Arnold Schwarzenegger Planning To Sue Oil Companies To Force Climate Policies

From The Daily Caller

Jason Hopkins | Energy Investigator

A spokesman for Arnold Schwarzenegger said the former governor and famous movie actor is still pursuing his options to sue oil companies for “first degree murder.”

“We’ve had consistent meetings with a team of legal experts who focus on environmental law and ways to sue for pollution, so we have continued those meetings and we’ve definitely made progress,” Daniel Ketchell, a Schwarzenegger spokesman, told Axios on Wednesday.

The statement comes about a year after the moderate Republican governor of California said he hoped to sue fossil fuel companies for contributing to climate change and “killing people” all over the globe.

“I don’t think there’s any difference: If you walk into a room and you know you’re going to kill someone, it’s first degree murder; I think it’s the same thing with the oil companies,” Schwarzenegger said in March 2018. The famous bodybuilder, who has publicly called on President Donald Trump to do more to promote clean energy, expressed interest in treating fossil fuels like tobacco, forcing them to include a warning label. “The tobacco industry knew for years and years and years and decades, that smoking would kill people, would harm people and create cancer, and were hiding that fact from the people and denied it,” he said.

Although a lifelong Republican, Schwarzenegger has become an ardent environmental activist and fossil fuel critic since leaving his gubernatorial post. The former bodybuilder founded the R20 Regions of Climate Action, an environmental organization that aims to increase the use of renewable energy sources and reduce the world’s carbon emissions.

Arnold Sports Festival Australia

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – MARCH 18: Arnold Schwarzenegger starts the Run for the Kids charity run as part of the Arnold Sports Festival Australia at at the Alexander Gardens on March 18, 2018 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Schwarzenegger’s activism has led to clashes with the White House, which has organized a wide-scale deregulation effort and made attempts to revive the country’s coal industry. The famous movie actor publicly rebuked Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the international Paris climate agreement. (RELATED: Plans To Save Largest US Coal Plant In The West Hit A Roadblock)

In his most recent climate change project, Schwarzenegger announced he is teaming up with California Democrat Kevin de León in an effort to reduce emissions from cars and trucks. The two prominent politicians are launching an initiative alongside activists and researchers that will study how local governments can more quickly adopt cleaner transportation options.

Follow Jason on Twitter.

The climate data they don't want you to find — free, to your inbox.
Join readers who get 5–8 new articles daily — no algorithms, no shadow bans.
0 0 votes
Article Rating
154 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Tom in Florida
March 8, 2019 5:05 am

Maybe it IS a tumma.

Craig
Reply to  Tom in Florida
March 8, 2019 1:02 pm

It’s not a tumma.

RockyRoad
March 8, 2019 5:17 am

How does Arnie have any legal standing in this lawsuit? Even an actor should know better!

Tom Halla
March 8, 2019 5:25 am

Arnold has just been associating with his ex-wife’s family too long, and their worldview has been reinforced so many times he thinks it is reasonable.

Kevin A
March 8, 2019 5:25 am

Just think of the maid and move on.

John Bell
March 8, 2019 5:29 am

Look at Arnold’s typical day: he uses lots of fossil fuels, the hypocrite.

John Endicott
March 8, 2019 5:41 am

“I don’t think there’s any difference: If you walk into a room and you know you’re going to kill someone, it’s first degree murder; I think it’s the same thing with the oil companies,”

Arnold, you could have ended that sentence after the third word.
How, exactly, are oil (or any other fossil fuel) companies “killing” people? They’re doing just the opposite by keeping them warm in winter so they *don’t* freeze to death, by powering life saving ambulances and rescue helicopters/planes, etc.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  John Endicott
March 8, 2019 7:33 am

He forgot to ask for his next line.

observa
Reply to  John Endicott
March 8, 2019 6:17 pm

Walking into the Court room is fine Arnie but which WMD did you choose to get here in the first place? On behalf of my client the plaintiff I’m pleading the Fifth or insanity yeronner and can we wrap this up quick or they’re going to have me up before the Bar for taking money under false pretences.

Hoodnick
Reply to  observa
March 10, 2019 4:51 am

Counter sue Arnold for attempted murder. If he get his way millions will die in the winter due to freezing to death

March 8, 2019 5:45 am

I think that we, as responsible citizens, should follow Arnold’s lead on this one, given its mark of high intelligence and wisdom.

Because of his words, I am now inspired to start my own lawsuit against child bearing females, for giving birth to babies, knowing full well that these babies will be ravaged by the oxidative processes of Earth, causing eventual death by old age. … It seems clear to me that any woman who gives birth is a murderer, and any man complicit in her giving birth is the accomplice of a murderer. Child bearing is murder, plain and simple, and it needs to stop NOW.

Reply to  Robert Kernodle
March 8, 2019 4:57 pm

Seriously, though, DON’T follow him, iif yoo vant too liv.

Moderately Cross of East Anglia
March 8, 2019 5:46 am

It is truly terrifying that people with all his advantages and wealth can be so utterly stupid and blind. Someone wealthy with money to burn should be concerned about the millions of people still without access to electricity, education and a decent shot at a life not burdened by poverty and illness, not this deranged eco-twaddle.
I don’t know about the Terminator, but my vacuum cleaner is smarter than this bozo.

Tom in Florida
March 8, 2019 5:50 am

An accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime.
Therefore he must include himself as an accomplice, to wit: his participation in action movies where the entire production from start to finish depends on massive amounts fossil fuel usage.

michael hart
Reply to  Tom in Florida
March 8, 2019 6:18 am

Yes, the users of fossil fuels appear more culpable than the producers. He is traveling down a road he didn’t oughta be.

John Bell
March 8, 2019 6:00 am

Just another loud mouth climate hypocrite who uses fossil fuels every day, what is with these people?

John Bell
March 8, 2019 6:02 am

OT a bit but there is a story – Prince Harry used a helicopter to go give a climate change speech.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  John Bell
March 8, 2019 7:51 am

And after crashing his “Rangey” and smashing in to another road user, his grandaddy, was given a brand new Rangey! He’s 92.

Earthling2
Reply to  Patrick MJD
March 8, 2019 9:06 am

He is 97 years old. Will be 98 on June 10. Born in 1921. He shouldn’t be driving anymore and I understand he just willingly admitted he is now too old after that last accident and will be hanging up his keys.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  Earthling2
March 8, 2019 7:59 pm

I am pretty sure in the UK there is an age limit (75? I still have my paper license) on driving, but 97 is plain ridiculous. The husband to QE2 does not have a driver?

Coach Springer
March 8, 2019 6:12 am

Can someone start a GoFundMe for suing Arnold?

Russ R.
March 8, 2019 6:26 am

“Killing people all over the globe”???
Where are the bodies? I have yet to see one. But it would be easy to produce bodies of people that died from heating and cooking over open fires. The use of fossil fuels prevents more of those deaths.
Logic is not a concept Arnold is familiar with.

John Endicott
Reply to  Russ R.
March 8, 2019 7:23 am

Indeed. I want names and locations of graves. But Arnold and the other idiots that think like him can’t produce the bodies because they only exist in their warped little minds. They “know” fossil fuels are not only “bad” but “evil” (despite the fact that they, themselves, use copious amounts of them, far more than the average citizen) so “obviously” fossil fuels must be responsible for all kinds of bad things (such as killing people) and yet their excessive use of those same “evil” fossil fuels somehow doesn’t matter (otherwise they’d do more than virtue signal in regards to their own CO2 footprint).

kcrucible
Reply to  Russ R.
March 8, 2019 9:04 am

““Killing people all over the globe”???
Where are the bodies? I have yet to see one. But it would be easy to produce bodies of people that died from heating and cooking over open fires. The use of fossil fuels prevents more of those deaths.
Logic is not a concept Arnold is familiar with.”

Not to mention that fossil fuels are used exclusively to transport humanitarian aid. Solar powered aircraft and trucks are a pipe dream.

Hugs
March 8, 2019 6:45 am

Lol. Look at the chutzpah. He flies, drives big cars, lives very prosperous life in Kalifornia and is the worst climate hypocrite you can have.

I’m wondering is this about not recognizing his own fossil use, or is he knowing that he willfully uses fossils and just tries to avoid the blame? Or is he one of the idiots who opine that those who produce oil products should somehow solve the big problem of sellable (=economical) other energy source.

Motto: I want you carry for my resposibility, if not, I’ll sue you for the murder I assumed I caused.

March 8, 2019 7:08 am

Ahhhnold knows there are plenty of really stupid people out there.

Andrew

John Endicott
Reply to  Bad Andrew
March 8, 2019 7:24 am

Ahhhnold knows because he *is* one of the really stupid people out there.

Dennis sandberg
March 8, 2019 7:15 am

Living breathing proof that massive steroid use is bad for the brain.

ResourceGuy
Reply to  Dennis sandberg
March 8, 2019 11:22 am

+1

Sheri
March 8, 2019 7:18 am

Cut off all oil, gas and electricity to his home, refuse service at gas stations. Force him to live up to his lies and rhetoric. If not, maybe he should be sued for murder.

Joel Snider
Reply to  Sheri
March 8, 2019 9:00 am

Hell, with all the violence in his movies, maybe there could be a class-action suit blaming him for all the street violence he’s encouraged since the eighties.

Seems to me the Terminator has certainly glorified the ‘mass shooter’.

n.n
March 8, 2019 7:19 am

A Democrat in Republican clothing? Only oil, not all hydrocarbons. Not all carbon dioxide producers… At least not affirmatively before a few days, weeks following birth. Here’s to [unqualified] progress.

John Endicott
Reply to  n.n
March 8, 2019 7:26 am

A Democrat in Republican clothing

Yes, he’s what is known as a RINO (Republican In Name Only).

Sweet Old Bob
Reply to  John Endicott
March 8, 2019 7:58 am

He’s a lie long Republican ….

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Sweet Old Bob
March 8, 2019 10:08 am

My guess is that is *not* a misspelling. 🙂

Лазо
March 8, 2019 7:22 am

#1. Name the victims.
#2. Are you not using fossil fuels to push your agenda? If so, you are a co-conspirator and you list yourself as a defendent.
#3. In the your use of hydrocarbons, did somebody hold a gun to your head to use them?
#4. Can you live for a day, week, month, in the winter without producing carbon emissions or use anything created from, transported using, etc. hydrocarbons and set an example of your agenda for the rest of us to follow?
#5. What about the tremendous benefits of hydrocarbon usage and products? Doesn’t this factor significantly out strip the negatives of their usage by a huge and overwhelming factor?
#6. Can you show empirical evidence that hydrocarbons are the culprit and this is not a natural cycle and don’t use the debunked 97% “consensus”…

leitmotif
March 8, 2019 7:29 am

“You are one ugly motherf****r!” [Predator]

Reply to  leitmotif
March 8, 2019 5:04 pm

… yet here he is … predating on a lot of people’s “induced stupidity”, to use another WUWT commentator’s phrase.

CD in Wisconsin
March 8, 2019 7:40 am

I seem to recall reading or hearing somewhere that only local, state or federal govts can charge in individual (or multiple people) with murder. So, in this case, the Governator. would instead have to file a CIVIL wrongful death suit against the fossil fuels companies.

https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/personal-injury/how-wrongful-death-lawsuit-works.html

“…In order to hold the defendant liable in a wrongful death claim, the plaintiffs in the claim (usually through the estate of the deceased victim) must meet the same burden of proof that the victim would have had to meet had the victim lived. So, using negligence as an example, this means showing that the defendant owed the victim a duty of care, that the defendant breached this duty, that the breach of duty was a direct and proximate cause of the death, and that the death caused the damages that the plaintiff is trying to recover…”
….
….
“..A wrongful death claim is usually filed by a representative of the estate of the deceased victim, on behalf of survivors who had a relationship with the victim. Exactly who those survivors can be varies from state to state…”

I wish the Governator luck producing someone (or multiple people) who believes they lost a loved one as a result of the 0.52 degrees C of warming of the past 40 years (according to the UAH satellite record). I imagine a death certificate (I would think) is unlikely to mention the warming as a cause of death. Perhaps he could point to those who have died from hurricanes or tornadoes or floods, but then he would need to show that the disaster was caused by or dramatically worsened by climate change and that the deaths were the result of it. Don’t know how easy or hard that would be.

I have no legal background, so all of this is just speculation based on what I read in the link above. However, it looks to me like the Governator is going off the deep end here trying to link perceived fossil fuel company “negligence” to the deaths of anyone in the world. He appears to have been radicalized by everything he’s hearing and reading about climate change in media and elsewhere. In my mind, trusting everything you hear in the MSM these days is a reflection of one’s intelligence…or lack of it.

A fool and his money…..

Joel Snider
March 8, 2019 7:53 am

I seem to remember Arnold’s father was a member of the old Nazi party – stands to reason he’d join up with the new one.

ResourceGuy
March 8, 2019 8:24 am

Coexist Arnie.

You need this before it’s too late……

Alzheimer’s-like symptoms reversed in mice
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190306133414.htm

March 8, 2019 8:34 am

Is it possible to sue a person or a company for murder (first degree or otherwise?). As I understand it (as a casual observer of the law and its occasional insanities), murder is a criminal offence/offense and would require a private prosecution, something that’s very rare these days in any jurisdiction, and (after a quick Wiki search) may not even be legal in California for a serious crime like murder.

In a real-world situation (as opposed to Arnie’s internal fantasy-world), probably all he could do is request a public prosecutor to charge a company with murder. And public prosecutors (especially in USA where they are mostly elected) don’t like prosecutions where they can’t see a decent chance of winning.

Also, first degree murder (as I understand it) means conceiving an intention to kill someone, then planning the act and carrying out the act. As opposed to second degree murder, where there is no prior intention. And for murder, he would have to produce bodies (who died, when, where and how?) and tie that to specific activities of a specific company or companies on specific dates in specific places. Good luck with that, as they say.

It ought to surprise me that a former governor of the most populous state in the US can’t tell the difference between a criminal prosecution and a civil action (which is almost certainly what he’s really talking about). But somehow with Arnie it doesn’t. Sad, really.

March 8, 2019 8:55 am

From the article: “The famous bodybuilder . . . expressed interest in treating fossil fuels like tobacco, forcing them to include a warning label.”

Here, Arnold, I’ll offer this to help you (and you do, so obviously and desperately, need all the help you can get):

******************* WARNING!***************************
The burning of this fossil fuel will create CO2, a chemical compound known to be necessary for plant life on Earth. It is a non-toxic substance, one actually produced by the living human body and necessary for its proper functioning. There is scientific evidence that releasing CO2 into Earth’s atmosphere will increase the growth of land plants, including food plants, and ocean phytoplankton, a primary food base for marine life, including fish. There is speculation that increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration has been helpful in warming Earth from its last extensive glacial period, but this has not been proven scientifically.

Please do not combust this fossil fuel if you understand this warning and do not want to incur the possible consequences that would result from such use.
******************* WARNING!***************************

Sheri
Reply to  Gordon Dressler
March 8, 2019 9:18 am

So it IS just about a new source of revenue and ZERO concern for humanity. IF it were about humanity, they’d ban the stuff. That’s why tobacco is still sold—the GOVERNMENT now gets billions from the settlements. It was never about helping or harm, only about increasing revenue.

Asbestos was banned, but only after BILLIONS were taken from the companies. Funny cigarettes didn’t meet the same fate, don’t you think?