CONTRIBUTOR
A new narrative is making its way through major media outlets about major oil corporations: climate change that they purportedly caused is taking lives, and they could be held liable for homicide.
In recent weeks, numerous outlets have run stories or opinion pieces promoting or otherwise examining the novel legal theory, which is the subject of a new paper published by the Harvard Environmental Law Review, according to a Tuesday E&E News report detailing the architects’ efforts to market their idea to prosecutors. The Boston Globe, The Guardian, Newsweek, Inside Climate News and other outlets have all recently published pieces promoting the idea that leading oil companies could or should be charged with murder for their role in climate change, which the theory’s architects claim has caused thousands of deaths in the U.S.
David Arkush, who runs Public Citizen’s climate program, and Donald Braman, a professor at George Washington University’s law school, articulated the theory in a March paper. Public Citizen is a left-of-center organization founded by failed Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader that, among other things, pressures American International Group (AIG) to stop providing insurance coverage for fossil fuel companies, according to its website and Influence Watch. (RELATED: Dems, Media Push New Study Linking Climate Change To Inflation, But Economists Aren’t Buying It)
“Activists and journalists have called executives of major oil companies ‘mass murderers,’ lamenting that ‘millions of human beings will die so that they can have private planes and huge mansions,’ and a growing chorus of communities devastated by [fossil fuel companies’] lethal conduct have begun to demand accountability,” the authors state in their paper. “But as of this writing, no prosecutor in any jurisdiction has charged [fossil fuel companies] with any form of homicide over climate-related deaths. They should.”
The paper also suggests that the American Petroleum Institute (API), a leading trade association for the oil and gas industry, was involved in the industry’s purported attempts to obscure the effects of emissions.
“The record of the past two decades demonstrates that the industry has achieved its goal of providing affordable, reliable American energy to U.S. consumers while substantially reducing emissions and our environmental footprint,” a spokesperson for API told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
The two authors contend that energy corporations were aware of the warming that emissions from their products and operations would cause for decades, and that those companies decided to mislead the public and obscure what effects those emissions may have. A similar narrative lies at the heart of climate lawsuits that have been filed against energy companies in numerous jurisdictions across the U.S. in recent years.
Arkush wrote a Wednesday piece for Newsweek laying out his theory and referencing these climate lawsuits, opining that the fossil fuel industry’s purported “crimes may be among the, if not the, most consequential in human history.” The Boston Globe ran a similar opinion piece authored by Arkush and another official for Public Citizen on March 17.
The Guardian ran its own piece about the climate homicide theory on March 21, using the headline “Fossil fuel firms could be tried in US for homicide over climate-related deaths, experts say.” Clean Technica, a site that promotes green energy, ran a March 16 piece on the new legal theory with the headline “Climate Criminals — Prosecuting Big Oil For Environmental Crimes.”
Inside Climate News published an April 4 story on the subject, using the headline “Should Big Oil Be Tried for Homicide?” and including excerpts from interviews with the two architects of the climate homicide theory. The pair suggested that the aim is not to punish individuals or seek vengeance, but instead achieve results that would prompt companies to shift their investments away from fossil fuels, according to Inside Climate News’ story.
However, Inside Climate News did quote legal experts who expressed skepticism about the theory’s merits.
“I do not believe that a criminal prosecution on homicide charges against the major oil companies is appropriate or can be sustained,” John Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in corporate law, told the outlet.
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Most people alive in western civilisation today, are only here BECAUSE OF FOSSIL FUELS.
Fossil fuels have massively enhanced life expectancy and human lifestyle anywhere they are used.
Every modern society’s existence depends absolutely on their use.
Anyone who advocates for the immediate elimination of fossil fuels is guilty of intent of mass murder.
Add conspiracy charges to that.
Leftists in general are not deep thinkers.
The idea that something can have good and bad characteristics is enough to make their little minds freeze up from over work.
They have been told that fossil fuels are evil, so that’s what they believe. Data not necessary, nor appreciated.
The pharma industry wouldn’t exist without petroleum. Thank Rockefeller for that.
Compare the stock charts of PFE to XOM since the pandemic. It’s almost as if market participants think that Pfizer is responsible for harming people and ExxonMobil’s value reflects products that make life better.
So, if Big Oil is homicidal, then they also are suicidal? After all, fossil fuels are an existential threat? I think not. David M. seems pretty normal to me.
Just compare life expectancy of developed countries (using Fossil Fuels) vs countries that are poor and lack any industrialization. The answer and truth is obvious if objectively investigated. The real tragedy is those who suffer enormously from the lack of abundant and inexpensive energy.
Saint Ralph has been consistently in the wrong since the 1960’s. I actually read “Unsafe at Any Speed”, where he pontificated that any vehicle that oversteers at the limit is radically unsafe. Nader trusted that none of his readers had ever driven an old VW Bug.
If such a ridiculous story is popping in a number of news outlets, it is not because of any groundswell phenomenon. It is the coordinated effort of colluding media feeding from Princeton’s global
climate propaganda ‘news’ campaign.
Get a look at their foot soldiers arguing over gendered language and microaggressions.
It’s been revealed that, of the editors at NPR 87 are registered Democrats and 0 are registered as Republican. Anyone who expects honesty from and of the major news organizations is delusional.
Ad clicks are increased with scare headlines.
The Daily Caller article here is about David Arkush trying to advance the idea of holding ‘Big Fossil Fuel’ accountable for climate homicide, and notes Arkush was the author of several articles just recently on the idea, including a Newsweek article yesterday — this one: “Big Oil Could Face Homicide Charges.” I’ve covered Arkush just recently at my GelbspanFiles (here), and will do so again in my next one, probably online next week. Within his Newsweek piece, 8th paragraph there, Arkush cites the notorious “reposition global warming” memos and the notorious “Chicken Little” advertorial as evidence indicting the fossil fuel industry of capital crimes. Problem is, as I’ve already detailed many times at my blog, the “reposition global warming” memos were an unsolicited proposal with directives / suggestions that were never implemented and ended up in the trash, and the “Chicken Little” ad was never published anywhere. Arkush would have uncounted numbers of people jailed over literally worthless evidence.
There is no money in prosecution for murder. Won’t get much support.
DOA
Touché captain.
On the other hand, as NYC and Atlanta have demonstrated, going after anyone or anything that the left hates, is a good career move for an activist DA.
But, the criminal prosecutions will lead to civil suits and billions can change hands in those.
The evidential standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt is replaced by the preponderance of evidence in civil litigation. So win the battle and lose the war.
Of course we all pay if the corporations are hit with big penalties.
Demonising CO2 is a gift that keeps giving – at least for now. Even law schools are in on the act. No doubt getting funds to study this nonsense so they can write damning papers.
Why not bring back witch hunts. It would make better television than trying to corner Big Oil. And no ugly witches. And no transgender witches. There’s a thought. Bring back witch hunts and I bet the transgender males increase and the transgender females reduce.
And where do you stop. Have shareholders of Big Oil been innocent in it. Did you check if your retirement fund is invested in big oil?
Oh. Big point. Everyone with a retirement account or a portfolio with Oil stocks is guilty, too.
Let’s see, that would be roughly 75% of the population of the US are complicit in this “crime.”
Oh, well. I guess I’m an accomplice.
We all should be sued.
Including all the “greens” who use oil products throughout their lives each and every day
Especially the wealthy greens who use far more ff than we do.
The greens need to immediately discard all clothing so they are not “covered in oil” let they be part of the lawfare.
It would be very interesting to see the lawyers in a state of au naturale as they attempt the prosecution.
Where do they find these people?
They don’t find them, they create them. It’s called indoctrination.
Drag a dollar through a law school and you will catch quite a few.
“…a growing chorus of communities devastated by [fossil fuel companies’] lethal conduct have begun to demand accountability,” the authors state in their paper.”
So, if these idiots succeed in putting an end to the use of fossil fuels, we will know who to charge with murder for the millions who die because of it. Have they thought of that?
Key word: think
Question.. What is the name and address of the victim?
That’s what I want to know. Who did the oil companies kill with CO2?
This looks like another case of a political prosecution of a victimless crime.
According to the British Medical Journal, colder temperatures take 20x more lives than hotter temperatures.
Using the distorted logic of those pushing the “green” agenda and those complicit should be held liable for genocide.
Classic example of “They jumped the shark”.
Seems to me that one of the hallmarks of professional liars is failure to keep their stories straight. I have had opponents change their stories in real time in small claims court with the expected consequences shown vividly in the judges’ faces and verdicts. I have had neighbors, co-workers, and others change their stories because they forgot their original lies.
I suspect most people have the same reaction to all these changing climate alarmunism stories and predictions, and the public mostly just ignores them the same way they ignore other liars.
The only “warming” that’s distinguishable from baseline is observed mainly on the northern hemisphere temperature land record, mainly due to measurement errors from urban heat island effects. The satellite observations on land and sea hardly confirm any warming at all. And if there’s warming due to UHI, it’s progress which can certainly be attributed to fossil fuels. But then, progress has saved many more lives than caused deaths as can be seen in numerous statistics including increasing life spans of people.
If they want to go after someone, then they should target the industries and people behind the Covid-19 scam first. There are lots of ill gotten profits and deaths to be found there, as well as real concrete evidence to be found.
Who are they going to prosecute? If they go after one company, for one person’s “death by climate change”, they’ll have a hell of a time building the chain of evidence from barrel of oil, to refinery, to emissions, to weather event.
If they’re intending to prosecute all companies at once, then how do they expect to compel companies like Aramco and Sinopec to turn up? Given that roughly half, if not more, emissions come from China and therefore share in the blame, how do they expect to get them in the dock?
As with all alarmist lore the reverse logic is true – the only homicidal folk were the ones who wanted to stop digging or looking for alternatives sources of fire and heat although the forests were becoming rather small by the day.
Woke folk believe there is only one kind of coke.
Conversely, if oil and/or mineral companies suddenly ceased to supply their products, many people would die within weeks.
So, we have a quandary.
It is but a silly quandary, because it ain’t gonna happen.
Geoff S
If this idiocy comes to be, then the oil companies should immediately stop production, distribution, and sales to prevent further harm. (Or sue themselves to get a judicial stay).
It would be a matter of days, if not hours, before the case would be thrown out and the court room would be dark (and too hot or too cold) and no one would be able to arrive on time, if at all.
We need to also prosecute all of the people that use fossil fuels, me included. After all, it is just a climate-harmless item until they use it and turn it into planet destroying CO2!! ARG!
“the idea that leading oil companies could or should be charged with murder for their role in climate change”
Yikes, talk about a witch hunt! They’ll soon be hanging oil executives! From Hah-vid no less. After all, Wokeachusetts loved hanging witches.
Sue the firewood delivery service instead of the fireplace owners for smokey air….sensible, no?
millions of human beings will die so that they can have private planes and huge mansions
Well maybe those activists should give up their private planes and huge mansions, if they’re so concerned?
You beat me to that point. Gratz.
Even if the theory was true, which it isn’t, how is this any different from suing auto makers because people die in automobile accidents?
Let’s see… People have a choice to buy or ride in automotive transportation. Exempt.
People have a choice to fuel their cars with gas/diesel. Exempt.
People have a choice to have no lights, heating, cooling, means to preserve and cook food. Exempt.
It seems to me, which is your point exactly,, that is it not the production of oil and oil products that is the root of the CO2 evil, but the people who decide, without coercion, to use those products.
How about charging those that have kept “3rd world nations” 3rd world nations by denying them cheap energy?
How many have died?