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.
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.
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There are so many ways this dopey lawsuit can be attacked. Claiming the oil companies were similar to the tobacco companies in knowledge of the ill effects of their product requires proof that no one except the oil companies knew anything about the effects of air pollution or smog. The oil companies
provide a fuel whose burning is regulated by the Feds. The Feds have never banned oil products – therefore any guilt is on their shoulders – the oil companies obey the laws regualting their product and therefore have no liability with respet to the effects of burning it. The oil companies don’t force anyone to buy their products – the consumer buys and uses them and therefore if anyone if guilty of murder it would be them. And on it goes ….
As regards this last sentence in the above article: “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.”
This is, as they say, a no-brainer (fitting, don’tcha know) that doesn’t need a study but instead only this universal four word answer: Get more taxpayer money.
I cannot see how such a lawsuit could possibly succeed. At the very start of the trial the judge should ask the lawyers if they or Arnie have used any fossil fuels in the last two years. The answer is of course, yes, at which point it should be case dismissed and Arnie should be ordered to pay all court costs of the defendants.
One can’t be at the same time, AGW (or worse, CAGW) believer, honest and intelligent.
Schwarzenegger AOC, etc. are perfect examples of this impossibility.
Somebody from the future resistance needs to send a terminator back in time to get rid of this moron.
You won’t hear such stupidity from Dirty Harry.
Arnold spent too much time around politicians. The crazy rubbed off on him.
It’s a crisis alright. A crisis of misfolded proteins in the brain.
Clearly, going into politics results in severe brain damage for many, as this example demonstrates.
If he sues the oil companies, what’s he going to use to power his 50-ton 1951 M-47 Patton tank?
It’s hard to prove murder, especially “*first degree” murder without the body. Where’s the body?
*not all jurisdictions use the term first-degree murder for pre-meditated murder. (though from TV, we all know what it is…)
Think Arnold invested in renewables?
Could one successfully sue someone in California for using private jets for daily commutes?
Asking for a friend.
Poor guy looks really constipated in that picture. Maybe why he’s so uptight.
Between the stogies and the, errrm, dietary supplements, Arnie must be rapidly approaching his use by date. I doubt he will be doing much except making outlandish and hypocritical claims. I wonder if actually understands how much of the world around him is due to petro chemicals?
What an ignorant, hypocritical A-hole. I wish the worst for him and his ilk….in all their anti whatever endeavors.
It is indeed incredible that so much stupidity, ignorance, and arrogance could be packed into one ball of pure Austrian shit.
Owns and drives tens of ICE-powered, gas/diesel-guzzling cars and trucks. Has several residences around the world. Uses air travel (bot commercial and private). Pleasure boating. All of his lifestyle is based on egregious self-indulgent waste of fossil fuels and emissions associated with it. And yet, in a typical self-righteous eco-fascist, alarmist lefty posturing, he dares to lecture the plebs and sue the companies producing goods without which his lifestyle and wealth would not exist…same goes for Gore, DiCaprio et al. – hypocrisy of these people has no bounds…
DOES AHHNOLD STILL DRIVE A HUMMER?
Inquiring minds want to know.
If you were wondering if Schwarzenegger identified as a European or an American, then his acceptance of the AGW Climate Scam would be the best indicator….. This European man comes to America with nothing achieves fame and fortune he would never have gained anywhere else in the world, he even attained California’s governorship…. But he still hates America and Americans. Wants to “Fundamentally change it”.
How friggin’ ungrateful can a man be?
Note to CTW.
Title should read:
Arnold Schwarzenegger Planning To Sue Oil Companies To Force Climate
PoliciesPoliticsThey always want to pursue cases as if fossil fuel use is a proven crime but I do not think I have ever seen a case where the science has been tested in court first as beyond reasonable doubt let alone the claimed beyond question.
Surely the fist step should be to convince doubters that the science even stands up to the very modest demand of beyond reasonable doubt being correct.
Just another sign of how ignorant Schwarzenegger and his “legal advisors” (if any) really are.
Yes, for criminal cases (e.g., accusations of murder), the standard for conviction of the defendant as the result of a trial is a jury finding the facts of the case to be “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
If Schwarzenegger wasn’t so bombastic and dumb, he would pursue a civil trail wherein the standard for a jury finding for the plaintiff is much lower, along the lines of “the preponderance of the evidence.”
Adequate actor. Halfwit. mrmichaeldarby@hotmail.com
Go for it Arnie as long as your using your own money! Maybe you’ll have to sell your Hummer.
Just proof that long-term exposure to the Kennedy family causes irreversible brain damage.
Or, it could have just been steroids.