Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Willie Soon – The California vs Chevron lawsuit against five oil companies is not going well for greens. After suggesting Climate Scientist Myles Allen presented a misleading graph about CO2, and after receiving an admission from Oceanographer Gary Griggs that ice ages and other violent climate shifts, far greater than today’s mild warming, can be caused by natural forcings, Judge Alsup turned to the centrepiece of the conspiracy charge, the “Smoking Gun” memo.
Climate Alarmists May Inherit the Wind
They likened a courtroom ‘tutorial’ to the Scopes Monkey Trial. But their side got schooled.
By Phelim McAleer
April 1, 2018 1:58 p.m. ET
992 COMMENTS
San Francisco
Five American oil companies find themselves in a San Francisco courtroom. California v. Chevron is a civil action brought by the city attorneys of San Francisco and Oakland, who accuse the defendants of creating a “public nuisance” by contributing to climate change and of conspiring to cover it up so they could continue to profit.
…
“Until now, fossil fuel companies have been able to talk about climate science in political and media arenas where there is far less accountability to the truth,” Michael Burger of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University told Grist. The hearing did mark a shift toward accountability—but perhaps not in the way activists would have liked.
…
Judge Alsup was particularly scathing about the conspiracy claim. The plaintiffs alleged that the oil companies were in possession of “smoking gun” documents that would prove their liability; Mr. Boutrous said this was simply an internal summary of the publicly available 1995 IPCC report.
The judge said he read the lawsuit’s allegations to mean “that there was a conspiratorial document within the defendants about how they knew good and well that global warming was right around the corner. And I said: ‘OK, that’s going to be a big thing. I want to see it.’ Well, it turned out it wasn’t quite that. What it was, was a slide show that somebody had gone to the IPCC and was reporting on what the IPCC had reported, and that was it. Nothing more. So they were on notice of what in IPCC said from that document, but it’s hard to say that they were secretly aware. By that point they knew. Everybody knew everything in the IPCC,” he stated.
Judge Alsup then turned to Mr. Berman: “If you want to respond, I’ll let you respond. . . . Anything you want to say?”
“No,” said the counsel to the plaintiffs. Whereupon Judge Alsup adjourned the proceedings.
…
Read more (paywalled): https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-alarmists-may-inherit-the-wind-1522605526
I’m quite shocked at the poor preparation of the green plaintiff’s case.
I thought we were in for a proper showdown, a drawn out trial lasting weeks which would allow all sides to present their best evidence. Instead, in my opinion its looking increasingly likely the greens haven’t got a leg to stand on, that this court case was launched in the desperate hope that oil companies would simply fold and hand over the money.
As far as I can tell the green plaintiffs have yet to present a single piece of evidence against oil companies which can’t be knocked down within five minutes of cross examination. Even MSM is catching on that at least on evidence presented to date the green case is stuffed.
Update (EW): fixed a typo in the first paragraph
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These law suits seem problematic. Exon Mobile is a producer, not much of an emitter while he cities themselves emit and will continue to emit, even when they believe it is harmful. They engage in all sorts of activities that encourage the use of fossil fuels and could not function without them.
The other problem is they haven’t suffered any consequences of its use, and their estimates of future consequences vary quite wildly.
And then there’s the issue that they issued bonds but did not inform buyers of the potential risk.
This will be recognized as a global problem, if it becomes a problem where everyone is complicit.
It’ll be entertaining but it won’t be the payday they hope it to be. Indeed, they will waste the emitter’s tax money.
Tobacco companies didn’t burn the cigarettes either. The consumers of those products did that.
The cities produced roads and other infrastructure that “facilitated” the use of oil products. Without that infrastructure the public would be forced to use other means of transportation. So all levels of government that have financed, produced or maintained infrastructure that facilitated the use of oil products are just as liable as those that produced it. They have been “aiding and abetting” a non-crime.
Moderators, please change globally anywhere where it says “green” to “phony-green” or “attempted but unsuccessful kleptocrat”.
[sorry, we aren’t a wholesale editing service -mod]
MilesMyles Allen.
Fixed, thanks.
Myles Allen
Thanks.
Looks like the cat’s been foiled.
Cats foiled again.
Hmm. Colour me cynical but from the posts I’ve been reading here at WUWT, I’m wondering if the Plaintiffs’ lawyers thought “This case hasn’t got a hope of succeeding but there’s some dough in it so we’ll take it on”. They don’t seem to have their heart in it. Just more snouts at the public funds trough?
The Plantiffs lawyers are the City attorneys of Oakland and San Francisco, who appear for the court. They are both elected officials.
I think the real purpose is to tie this up in court as a ‘Trophy’ case for the elections and beyond.
Oops! My mistake. Over here, City authorities often engage private law firms to act for them due to the cost involved.Thanks for the info Duker.
I quote
“MarkW April 2, 2018 at 4:42 pm
While 97% of CO2 may be natural, most of the increase over the last 100 years is due to man’s activities.most of the increase over the last 100 years is due to man’s activities.”
Quite untrue, just a reflex inculcated into your brain by constant repetition. Don’ you ever look at the actual graph in front of your nose? Let’s do that with HadCRUT3 or another similar temperature graph. It shows us both the global temperature graph and the global carbon dioxide amount in parallel. The first thing you notice is that for more than a century the carbon dioxide graph is smooth, with a slight upward curvature due to constant addition of CO2 from human activities. But the parallel global temperature is not smooth, and has regions where its temperature goes go up\ or down. Global warming, or so IPCC insists, is caused by the greenhouse effect of Carbon Dioxide. Carbon dioxide absorbs solar electromagnetic radiation which makes it warm, That warmth gets passed to neighboring gas molecules and global temperature goes up. Only problem is that HadCRUT3 and other similar temperature curves do not see it that way. If this is true, global temperature curve, created by warming pf carbon dioxide. must follow the temperature changes of the carbon dioxide curve itself. That curve, being extremely smooth, does not permit the e existence of ups and downs and irregularities visible by the naked eye in the global temperature curve. Glob al temperature curve simply cannot be generated fri temperature changes of the carbon dioxide curve as the greenhouse theory of global warming dictates. Let’s take an overview. From 1897 till 1910 global temperature has a downward trend while carbon dioxide is steady, From 1910 to 1940 global temperature increases. From 1940 to `1950 we have the WW2 cooling period. At the point where temperature starts to drop off as in 1940 the excess of carbon dioxide must be removed to satisfy the greenhouse criterion, Kahjuks not all yhewindow zdjustments are possible. It means that greenhouse effect is impossible and he cause of global warming must be soughht elsewhere.
“this court case was launched in the desperate hope that oil companies would simply fold and hand over the money.” Yup. Adults (alarmists aside) are more difficult to convince or bully than the grade school kids being indoctrinated with the lie of anthropogenic climate change.
This is the original complaint effectively THEY WANT MONEY
“San Francisco Asked State Court to Require Oil and Gas Companies to Fund Climate Adaptation Program. San Francisco filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against five oil and gas companies alleging that the carbon emissions from their fossil fuel production had created an unlawful public nuisance. The complaint alleged that the defendants had produced and promoted the use of “massive amounts” of fossil fuels despite having been aware since the 1950s, based on information from the American Petroleum Institute, that emissions from fossil fuels would cause severe and even catastrophic climate change impacts. ”
The Oil Companies were successful in getting the case moved to Federal Court
http://climatecasechart.com/case/people-state-california-v-bp-plc-oakland/
I hope these sue/ settle eco -anarchists get to pay all costs for this massive waste of time .
Any oil company that panders to these losers should fire it’s management and legal team .
If climate change is actually driven by magnetic fields of the earth and sun, then such metallic headgear would be a valid protection for citizens and their companion animals against the perils of non-static climate. So petition your local government for your own metal foil hats – it’s your basic human (and feline) right!
So apparently the oil companies did not keep any information from the public because the information in question was already in the public domain. It did not matter whether the AGW conjecture has any validity of not. If people and governments believe that the use of fossil fuels is dangerous then they should immediately stop making use of all goods and services that make use of fossil fuels. It is my understanding that in most localities the sale and use of fossil fuels is still legal and that the use of goods and services that make use of fossil fuels is also legal. In the town where I live, if it was suddenly made illegal to make use of goods and services that make use of fossil fuels, those that followed the law would perrish. In the town where I live, the fossil fuel companies are keeping the populus alive.
A slight aside about news that President Sisi of Egypt has been returned to office with 97 per cent of the vote after the electorate spoke.
Funny that number came up again – clearly a significant number in consensus we can all believe in.
Love the cat in the hat
I can’t see that the complainant argument has a leg to stand on:
That the oil companies somehow knew in the 1950s something that thousands and thousands of scientists have since spent billions of dollars over half a century trying to prove?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/14/financial-times-blasts-new-york-mayor-de-blasios-climate-stunts/comment-page-1/#comment-2717679
[excerpt]
Exxon opposed global warming alarmist falsehoods on scientific grounds when Lee Raymond was CEO, and I respected that position because it showed integrity.
.
In contrast, Shell and BP “paid lip service” to global warming alarmism and reportedly funded Greenpeace to support a damaging embargo “at the pumps” against Exxon in Europe. Exxon capitulated sometime after that.
I did not respect the conduct of Shell and BP then or now – and you know what we call people who “pay lip service” to a false cause.
Regards, Allan 🙂
More here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/09/its-about-time-exxon-launches-counterattack-against-california-based-climate-conspiracy-lawsuits/comment-page-1/#comment-2713297
It’s a show trial at best and a pathetic waste of the court system’s time at worst. But then religious-based attacks in court tend to flimsy in the first place.
….tend to be flimsy….
Getting around the WSJ paywall:
Do a Google search for the title of the article and include WSJ in the search.
You can then click on the result and voila, you may now read the full article at the WSJ.
For example:
https://www.google.com/search?q=climate+alarmists+my+inherit+the+wind+wsj
The essence of the cities complaint is that big oil conspired to create a public nuisance. The public nuisance part is difficult because, for example, there has been no change in San Fran bay rate of sea level rise for over 100 years. So no present harm, so ordinarily no monetary damages. BUT IF there was a conspiracy, then the defendants would be liable for future damages also, which is not ordinarily allowed. Hence the conspiracy element based on Oreskes ‘Merchants of Doubt’ and the Scripps La Jolla meeting in 2012 is an essential part of the plaintiff case on order to claim monetary damages. It has already failed although the judge has not yet so ruled.
The cities themselves have conspired to create a public nuisance by providing infrastructure that the public used to facilitate the burning of oil products. They should be co-defendants in their own prosecution.
And we can’t forget to include all those manufacturers that produce products that facilitate the burning of oil products, or any product that produces GHG’s of any kind. Manufacturers of cars, trucks, airplanes, boats, ships, motorcycles, coal producers, natural gas producers, cement producers….
At some point they are all liable for a natural climate variations, because they have money, and we want it.
Delingpole has a great article on this issue:
Delingpole: Finally ‘Climate Change’ Gets Its Scopes Monkey Trial–and the Bad Guys Are Gonna Lose
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/31/delingpole-finally-climate-change-gets-its-scopes-monkey-trial-and-the-bad-guys-are-gonna-lose/
I could never see this ambit claim ever flying because it was a political one and any Judge with half a brain could smell the danger in it a mile away and Alsup is far from that and hence he’s zeroing in on the conspiracy aspect of it. What reasonably intelligent individual, particularly a Judge, wants to deliver the plaintiffs their glorious victory here and virtually say to Americans, that’s it folks, no more gasoline for you as the Oilcos have to shut up shop. Alsup must know he’s not the person to make that monumental call but instead leave it to politicians to call it should they feel have the democratic imprimatur to do that.
No fear Greenies and he’s ducking out of it all by concentrating on the conspiracy issue as oil is not like cigarettes or asbestos where his countrymen can take it or leave it. The dopey Greens in this case were always asking for a leap too far and Alsup is blowing them off with black and white letter law. The Oilcos are smart enough to see that and they’re not getting sidetracked arguing over the science. We’re with you Judge and let’s stick with the old fashioned law.
This was never about shutting down oil. It is about carving off a piece of the profits for political slush funds. The public would never stand for it, and will vote those out who publicly support such a waste of the money they earn. So it has to be done through the courts. And if it ever happened they would never want a decrease in oil. That would cut into their revenue, and you know how much politicians LOVE money that comes from people that can’t vote them out.
It’s never over. The Left have a bottomless pit of money (our money) and tireless dedication to their anti-US ideological agenda.
“I’m quite shocked at the poor preparation of the green plaintiff’s case. ”
I’m not shocked – these Muppets expect to auto-win just by shouting “GREEEEEN” a lot, really.
It’s very much alike the UK Brexit referendum we had – the Stay side were so sure that they’d rigged it so well that a landslide “Stay” was going to happen… imagine their utter shock when “Leave” won by 52:48.
Same here – these d!ckheads expect to wander into court and say “green” this and “97% consensus”, and “alt-fact #exxonknew” a few times and romp off “with the win”.
People are slowly beginning to wake up and smell what they’d been covered with for the last 30 odd years…
The cat in the photograph is definitely a skeptic. I get that same look in my eyes whenever I read another “tipping point cat-ass-trophy” story. I am curious about the antenna added to the tin-foil hats. Adding antenna to conductive aluminum seems to create the opposite effect they are hoping for. Not that there is much thinking that goes into this “condom for your cranium”. But someone must have thought that adding antenna was a good idea?
I have to think that the Green Lawyers aren’t this stupid. Maybe we should consider what their ‘long game’ is, if any. They may know this lawsuit hasn’t a chance, but they may be getting something out of it that we haven’t considered? Don’t really know, I’m not a lawyer so I can’t reasonably speculate as to what they think they are gaining.
Over the years all we’ve seen from the Green Lawyers is obfuscation.
They like that word because it embodies what they do but nobody knows the definition.
That’s why it’s so appropriate–a mystical meme defended by an esoteric noun.
So was Professor Gary Griggs for or against CAGW? I am just wondering if I should be embarrassed for my name or proud of it 🙂