From The stupid, it burns! department, comes this FUBAR press release from Bill McKibben’s 350.org. Of course, these idiots don’t think to check history for flooding there, because, well, that would be inconvenient.
Paris explores climate lawsuit against fossil fuel companies
Paris, France — The City of Paris decided today to explore possibilities to sue the fossil fuel industry for causing climate damages, following the example of New York and other US cities.
The city council also decided to lobby other major cities such as London to ban fossil fuels from their investments through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, of which the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo is president. The council also announced that it will release an update on the progress that has been made since it pledged to divest from fossil fuels in 2015.
“It’s fantastic news that cities like New York and Paris are stepping up to protect their citizens and hold fossil fuel corporations accountable for the harm they cause. This is a major breakthrough for divestment campaigners around the world that have been pushing cities to take a stand against the polluters wrecking our climate,” comments 350.org France Campaigner Clémence Dubois. Fossil fuel companies like Total, Shell, BP, and Exxon are the driving forces behind more and more severe flooding and summer heat waves in Paris, as well as droughts, wildfires, unpredictable seasons and rising sea levels hitting people across the globe.”
This winter, Paris has been hit once more by severe flooding, which the mayor said was, alongside recent summer heat waves ‘clearly a question of the town adapting to climate change’. Studies found that the flooding that submerged Paris in May 2016 was made almost twice as likely by human-made climate change.
On 10th January, the mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio announced that the city will divest its $191 billion pension funds from fossil fuels and that it has filed a lawsuit against BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips for climate damages.
The moves by New York and Paris, paired with mayor Hidalgo’s pledge to increase efforts to persuade other major cities to divest, raises the pressure on the London where mayor Sadiq Khan has so far disappointed campaigners to take a strong stand against the fossil fuel industry and deliver on his election pledge to divest London City Hall.
Major cities such as Sydney and Cape Town as well as numerous European capitals including Berlin, Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm have already pledged to ban fossil fuels from their investments.
The divestment campaign to get public institutions to cut their financial ties to the fossil fuel industry started in 2012 with the aim to erode public acceptance for the companies most responsible for causing the climate crisis. To date, over 800 institutions including universities, faith and medical groups, the heirs to the Rockefeller oil fortune have taken steps to divest.
Building on these achievements, the Fossil Free campaign is gearing up to launch a new wave of local action around the world to keep fossil fuels in the ground and accelerate the shift to community-controlled renewable energy.
“The Fossil Free movement is taking things to the next level in 2018,” said May Boeve, 350.org Executive Director. “Building off the global fossil fuel divestment movement, which successfully led over 800 institutions to divest over $6 trillion in assets from fossil fuel companies, we’re kicking into high-gear supporting local campaigns around the world working towards a world free from fossil fuels and enacting a swift and fair transition towards renewable energies for all. It is high time for governments worldwide to follow the people’s demand for a fossil free world.”
###
We covered this insanity of blaming climate change before on WUWT, and really, one picture IS worth a thousand words:
On a previous thread, WUWT regular TonyB contributed this comment:
Here is a google translate of the weather in Paris in Paris during January 1910
It shows the Metro flooded and numerous other interesting pictures of the city under water.
However what is most interesting is that it says it was only the second worst flooding in the records. That of 1658 was worse!!
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I”m tired of all this sturm und drang over suing fossil fuel companies. Let’s go to court and settle this charade once and for all. My guess is it will never go that far and that would suit the perpetrators just fine so they could continue their shaming unabated.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-06/hillary-clinton-claims-climate-change-sexist
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Paris is having a bad time with too much snow, just like a lot of the northern hemisphere…
http://www.france24.com/en/20180206-snow-forces-eiffel-tower-close-snow-blankets-paris
And it’s snowing in the Sahara again
http://mentalfloss.com/article/530032/it-just-snowed-sahara-second-time-less-month
Oh no. I think oil resellers should immediately require a get-out-of-jail card from the city before they refuel bulldozers.
Actually, why not, as others suggested, just totally refuse to sell fuel to the city until they agree that they’re not going to sue the reseller.
No, this is ridiculous again. I think the case is there just to be able to say they’re investigating so others can spin that. Theyre not going to do it. It would be something that made conservatives really annoyed that could give dynamite to already quite active populist center-right in Europe.
The usual word for populist center-right in Eyrope is ‘racist’. The usual word for red green ex-communist is ‘center-left’.
And of course, they’ll be wearing their expensive Patagonia and North Face clothing made of various plastics and fabrics that are petroleum based. Made in China and shipped great distances to their favorite high end store in a liberal, Trump hating city.
+ lol
Another reason why this is a self-inflicted piece of Parisian fruitcake thinking lies in the giving up of regular dredging of rivers. I believe, but may be wrong, that neither the Seine nor the Thames are dredged as regularly as they once were. Unsurprisingly, this makes flooding more and more likely as time goes by. Dredgers were once an everyday sight on the Thames, but I can’t recall seeing one in recent times.
It probably would be impossible for the oil companies to boycott providing a major city with their fuels, which is a shame in that they would only need to do this once to wake people up.But there would be deaths from the resultant chaos and the Eco-loons would blame everyone else while urging suing big oil.
On the other hand a drama documentary illustrating our reliance on oil and the uselessness of renewables would make for a compelling film, “The Day the Oil Tankers didn’t come”. Now that would be an educational programme the big oil companies could produce showing them taking a city at its word in not wanting fossil fuels. “What do you mean green energy doesn’t work if it is night and the wind isn’t blowing” demands some mayor. Scarier than any Al Gore twaddle.
Good observation, and totally correct. There is little dredging of the Thames these days. So, you have a meandering, silty river and estuary system left alone for years, what happens? It silts up and leads to more flooding.
EU regulations are preventing much river dredging on the pretext of protecting wetland habitats I believe. Had we someone with more than a single functioning neuron and more spinal column than a sea cucumber in Britain’s driving seat at least we would now tell them where to shove their idiotic regulations.
Why do cities have large investment portfolios?
The money for those portfolios must have come from it’s citizens, isn’t it high time to demand that back?
Investment portfolios are usually for pensions.
Based on the paleoclimate evidnce and the work that has been done with models one can conclude that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific reasoning to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero. So the party ot sue over climate change is Mother Nature. Lots of luck on collecting on a judgement against Mother Nature.
Very smart.
The lawyers know to always go after the big pockets. It’s what they do. The entity being sued doesn’t necessarily have to have any link to what happened.
All they have to do is try to make the defendant unpopular to get a payout.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/16/divestment-ethics-and-realities/
~~~~~
Divestment ethics and realities
2015 by Paul Driessen
Eliminating fossil fuels from investment portfolios hurts colleges, workers and poor families
… with many links
Forget the lawsuit. Lets all boycott those evil fossil fuel companies! That will teach them!
Now. No more buying their stinking products.
“The City of Paris decided today to explore possibilities to sue the fossil fuel industry for causing climate damages” makes about as much sense as “The US Democratic Party decided today to explore possibilities to sue the Russians for causing their candidate Hillary Clinton’s election loss”. Both statements are equally delusional.
Three inches of snow here today and the whole place has ground to a halt. Darned climate change!
The lights of the golden age wehave benefited from are going out, faster and faster.
Pretty sure France legal system doesn’t allow this kind of suing. If it did, pretty sure Paris would be flooded under trials
The French, and the Parisians in particular, have always had a tendency to go in-Seine from time to time.
From time to time you say, really? Trouble with France, and Paris in particular, it’s full of arrogant French people. (It’s OK. I can say that, I am English).
There is a saying that France is so wonderful, God balanced it out by making it full of French.
France is wasted on the French.
Over the last 11 years the Cape Town water supply dams have been full 6 times. This year they are about to run dry as happened a number of times since the City was founded and a water supply was formed, 350 years.
This time our mind numbingly incompetent political class has found a new reason for their inability to plan and build ahead, Man Made Climate Change. Cape Town being the national headquarters for the terminally gormless Politically Correct brigade just blames the west in general and Big Oil in particular and the lie is swallowed.
I have met the enemy and he is us. We are our own worst enemy.
“The divestment campaign to get public institutions to cut their financial ties to the fossil fuel industry started in 2012 with the aim to erode public acceptance for the companies most responsible for causing the climate crisis. To date, over 800 institutions including universities, faith and medical groups, the heirs to the Rockefeller oil fortune have taken steps to divest.”
You people lack basic knowledge of finance and economics. The divestments have no impact on oil companies. They do not own these stocks. The impact is on the investors who own them. The fact you sold $6 trillion worth of stocks means there are more investors willing to buy them. The oil companies are happy that their new stockholders are not hostile. They really want to get rid of you anti-fossil fuel investors. So you are giving them a favor by divesting. If you want to cut financial ties to the fossil fuel industry, stop buying gasoline and electricity! Simple as that
Right on. All they are doing is throwing away their opportunity to earn money and reducing their influence on the target companies. Maybe McKibben and company are secretly working for Big Oil.
I hate to be picky, but retirement funds own a large chunk of large companies. When a major investor blacklists your stock, your market shrinks. Investors will still buy, but at a lower price.
The lower price hurts the company’s ability to obtain loans at low interest rates. Banks use stock price as an important determinate of loan risk vs. reward.
I understand that one fund may not make that much of a difference. But if NY, CA and a few others follow suit, it would.
If too many sell their shares at once, it would certainly drive prices down, but that would just give the energy companies a chance to buy back shares at a discount. That might be an incentive to repatriate some of the $billions they have sitting overseas.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/amp/Will-U-S-oil-companies-follow-Apple-Goldman-12517842.php
Low stock price hurts the stockholders not the company. Banks don’t use stock price in granting loans. They use credit ratings to assess credit risk. They look at recurring net income, free cash flow, debt to asset ratio, current ratio, debt service coverage ratio of the company.
Companies don’t normally trade their own stocks but low stock price is an opportunity to repurchase their stocks. They can get a loan to repurchase stocks. The benefit of this is interest expense is tax deductible but dividends are not, it’s an after income tax item. There’s tax savings in paying interest rather than dividends. Plus treasury stocks are deductible to retained earnings. The company can reduce dividend payout and use the cash for business expansion without borrowing from banks thus avoiding interest expense. There’s also opportunity for capital gains. When the stock price increased, they can resell the stocks in the market for profit.
Actually, it’s NOT the fault of the oil companies – it’s ALL my fault!
Details below. And it’s all true! Well, mostly. Well, it’s at least as true as the ravings of the Mayor of Paris. Well, the part about Prague is true. I mean, like, totally! Y’know?
Anyway, I take full responsibility for the flooding of Paris, and the oil companies are off the hook.
I’ve got your back, Big Oil! Send me money. Lots and lots of money.
So sue me, Paris, I dare ya! You are messing with the primal powers of the universe! Go ahead, make my day! “Après moi, le déluge!”
Disclaimer:
Note to all you utterly delusional climate hysterics: This is satire – call off your hit squads.
________________________
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/26/paris-flooding-again/comment-page-1/#comment-2728771
Back in 2002, I received a threatening email from a furious man who said he held me personally responsible for the flooding of Prague. Yes, me! Flooded Prague! Amazing!
I pondered my new-found powers, which I did not know that I possessed, and replied:
“Yes Sir, you are entirely correct! I am the One, personally responsible for the flooding of Prague! Now “buzz off” – or I’ll do it again!”
That seemed to solve the immediate problem, but it appears that I tempted the Fates, and have now unwittingly unleashed the deluge on Paris.
I must beat my breast in penance, and recite over and over again:
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
Ideo precor beátam Maríam semper vírginem,
omnes angelos et sanctos,
et vos, fratres,
oráre pro me ad Dóminum Deum nostrum.
Having God-like powers is serious stuff!! You’ve got to be really careful what you think, and especially what you say. You never know quite what’s going to happen next – you can’t drink alcohol or smoke dope or even allow yourself to get angry – it’s really a lot more restricting than people think! Whew!
🙂
Not only is it “the stupid, it burns! but also “the stupid, it freezes!”
What has happened to share prices in all this? Anything? Any ff company has a dozen ways to bite back. Including generating a wave of scornful laughter
https://youtu.be/Njb2Du1Q3xM
Paris good old days
The whole concept is ridiculous. It is not the fossil fuel industries which cause CO2 emissions. The emissions are entirely caused by the end users, the people or companies which buy the fuels and burn them. In fact the ultimate end user is the consumer who heats and lights his home and drives a vehicle. I look forward to the first such law suit coming to court because the company or companies being sued can afford the best lawyers who will destroy the case, setting a precedent which will deter this type of litigation being repeated. That’s before even considering whether there is any convincing evidence that climate change caused the flooding of Paris, and whether said climate change was caused by fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Then maybe the citizens of Paris can sue their local politicians for misusing their tax money to finance a spurious lawsuit. Where does it end?
Climate change is so amazing it even caused the flooding in 1910 (and before)!!
It would serve them right if oil companies refused to sell them petrol.