Nick Pope
Contributor
Hawaii Democrats have advanced a bill that would clear the way for individuals and insurers adversely affected by an “event attributable to climate change” to sue companies and other entities for spreading climate “misinformation.”
S.B. 1166, introduced by Democratic Hawaii State Sen. Chris Lee, aims to “provide a new, specific cause of action for any person other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity” and insurers to file suit against companies or other entities that supposedly misinformed the public about the nature of climate change. Lee introduced the bill on Jan. 17, and it is currently in the hands of the Hawaii House, according to LegiScan. (RELATED: Hawaii Supreme Court Claims ‘The Spirit Of Aloha’ Overrules The Second Amendment)
During his visit to Maui, Biden says he has ‘a little sense of what it’s like to lose a home’ describing when lightning struck his home, which resulted in a small kitchen fire. He jokes about how he almost lost his ’67 Corvette as he talks to survivors of the devastating Maui… pic.twitter.com/xXUnC3kuHz
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 22, 2023
“The legislature finds that for decades, certain people and entities have spread intentional lies, misinformation and disinformation, and misrepresentations about the connection between climate change and fossil fuel products, as well as how climate change has caused injuries in the State,” the bill’s text reads. “Continued lies, misinformation and disinformation, and misrepresentations by responsible parties pose a threat to the health, safety, and security of Hawaii’s residents and visitors. These parties have long known the dangers of fossil fuel products; however, they have continued to deny and lie for profit … Hawaii has a compelling interest in protecting consumers from lies and misleading information, while also encouraging factual and truthful information on how climate disasters and other harms can be attributed to the responsible parties who have spread falsehoods.”
“These parties have long known the dangers of fossil fuel products; however, they have continued to deny and lie for profit … Hawaii has a compelling interest in protecting consumers from lies and misleading information, while also encouraging factual and truthful information on how climate disasters and other harms can be attributed to the responsible parties who have spread falsehoods,” the bill’s text states.
The amended bill text specifically defines “responsible parties” to include any “firm, corporation, company, partnership, society, joint stock company, or any other entity or association that engaged in misleading and deceptive practices, including lies, or the provision of misinformation or disinformation about the connection between its fossil fuel products and climate change and extreme weather or other events attributable to climate change.” Notably, tribal, state and federal government entities are excluded from the definition.
The bill text specifically cites the Maui fires of August 2023 as an example of a catastrophic event exacerbated by climate change. The fires killed 102 people and caused billions of dollars of damage.
While the bill and many Democrats — including Hawaii Gov. Josh Green — were quick to point the finger at climate change for making the fires worse, multiple instances of human error and official incompetence may have actually turned the fires into a full-scale disaster. Examples of critical mistakes and shortcomings include, but are not limited to, inadequate vegetation management, regulatory sluggishness, fire hydrants running dry, delayed emergency siren activation and a failure by a state agency to promptly divert water that was needed to fight the burgeoning fires.
The bill’s current text specifies that prospective plaintiffs are only permitted to sue under its provisions if they have suffered damages of $10,000 or more due to a “climate disaster or extreme weather or other event attributable to climate change.”
Notably, President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier in April instructing his administration to determine the legality of subnational government efforts to impose “burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance” via legislation or lawsuits. The executive order further instructs the administration to produce actionable options for defanging those policies and lawsuits, most of which are coming from blue states or Democrat-controlled jurisdictions, including from the Hawaiian capital city of Honolulu.
Lee’s office did not respond to a request for comment and a voicemail message.
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Well hully gee!! So Hawaii has declared ill maintained abandoned farm fields had nothing to do with the Maui fires?
It is Mr Lee who spreads ‘lies, misinformation and disinformation, and misrepresentations’. He only doesn’t know it yet.
He knows it, he just doesn’t care.
Does this proposed law define “climate change”? Does it define acceptable methods of attribution?
It employs the necessary vagueness that characterizes all such Progressive policy so that it can be stretched to fit any desired contingency.
More lawfare destined for the dust bin after wasting time and money.
Question: could this law be used in reverse to sue CAGW activists and renewables industry salesmen?
Yes, they are the ones spreading ‘lies, misinformation and disinformation, and misrepresentations’.
Ab-sue-lutely. “Carbon taxes” are a major tort, a class action waiting to happen, targeting lying legislative weasels who vote those horsesh*t taxes in. Jack the disinfo kleptocrats all the way to the moon. Aloha ‘oe, pinkos. Cue the hula girls.
Should be pretty easy lawsuits. Just pick any of them that reported “x feet of sea level rise by 2025”, show that it didn’t happen, and wasn’t even possible. Bang zoom, right to jail.
It’s going to be pretty hard to find someone who suffered more than $10K in damages from sea levels not rising.
For those who spent money on defenses against rising seas, the warmists will just proclaim that your expenses weren’t wasted, they were just a little bit premature.
Emotional damage.
I had a friend who was going to buy a house on Maui. He’d settled on a price with the buyer then, at the last minute, the seller pulled out. As he knew that I knew something about climate crapola, my friend described the situation to me. The property was about 25 feet above sea level, but the seller had been advised that she would have liability if the ocean rose those 25+ feet to engulf and destroy the property. He tried again, but she wouldn’t budge from her “advisor’s” position. He was pretty upset. That property would have appreciated in value by many multiples of $10,000 by now. So it is possible, not that anyone would bother playing their stupid game.
The problem I see in this is that the real damage is caused by misinformed policy and they have exempted governments from being attacked using this law.
Hawaii isn’t that big of a market. What’s to keep fossil fuel companies from just pulling out?
I’d like to see that. Let them show us all what it’s really like to live “net zero” dream.
“Public service” lawsuits, at a guess.
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One advantage of this approach for Hawaii is that it is a cluster of islands as opposed to one of the deepest-blue CONUS states (California, New York, …), which avoids all the “interconnectors” and “which electrons are being pushed by coal / gas power plants in neighboring states rather than hydro / nuclear ones ?” complications.
Isolating an group of islands is at least logistically feasible, but cutting off all fossil-fuel deliveries could have other “unexpected” consequences, including humanitarian ones …
Note that my understanding (TBC !) is that Hawaii has zero coal and natural gas imports.
Roughly 7 TWh of its ~9.15 TWh annual electricity production comes from “Petroleum” (oil-fired) power stations. Despite its proximity to the equator it only got around 735 GWh from solar (PV) last year, plus around 660 GWh from (onshore only ?) wind turbines.
No petroleum = no gasoline, no diesel (for cars and lorries), no “fuel oils” (for agricultural and other heavy machinery), and no “bunker fuel” (for ships).
No kerosene = no airplanes (or lanterns …).
All provisions … which exclude fossil-fuels, remember … would have to be delivered by wind-blown (sailing) ships.
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I’m sure Hawaii’s politicians will have no problems whatsoever “selling” that scenario to their “progressive” (60+% Democrat) electorate … now, where did Anthony hide the “add HTML sarcasm tags” button again ? …
From the above article:
“The bill’s current text specifies that prospective plaintiffs are only permitted to sue under its provisions if they have suffered damages of $10,000 or more due to a ‘climate disaster or extreme weather or other event attributable to climate change’.”
How about amending the bill with these two provisions:
1) the plaintiff(s) must objectively and unambiguously give a scientifically-measurable definition of “climate change”, and
2) any plaintiff losing a lawsuit pursuant to this bill must pay treble of all attorney fees and court costs.
Of course, my suggested provision #2 will never occur if my suggested provision #1 is included.
They must also define “climate disaster”.
Also show that such natural disasters would not have happened unless “climate change”.
Also show when in history “the climate” never changed.
I love how slippery the language of this bill is.
Nobody has to prove that the storm occurred because of global warming, they don’t even have to prove that global warming made the storm worse.
All they need is to show that somebody, somewhere claimed that global warming is making such storms worse, and they win. they get 100% costs.
‘Attributable to climate change’ is a bit of a legal problem.
Virtue signaling run amok.
The IPCC has acknowledged that attributing any single weather event directly to climate change is impossible. (Chapter 11 of the AR8 Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate)
Ergo, Attribution “Science” can not prove causation.
Surely any half-decent lawyer could easily dismiss the suit on this basis. (Juliana v. United States)
Rud will know more than I do.
I haven’t read the bill, just the texts provided above, however, from my reading of those, it looks like you don’t need to prove that any particular storm was caused by global warming. All you need to do is show that somebody the courts recognize as an expert, has proclaimed that global warming is making such storms worse.
How much worse? That doesn’t matter. As long as your expert proclaims that the storm is stronger, even if it’s only a fraction of an mph faster, you are entitled to 100% recovery.
Is that how it works in America? I still think a decent lawyer could pull the attribution to pieces
But the judge might be an idiot of the lefty persuasion.
I noticed that in excluding government entities, the legislature excludes themselves who otherwise seem the most likely targets of such lawsuits. Why? Because the legislature has proclaimed all this nonsense about fossil fuel ==> climate damage yet have not banned fossil fuels in Hawaii – the obvious thing to do if they really believed their rhetoric!
Fascinating how the one group, government and government agents, who have been doing the most lying, are excluded from this bill.
Sounds like aby group that disagrees with the governments position, is open to be sued.
It’s not the same as directly outlawing disagreement with the government, but it’s a distinction that only a lawyer would appreciate.
Does the plaintiff have to prove that the defendant uttered the “lies, or the provision of misinformation or disinformation”?
When looking at such issues it would behoove us to ask the opinion of one of the acknowledged global experts in “climate attribution studies”, Roger Pielke Jr.
In the first article in his “Climate Fueled Extreme Weather” series, launched in July last year, he clearly stated that (bold in the original) :
In the fifth article of that series, “Is Single Extreme Event Attribution Even Possible?”, just last month he wrote (highlighting added by me this time) :
In the latest (sixth, with a link included) installment, “Behind the Curtain“, just two weeks ago he included his conclusion that :
Note that he launched a second series of “Weather Attribution Alchemy” articles in October last year, specifically focused on the World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative, with an article that stated :
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Legislators of Hawaii, remember that when it comes to “sciency” subjects you have to listen to the experts … which in the case of “climate attribution studies” includes Roger Pielke Jr.
We can’t determine ahead of time, which waves will become tropical depressions, which depressions will be become tropical storms, which storms will become hurricanes, and which hurricanes will become major hurricanes.
Nor do we know which weather fronts will spawn tornadoes, or where.
As for things like droughts, floods and fires, nobody has been able to come up with a plausible mechanism by which CO2 makes these worse.
But that doesn’t matter. All one needs to do is find someone who the courts will recognize as “an expert” and have that person claim that CO2 does all these things. Once you have that, you are golden. All you have to do then is prove that these “weather” events have caused you damage, and the check is yours.
Big oil should refuse to do business in Hawaii. Maybe just start with the state government.
Or perhaps every gas pump should have a user agreement stating that ‘voluntarily purchasing this product absloves the oil company of any liabilities.’
being an island in the middle of a no significant warming ocean, how can they have standing?
My understanding is that Hawaii primarily relies on petroleum for energy. Petroleum primarily imported from South America, Africa and the Middle East. Are they going to hold the companies they buy petroleum from responsible? These people are dumb as rocks. I don’t necessarily care for used car salesmen but when I am shopping for a car I don’t go around poking sticks at the people I will be dealing with.These guys don’t deserve any petroleum.
“The bill’s current text specifies that prospective plaintiffs are only permitted to sue under its provisions if they have suffered damages of $10,000 or more due to a “climate disaster or extreme weather or other event attributable to climate change.”
Hmmm … Whatever happened to “Climate Justice”? That is, “Climate Change” affects the “poor” more than the “rich”.
How many poor could claim a $10,000 loss?
I agree, because of “climate justice” only damages LESS than $10,000 should be claimable 😉
““These parties have long known the dangers of fossil fuel products….”
Yuh, right- they had it all figure out- scientifically too! But, they preferred to destroy the planet to enrich themselves.
Everyone that uses fossil fuel derived products also ‘knows’ that they cause climate change.
Why use them and enjoy their benefits then blame the originator of the product for any ‘harm’ to the climate?
Double standards, hypocritical, two-faced all apply to those advocating for these penalties to everyone but themselves. Note the exemption for those that would control us.
Anyone who exhales contributes to catastrophic anthropogenic climate change.
8 billion of us should be put in jail for pollution!
Gas and oil companies need to stop shipping their “evil” products to Hawaii. Let them try and figure out how to power their homes and businesses with, I don’t know, unicorn flatulence maybe?
Going after Oil/Gas companies for providing petroleum products is similar to going after auto makers for providing cars that might get in an accident; or gun makers for how their products are used.
And remember: Chevron et al doesn’t burn the oil/gas, its’ customers do, so are they also going after those who use this perfectly legal product? How about the oil burning power plants that supply the Hawaiian Island’s electricity? Lol.
I hereby claim reparations payments for climate science fraud under the RICO Act.
Oh look, there the Climate Liars go again, projecting.