- 350moco
Big Oil is on Trial – I Want a Ringside Seat
Grist reports that “last September, San Francisco and Oakland filed major lawsuits
against five of the world’s largest oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips,
Exxon Mobil, and Shell.” And the case is going to trial this week. California is suing
those companies
“because [they]:
1. knew about climate change decades ago,
2. continued doing business as usual, and
3. engaged in a world-wide public relations campaign to sow confusion over
climate science.
California says the companies have been using deception to profit as the
planet warms, and they should pay for the infrastructure the state needs to
protect itself against rising sea levels.”
And, as the Grist piece points out, California is not alone in its pursuit of justice from
Big Oil. A climate change lawsuit against president Trump brought by 21 young
activists is going to trial. Arnold Schwarzeneggar plans to sue Big Oil for committing
“first degree murder.” And New York City recently announced plans to divest its
multi-billion dollar pension funds from fossil fuels and sue Big Oil for climate-
change-related future damage to the city.
None of these cases are guaranteed to succeed, of course, but taken together they
may bode ill for Big Oil, which has, up to now, not been held accountable for shady
practices of hiding its own climate change science while profiting from it (at the
public’s expense). Let’s hope the tide is finally turning – before it inundates all our
major coastal cities.