A county in Oregon has filed a lawsuit against a dozen or so oil and coal companies and their trade association, basically repeating the allegations (and lies) of lawsuits filed in other jurisdictions around the country. All these lawsuits deserve to fail.
The plaintiffs in County of Multnomah v. Exxon Mobil Corp. et al. are demanding some $50 billion “for damages and equitable relief for harm caused to Multnomah County by Defendants’ execution of a scheme to rapaciously sell fossil fuel products and deceptively promote them as harmless to the environment, while they knew that carbon pollution emitted by their products into the atmosphere would likely cause deadly extreme heat events….”
This is nonsense.
The argument that “Exxon knew” is based on combing through hundreds of thousands of pages of old corporate documents released by Exxon early on during discovery (at the time, many of us said that was a mistake) and selectively quoting those that seem to make damning concessions.
How many times did bureaucrats in Exxon’s vast hierarchy make just the opposite statements, but those are being hidden by the plaintiffs? Given the size of the database and new AI-assisted search tools, scores or even hundreds of opposing statements could be found.
The defense should demand to know if the plaintiffs searched for such statements, if they did what they discovered, and if they didn’t, why not? And then … the defense should do it themselves.
In truth, there must have been an on-again, off-again debate inside Exxon and other fossil fuel companies over the course of many years regarding how seriously they should take the claims of climate alarmists. Encouraging internal debate and discussion is good management. It is not a crime.
The contention that the climate scientists funded by the fossil fuel industry represent “fringe views” is easily debunked, and not merely by referencing the Global Warming Petition Project, signed by 31,478 American scientists. Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch (both alarmists) found only 48% of the respondents to their 2015 survey of scientists said they agree “very much” with the statement that “most of recent or near future climate change is, or will be, the result of anthropogenic causes.”
Ditto Bart Verheggen’s 2015 survey that found fewer than half of contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) own reports agree with its claim more than half of the warming since the mid-20th century can be attributed to human activity.
In truth, there is no scientific consensus now and there never was. QED, the fossil fuel industry was not backing scientists with “fringe views.”
The dollar amounts contributed to conservative and libertarian think tanks reported in these suits are always exaggerated, partly by describing amounts given over the course of a decade or longer and partly because oil companies, like virtually all public companies, contributed large amounts to both liberal and conservative public interest groups during this time.
Only a small fraction of those amounts (or none at all) went to studying or advocating on climate change. The defense team should demand to know how much of Exxon’s and API’s largess actually was spent on the climate issue, and if the plaintiffs can’t say, stipulate that it was less than 5%. Then demand to know how that amount compares to the income of ideologically driven groups on the other side of the issue. If they can’t say, stipulate that is less than 5%.
In truth, money contributed to nonprofit groups by the fossil fuel industry to address climate change was trivial compared to the vast amounts spent by other groups engaged in the climate debate.
As independent investigator Russell Cook repeatedly points out, there is no evidence that any of the scientists and policy analysts who accepted money either directly or indirectly from the fossil fuel industry were “paid to lie.” There are no letters or contracts, just innuendo and libels spread by leftist activists.
Probably 99% of the money spent by the fossil fuel companies went to organizations, not to individuals, as was the case when the much-maligned Willie Soon was paid by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and those organizations had policies in place to protect the integrity and independence of their staff.
In truth, most of the scientists and experts engaged in the climate debate benefit financially in some way for the work they do (otherwise they couldn’t do it!) but very few think they are shading the truth in return for that support. They never agreed to do that. They believe they are speaking the truth.
And what about those dollars given to academics and environmental advocacy groups, including those affiliated with the United Nations, to make the opposite argument? Were those contributions made before there was solid evidence that a problem existed? In that case, was the motive to mislead the public into supporting public policies that financially benefited those groups?
Did the funding persist even in the face of compelling evidence that the global warming scare is based on junk science? In that case, was the motive to cover-up their earlier crimes? How much did Greenpeace, Sierra Club, MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers, etc. know, and when did they know it?
In truth, the climate alarmism industry was engaging in the very unethical and fraudulent practices that it is accusing the fossil fuel industry of performing.
The actual statements produced and ads run by the defendants and their “front groups” reproduced in this lawsuit are invariably reasonable, compelling, accurate, and data-based. I always chuckle when the plaintiffs reproduce these statements or ads in full since they remain fair and convincing even today, decades later.
The defense in these cases ought to eagerly present more of them, especially the Mobil ads, Patrick Michaels’ excellent newsletter, and Willie Soon’s peer-reviewed research, no less than 100 or 200 pages, and let the judge or the jury decide how credible they are. Then display those articles and ads opposite fundraising appeals from Greenpeace, Environmental Defense Fund, etc. The difference could hardly be more striking.
In truth, the environmental groups are engaged in propaganda and made false claims to advance the agendas of their funders while groups funded by the fossil fuel industry did not.
Lastly, I always look for references in these lawsuits to the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change and its five-volume “Climate Change Reconsidered” (CCR) series. I didn’t find a single reference to it in this lawsuit (but I didn’t search the document for it).
Attorney Peter Ferrara liked to say CCR was to climate alarmists “like holy water and a crucifix are to demons.” When he cited CCR in contentious debates online or in email, the other side invariably went silent, unable to admit that such a reference work even exists.
The most recent volume (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels) lists 117 scientists, economists, engineers, and other experts as authors, contributors, or reviewers. Just the fringe? Maybe, but the previous four volumes each typically listed just as many contributors and thousands of peer-reviewed articles.
In truth, global warming skeptics have just as much intellectual fire power as the alarmists, maybe even more. That’s just a fact.
One hopes the defense teams and the judges (or their clerks) hearing these cases are smart and honest enough to recognize all this.
Joseph Bast is a senior fellow with The Heartland Institute. He was president of The Heartland Institute from its founding in 1984 until his retirement in 2018.
Disclaimer: The Heartland Institute is often mentioned in the lawsuits discussed in this article but it has not been named as a defendant.
For more on climate change lawsuits, click here or here.
For Climate Change Reconsidered, click here.
Channel surfing last night on my rabbit ears antennae TV and on PBS was “documentary” called Youth Vs Gov about the climate law suit brought by “kids” (put up to it by old leftists) that was about 2019 during Trump. I do not know why they showed that as they lost the case, it was not heard as it had no merit (?).
It is so bizarre how they all use and benefit from FF every day yet they want to grab money out of oil company pockets (?) what flaming hypocrites!!
Because it is still rolling on – this time in separate US states. I think Oregon and Alaska were stalled but it’s going ahead in Montana. Not sure about any others.
I think the great climate academic guru Judith Curry was lined up to give expert witness against these silly claims, but they decided not to call her, no doubt frit she would make them look as idiotic as they are – she references it on her website
When I hear someone say so and so is funded by fossil fuels I tell them to show me. Those companies have to disclose all expenditures on their SEC filings
Phil Jones and the “team” at UEA were funded by fossil fuel companies.
Yep. When Hubert Lamb left the UK Met Office to set up the Climate Research Unit (CRU)at the University of East Anglia (UEA) the University agreed to match the sum of money he had already raised for the project from oil company Shell
Back in 2008, I had no idea there was the accusation that skeptic scientists were ‘crooks on the payroll of Big Oil.’ So when I saw in June ’08 that a “Pulitzer Prize winning reporter” named Ross Gelbspan had exposed this, all I wanted to see was what his ‘leaked memos evidence‘ was in its full context, since he never showed what it was himself. It was the simplest of due diligence pursuits, actually, something that any mainstream journalist could do. What I found out almost immediately is that Gelbspan never won a Pulitzer, and everything about his accusation began to fall apart. Everything. At my GelbspanFiles blog, I detail as many possible angles as I can on how his narratives, and those of others enslaved to his narratives (e.g. Naomi Oreskes and two former top administrators of Greenpeace USA) crumble apart.
Indebted to Joe Bast for his support of what I do!
The plaintiffs are projecting. As Greenpeace et al know they are agenda driven, and cherry picking evidence at best, the other side must be doing the same.
YES! That is one thing I really notice about the Left, PROJECTION – they are masters of it, and it seems that they either do not notice it in themselves or hope others do not notice it. They can’t help it, that is all they have!
It’s quite common amongst certain groups who, because they are doing something, everybody must be doing the same to a greater or lesser extent. Fraudsters, con artists, cheats and the like are of the opinion that everyone is defrauding each other or the system one way or another, for example.
You go with that with which you are familiar.
If they refer to CO2 as carbon, then H2O should be referred to as oxygen
Shirley that’s Hydrogen? Dihydrogen monoxide…
Does that mean that hydro power is actually hydrogen power?
If it is such a problem, how many of the plaintiffs stopped using anything derived from fossil fuels. The judge should demand this immediately. It would be interesting to see them walking to the courthouse barefoot, naked, no telephones, hungry, not able to walk on the roads will be a challenge, and can they even use the chairs or desks as they were delivered will fossil fuels etc. 🙂
The defendants should pursue declaring the plaintiffs “vexatious litigants.” This might lead to fewer frivolous lawsuits.
Agreed, absolutely smash a few in Court, the rest will think twice
Multnomah County, Oregon is far left Portland. They are claiming $50 billion in climate damages from EXXON. They are fantasizing.
Its population grew from ~660k in the 2000 census to ~815k in 2020. Its GDP grew from ~$44m in 2001 to $58m in 2020. The climate remains temperate; it’s weather hasn’t changed. Its trees remain green. It takes in $.03 per gallon in county gasoline sales tax. It will be impossible to show any actual damages whatsoever. It will be amusing to watch the leftards try.
I wish Exxon & every other oil & gas and coal company would just pull out of that county
It’s fun to think about, but if they did they’d, of course, be sued immediately for real actual damages.
If they believe in what they say, Multnomah County might have the power to shut down all oil company activity in the county. Perhaps they could explain to the court why it has not attempted to do this, otherwise people might just see the present case as just another shakedown attempt, which of course it is.
The purpose of lawfare isn’t to win a court case. It’s designed to character assassinate persons or business entities. It’s another form of propaganda.
It’s also designed to drain resources.
It costs money to defend against these lawsuits.
The oil companies are spending their own money, while the groups doing the suing are usually funded by left wing billionaires or taxpayer money.
That’s why when big oil or gas win, they should claim billions in compensation and costs
I wonder if there are countersuits existing or in the works to recover costs and other damages to the defendants.
Well, Mann sued Tim Ball, lost and was ordered to pay damages which he has refused.
Slimy deadbeat.
Agree, that’s why you need a good lawyer supported by fantastic expert witnesses, such as Judith Curry, the only way to punish these vexatious claims
My understanding is that verdicts in lawsuits are supposed to be based on EVIDENCE presented by both opposing parties, not on offered speculations.
Therefore, it’s not so much “what Exxon (or any other company) knew” in the past, or even today, as it is for plaintiffs bringing such lawsuits to present solid evidence that fossil fuel use and associated emissions have adversely affected (i.e., created damages to) Earth’s climate in any measurable way.
To date, there is no such credible evidence. Indeed, the scientific evidence is that IF human CO2 emissions have in any way affected Earth’s climate, it has only been a beneficial effect.
To wit:
— 1) There’s been ZERO change in average global temperature over the last 8 years 10 months, despite substantial increases in human-originated CO2 emissions over that time period (see https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/05/the-new-pause-remains-at-8-years-10-months/ ), and
— 2) Meanwhile, Earth continues “greening” as a direct result of atmospheric CO2 concentration increasing from about 280 ppm around 220 years ago to the current level of about 420 ppm (see https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth and this more-recent update https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/earth-getting-greener-nasa-s-new-maps-confirm-69361 ).
Facts matter . . . or at least should in a court of law.
Each of these new lawsuits styled after the “Exxon Knew” narrative is a reminder of two key points, as I see it:
1.) What Exxon and other defendants in this and similar cases SHOULD HAVE KNOWN is that there never was any merit to the attribution of reported warming to incremental increases in CO2 or other non-condensing GHGs. Simpson and Brunt knew why, as understood from their comments to the 1938 Guy Callendar submission to the Royal Meteorological society. So I think that Exxon’s own scientists should have grasped how to respond early on (late ’70’s and early ’80’s) to the claims that harmful warming might occur from continued emissions. The meteorologists knew in 1938 why the attribution to CO2 was unsound. More here. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/05/17/what-i-learned-about-what-exxon-knew/#comment-3722533
2.) #NASA_Knew that expecting runaway climate harm from continuing emissions of CO2 and other GHGs was not consistent with how they understood the climate system to operate in response to absorbed energy. The defendants in these cases should figure this out and push back against the unsound attribution that has been based on a misconception since the beginning. More here.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/05/16/wuwt-contest-runner-up-professional-nasa-knew-better-nasa_knew/
So as much as I hate to see these ridiculous lawsuits, I also wish that the defendants would expose the core misconception: That heat energy must accumulate on land and in the oceans to harmful effect from what non-condensing GHGs do in the atmosphere. NO! It does not work that way! There. I know it sounds like I’m venting. I’m really just pointing out what should be plainly evident by watching the atmosphere perform as the compressible working fluid of its own heat engine operation.
Mr. Layman here.
It seems to me that they’d need to be able prove that Man’s CO2 (or other GHGs) can be separated out from Natures GHGs AND be able to quantify, in fact, the effects each have.
Then they’d have to prove any claimed damages were caused by one and not the other.
(Of course, they’d also have to prove that people exhaling does not hold EVERYBODY liable if they managed to do the former.)
When it comes to the law, I am not a layman. I am licensed. But everything you say is correct. Multnomah cannot prove diddly squat concerning claimed anthropogenic CO2 damages. But at some level they must already know that.
Leftards don’t care.
Leftards will care when sued for losses, costs & compensation
Taxpayers would pay any damages to defendants.
Rud, I think it is good that this will cause litigated facts to get out to the general public, although Leftist media will spin it. I hope it legally shows that UN IPCC CliSciFi climate models cannot be used to predict the climate future nor any statistical distribution of possible warming, rainfall & etc.
UN IPCC CliSciFi climate models need to be put on trial, whether in the courts or before existing science bodies. It is unbelievable that science institutions currently support the notion that models can falsify hypotheses as does real experimentation. In the real world, climate models have been falsified by their prediction of tropospheric hot spots that have not been measured to exist in the troposphere; experiment has falsified the hot spot hypothesis of the models. Anything within the various models that lead to hot spots must be excised in order to follow the scientific method.
Maybe better to leave it to qualified people, Joe?
(That’s never stopped you before, admittedly.)
Who decides who is “qualified”?
Is a first grader “qualified” to say 2+2=4?
Whether or not they meet your definition of “qualified”, it’s still true.
In the lefty world 2+2=5
Universities would be a start.
Why on earth would you think Universities would be a start? They have to compete with other Uni’s to get funding, students – they are big businesses and systemic bias is the norm. If you want an objective qualified expert you need to steer well clear of the Universities.
So who do you deem as qualified, Richard?
Certainly not gullible people like you, who are only capable of seeing the fear and panic presented to them by the MSM.
Someone who can see reality, rather than propaganda, would be a great place to start.
How about starting with the signatories of the Global Warming Petition Project. Why would you start with people who are paid to support the politics of global warming?
And what do we know would happen to any university physics student who expressed skepticism about CO2 being the “control knob” for climates behaviors?
If universities still had pass & fail gradings instead of participation certificates, this questioning student would be given a hard ‘F’.
A University gave AOC a degree in economics.
Some Universities refuse to acknowledge the hard science of biology when it comes to what is a male or a female.( I think in NZ there’s even a proposal to eliminate the hard science classes such as Biology?)
Universities are NOT a good place to start.
“An egghead is someone who stands firmly on both feet, in mid-air, on both sides of an issue.” — Homer Ferguson
“Never confuse education with intelligence. You can have a PhD and still be an idiot.” — Original source unknown
So, not one of your climate priests will be involved.
They are only self-qualified as climate propagandists.
You certainly are totally unqualified to say who is qualified.
What “qualifies” anyone to claim to be a “climate scientist / expert”?
From my observations, all one needs is a capacity for downloading tables of temperatures values from a variety of free websites, and a basic proficiency in Excel.
Then one just applies lots of assumptions and conjectures to the values in the cells and formulae in the Excel spreadsheet, run it a few times until one produces the results one envisioned beforehand.
Then prepare a media release with another doom-laden message posing as a new “scientific paper”, send the package off to a few publishers with a stable of on-board peer reviewers, and voila – you’re now the 12,672nd person to be referred to a “climate expert”.
Or play a computer game, similar to SimCity..
… and pretend the pre-ordained result is reality.
That way you become an actual truly, ruley climate scientist. !
We have something in common after all then.
Except that I am well qualified, in the field of science, physics, maths, water, hydrology, and several other branches of engineering.
You are qualified only in being brain-washed by propaganda.
Are you smarter than a 5th Grader, TFN? Jeff Foxworthy wants to know.
Make that a 2nd grader… at least give poor FN a chance !.
A question.
Let’s say there was a grave miscarriage of Justice and they win.
What happens to the money?
What happened to the money from the states suing tobacco companies?
Some lawyers got filthy rich.
What did the states do with it?
If the Courts and Judges are not raving Marxists, the alarmists have nothing on their side, particularly facts & data and can be easily crushed by a properly presented case, with many expert witnesses available to show how biased, deceitful and self serving the alarmists really are
“If the Courts and Judges are not raving Marxists, the alarmists have nothing on their side, particularly facts & data and can be easily crushed by a properly presented case”
I think so, too.
I would love to be Exxon’s lawyer and I would stand up there and say “Where’s your evidence” every time they made a claim. I would do so not because I think they have any evidence, but because I want the Judge and Jury to see they have nothing to back up any of their outrageous claims about Exxon and the Earth’s climate.
Exxon scientists knew exactly what everyone else knew at the time, then, and now, and that was that the science of CO2/Climate Change was *not* settled.
Anyone who claims they know what CO2 is doing in the atmosphere is either delusional or a liar. Nobody knows what CO2 is doing in the atmosphere. Nobody knows if CO2 has any discernable effect on any weather phenomenon. That is the bottom line. That was the way it was when this scam began, and that is still the way it is.
Climate Change Alarmists claim they see CO2’s fingerprint in every severe weather event, but this is just unsubstantiated speculation on their part. There is not one shred of evidence supporting these claims.
If you want to shut a Climate Change Alarmist up, say: Prove it!.
The mineral mining industry in Australia was not particularly close to the oil and gas sector because technically the work was quite different, with not much to swap notes about.
Speaking about the former, the topic of emission of CO2 to the air was almost unheard of before 1990. About then, occasional discussion arose when global warming was linked obscurely to CO2. The rare conference mention of this drew little comment because nobody thought there was a threat that needed thought. Nobody had researched matters like if global temperature went up 1deg C, would that be detectable? Most of us seemed to feel like saying we might be interested if anyone can show temperatures might change by a meaningful amount like 10 deg C. Then show how CO2 could do that. (Send topic back to round filing cabinet).
Nobody really knew of Callendar’s work. It has only really been mentioned much since 2000. It is over egged because after years of searching for an old reference to CO2 warming, somebody found Callendar’s work and pushed his name into a told-you-so debate.
In short, nobody really “knew”. Early speculations on a learning curve are absolutely NOT evidence of a deliberate plan to harm humanity. Geoff S
One “divinity student” glommed on to this opportunity for a bit of nouveau tele evangelism with its attendant “send me money” plea.
And he has made quite a fistful of $$$$s doing it since he figured that this new AGW religion would be a bigger payer than having to stand for political election every 4 years.
Name that toon!
Mr.,
Yes, I know.
But my colleagues and I pressed on with the work we were paid to do and discovered new mines whose product sales are now approaching 100 billion dollars in today’s values.
That exceeds the AG tally by quite a lot and it gives, I suspect, rather more positive personal work satisfaction.
Clever, Mr. Very clever.
“the topic of emission of CO2 to the air was almost unheard of before 1990. About then, occasional discussion arose when global warming was linked obscurely to CO2. The rare conference mention of this drew little comment because nobody thought there was a threat that needed thought.”
That’s the way I saw it, too.
“Nobody really knew of Callendar’s work. It has only really been mentioned much since 2000. It is over egged because after years of searching for an old reference to CO2 warming, somebody found Callendar’s work and pushed his name into a told-you-so debate.”
Another good point.
I have a book entitled ‘Keeping The Lights On’ by Paul Freund & Olav Kaarstad. They are energy experts with an IEA background and largely accept the narrative but they include the following comment by Callendar
“This is a difficult subject: by long tradition the happy hunting ground for robust speculation, it suffers much because so few can separate fact from fancy”
This was written in 1961 – imagine what Callendar would say today!
“Why Global Warming Lawsuits Deserve to Fail”
I have not read the article yet, but in any case, here is the short version of the answer to this question, containing all anyone needs to know: Every single word of the Warmista Jackassery is made up BS.
From the article: “In truth, the climate alarmism industry was engaging in the very unethical and fraudulent practices that it is accusing the fossil fuel industry of performing.”
Of course, they are! That’s what fanatics do. They accuse the other side of being the fanatics.
“In truth, global warming skeptics have just as much intellectual fire power as the alarmists, maybe even more. That’s just a fact.”
Yes, as much intellectual firepower, and a much better grasp of reality.
Using some random internal com to badmouth a corp is lawyers bootlicking (the lawyers, not police, being those with too much power in the US).
The exact same “X knew they did wrong” was used against Google on the “property” of Java, and it was equally inane, and pro Trump people (and President Trump) went all-in against Google, supporting Oracle, which was an evil criminal choice, and Trump got badly humiliated for that one indefensible decision.
[That’s how you conservatives lose the votes of the young voters BTW.]
The conservative media were strongly against Google and commenters on these websites were angry after Google, full of hate.
So ineptness, and lawyers bootlicking, is well shared among parties. (The people who often comment on WUWT are no less inept. They religiously adored pretty much all vaccines until the COVID scam.)
It’s hard to tell which of Google or Oracle is the more evil, but that Java copyright case should definitely have been dismissed. SUN Microsystems actively encouraged independent implementations, with the only restriction being that an implementation had to fully comply with the specification to be called “Java”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/15/__trashed-16
is a funny URL.