
Defendants’ contributions to global warming have already caused sea levels to rise in San Francisco Bay and threatened imminent harm to San Francisco and Oakland from storm surges. In San Francisco, bayside sea level rise from global warming places at risk at least $10 billion of public property and as much as $39 billion of private property. It is also extremely vulnerable because it is surrounded by water on three sides. For example, the Ferry Building would be temporarily flooded during a 100-year extreme tide today, but could be flooded every day after 36 inches of sea level rise.
San Francisco and Oakland already have begun to suffer the consequences of climate change, although the most severe injuries by far are the injuries that will occur in the future — unless prompt action is taken to protect these cities and their residents from rising sea levels and other harms caused by global warming.
The lawsuits ask the courts to hold the defendants jointly and severally liable for creating, contributing to and/or maintaining a public nuisance, and to create an abatement fund for each city to be paid for by defendants to fund infrastructure projects necessary for San Francisco and Oakland to adapt to global warming and sea level rise. The total amount needed for the abatement funds is not known at this time but is expected to be in the billions of dollars.
The cases are: People of the State of California v. BP P.L.C. et al., San Francisco Superior Court Case No. CGC 17-561370, filed Sept. 19, 2017. People of the State of California v. BP P.L.C. et al., Alameda County Superior Court Case No. RG17875889, filed Sept. 19, 2017.
View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/san-francisco-and-oakland-sue-top-five-oil-and-gas-companies-over-costs-of-climate-change-300522988.html
SOURCE City Attorney of San Francisco
HT | Bob
Suing not the top five five and oil companies- the top ten are all nationally owned companies. Where is Saudi Arabia and Venezuela in this lawsuit?
Since SF & Oakland claim, oil causes climate problems, they should be obligated to quit using oil – the oil companies just need to quit allowing these cities to use their products. Cut them off of their oil addiction!
I can’t believe that they expect to win, or even to extort large charitable donations of cash. So what is their intent? There must be some other expected political gain that I can’t see.
They want to force oil companies to divert resources to right this, while scoring virtue-signaling headlines during years of court proceedings.
“fight this”
No the oil firms will settle out of court for anything upward of 100 million and it’ll be business as usual.
This is a left-wing tactic becoming more common in Western countries.
Left-wing lawyers and politicians are the architects of a new form of ‘socialism’ and guess who pays . . . we do!
Oil firms will simply recover the cost of the settlement on their bulk wholesale price.
Remember left-wing politicians are inept and have no strategies for creating real sustainable wealth;
they simply feed off other people’s wealth and toil.
If you’re a lefty, what’s the first thing you think about in the morning . . .OPM (other people’s money).
How is the RV’ing going? Glad that you are helping to provide food for the billions of trees, trillions of flowers, plants and hedges, and quadrillions of leaves of grass on the planet!
And while they’re suing for existential threats… I note that Lord Elon Musk has recently told governors that computer AI is another Trump-sized existential threat. So Microsoft, Google, Facebook etc should start saving their spare pennies now. Twitter will probably be OK because nobody expects them to be profitable.
Lord Musk is showing early signs of a bit of madness setting in, imo. This harping about the danger of AI being not far away is mildly crazy.
The ocean is rising! The ocean is rising! All of 7.68 inches…per Century! Here’s the official data and observations and 95% confidence by NOAA: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9414290
And look at what that graph is showing, The steady rate of rise is clearly seen through most of that graph up until around the year 1980, then there is an easy to see decline in the rate of SLR over the last 37 years. Interesting!.
The NOAA graph even fudges the San Francisco tide gauge record by making an adjustment for an “apparent data shift” not seen in the PSMSL.org record, which only shows a 4.25 inches per century rate of increase, with no acceleration. Fortunately the nearby Alameda tide gauge record (right next to Oakland) hasn’t been altered, and it shows a ate of increase of only 1.6 inches per century. http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/rlr.annual.data/437.rlrdata
Both the San Francisco and Alameda tide gauge records show a sea level decline since 1983, as do almost all of the major city tide gauges on the West Coast including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Vancouver and Victoria in Canada.
If these cases weren’t going before the Ninth, they would be dismissed with prejudice.
I think the oil companies should plead guilty, but the plea bargain should be to stop selling oil and oil based products within city limits.
I think mayors, governors, and city managers should be personally sued for allowing what people don’t like, to “be allowed” in California. We should all be allowed to sue someone or something who promotes or sells anything we don’t like.
I believe the oil companies should countersue to recover a good portion of the value of all the increased crop yields due to higher temperatures and higher carbon dioxide as well as payments for all the reductions in deaths from the reduced amount of cold temperatures.
The real culprits here are not the fossil fuel companies but the people that actually burn the fuel and add CO2 to the atmosphere.
Exactly. The end users (including the plaintiffs) are all complicit in causing the … “damage”. Hence, they all should mount a class-action lawsuit against themselves. That’s sort of like telling them to go F themselves, except in a more indirect and nicer way.
Somebody probably said it, but what if they stopped selling petroleum products there? Then they would also get sued for damages caused by withdrawal of their products. No syringes, no cola containers, almost everything is made from plastic it seems. Doubt the attorneys have discussed how the benefits far outweigh any possible negatives.
And how many $billions has the state of California collected by using the same oil companies as their tax collection agencies . So if the politicians were so convinced the oil companies were the evil empire why
have they not made their products illegal ? Someone needs to sue San Francisco for being a F..ked up mess . They are admitting their own incompetence . No wonder people are leaving . … well except for the 4 million California illegals of course .
Pathetic lawsuit from a group of people looking for big oil to save their ass . How are those government run pension plans doing ? That’s right screwed because of the same jackasses pulling this stunt .
Sometimes things just have to break before they get better . It’s time California .
Just hand over the “keys” to the natural gas valves to the AG’s and tell them that if NG is so bad then we’ll leave it up to YOU. If you believe it will be best to shut it off then here, YOU DO IT! The second they decline the offer they’ve lost their case. Put it all on them to decide to shut down all FF use in their respective areas and then watch them change their tune.
Ecological and Social Justice Warriors are abundant in California. Unfortunately they have LOTS of money available to wreak havoc. California believes ….. according to its’ Governor …. that it’s the nation’s positive example in every aspect of living standards and appropriate government. It’s also repeatedly going broke. Has gained the reputation as the worst state for doing business. Has a deplorable K-12 school system. Has a vast university and college network known for useless graduates and Liberal anarchy. Is home to more elites than all the rest of the states combined (excepting New York and DC).
Can Trump preemptively block this on national security grounds? It could arguably threaten our strategic oil reserves and military readiness.
San Francisco has the longest tide gauge record in the Western Hemisphere. Since 1854 it shows an average increase of 1.08 mm/year, or 4.25 inches per century. The highest sea level during the 161-year period was in 1983, at 7224 mm it was 3.8 inches higher than in 2016. Several years San Francisco sea level in the 1980-1990 period was as high or higher than in the 2000-2016 period, without any sign of periods of acceleration throughout the 161-year record. The San Francisco city attorneys had better find a way of losing the tide gauge record before it shows up in arguments. http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/rlr.annual.data/10.rlrdata
As for Oakland, their nearest tide gauge is at Alameda, and it only shows an average sea level increase of 0.4 mm/year (1.6 inches per century) for its 76 years beginning in 1940. Again, sea level was 4.8 inches higher in 1983 than in 2016, and higher in the 1980-1990 period than in most of the 2000 to 2016 period.
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/rlr.annual.data/437.rlrdata
Since sea level rise is the most critical component of both claims of damages, it would seem that their long-serving tide gauges stand in the way of their path to fortune.
Their only hope is that ignorance rules all phases of this action on both sides of the cases. Too often that hope is realized.
The insanity is nowadays everywhere.
San Francisco would be an even bigger ghetto if they ran on poo power , intermittent wind and sun .
They are near broke and this is just a Hail Mary hope for a sue /settle that is going nowhere. It is a sign of how bad things really are . If they really didn’t like fossil fuels they would ban them but alas that would surely
come back to bite them in the arse .
I love the above tide gauge record ref from majormike1 . Something to really work one into a lather .
Maybe they can blame the San Andreas fault on big oil too. How do these people get elected is the question ?
The companies clearly have an immediate responsibility to stop sending any petroleum products to the National Socialist State, pending judgement.
Bring it on!
They clearly expect to live as parasites attacking their host – while proudly claiming to be saving eveyone from their host..
What pure flimsy are they planning to cite as misleading the public, anyway? Nobody expects the California Inquisition.
So, we all know that this lawsuit will be dismissed, at the cost of millions of dollars to the taxpayers.
Couldn’t have happened to nicer people:
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/saunders/article/San-Francisco-s-summer-of-urine-and-6430084.php
Most grownups prioritize things. Children just go for Da Feelz.
Its sending a message. Count on that being the excuse these idiots raise when the bill comes in.
I suggest Oil companies simply exit the marketplace in the cities suing them. Cut off their supply of gasoline, natural gas, etc. Explain that there’s no proof of impact by CO2, show sea level gauge readings in San Francisco that are lower now than in the past, but in respect for the religious beliefs of the orthodox climate zealots – oil companies will gladly oblige by stopping supplies.
Let’s control an manipulate the oil companies. That worked out so well for Venezuala.
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/9/19/16189742/venezuela-maduro-dictator-chavez-collapse
Walk the talk, SF & Oakland! Time to declare both cities Fossil-Free immediately and lead the way! No gas, oil, plastics, packagings, medical plastics, energy, lubricants, etc. That will solve your problem immediately and lower the demand/and costs to us in the non-utopian world for these essential products of humanity.
Sickening ass-holes in San Fran on so many levels.
+1
I am not laughing. Imagine the money these criminals could extort. We will pay for it. Look at the price of a pack of cigarettes. Imagine that happening to gas prices.
Schadenfreude, though. Some of these companies have signed onto the AGW nonsense I believe.
Imagine if CA did secede. They would go Venezuela in 10 -20 years, if not sooner. We would have to adopt Dominican Republic standards of border control (They share Hispanola with Haiti, so they are serious about the border.) to keep out the starving refugees. Count me OK with that.
I wonder how much stupidity Democratic voters will tolerate before even they say enough is enough. I bet we have a long way to go on that front, as in, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. CA can’t leave soon enough for me.