{"id":267903,"date":"2023-07-17T16:53:41","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T14:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=267903"},"modified":"2023-07-17T16:53:43","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T14:53:43","slug":"commentary-why-global-warming-lawsuits-deserve-to-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=267903","title":{"rendered":"Commentary: Why Global Warming Lawsuits Deserve to Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Heartland Daily News<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Joe Bast<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plaintiffs in\u00a0County of Multnomah v. Exxon Mobil Corp. et al.<\/em>\u00a0are demanding some $50 billion \u201cfor damages and equitable relief for harm caused to Multnomah County by Defendants\u2019 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\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is nonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The argument that \u201cExxon knew\u201d 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)\u00a0and selectively quoting those that seem\u00a0to make damning concessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many\u00a0times did bureaucrats in Exxon\u2019s vast hierarchy\u00a0make just the opposite statements, but those are being hidden by the plaintiffs?\u00a0Given the size of the database and new AI-assisted search tools, scores or even hundreds of opposing statements could be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defense should demand to know if the plaintiffs searched for such statements, if they did what they discovered, and if they didn\u2019t, why not? And then \u2026 the defense should do it themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth,\u00a0<\/em>there must have been an on-again, off-again debate inside Exxon and other fossil fuel\u00a0companies 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contention that the climate scientists funded by the fossil fuel industry represent \u201cfringe views\u201d 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 \u201cvery much\u201d with the statement that \u201cmost of recent or near future climate change is, or will be, the result of anthropogenic causes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ditto Bart Verheggen\u2019s 2015 survey that found fewer than half of\u00a0contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u2019s (IPCC) own reports agree with its claim more than half of the warming since the mid-20th century can be attributed to human activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth<\/em>, there is no scientific consensus now and\u00a0there never was.\u00a0QED,<\/em>\u00a0the fossil fuel\u00a0industry was not backing scientists with \u201cfringe views.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dollar amounts contributed to conservative and libertarian think tanks reported in these suits are\u00a0always exaggerated, partly by describing amounts given over the course of a decade or longer\u00a0and partly because oil companies, like virtually all public companies, contributed large amounts to both liberal and conservative public interest groups during this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only a small fraction of those amounts (or none at all)\u00a0went to studying or advocating on climate change. The defense team should demand to know how much of Exxon\u2019s and API\u2019s largess actually was spent on the climate issue, and if the plaintiffs can\u2019t 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\u2019t say, stipulate that is less than 5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth,<\/em>\u00a0money contributed to nonprofit groups\u00a0by\u00a0the fossil fuel\u00a0industry to address climate change\u00a0was trivial compared to the vast amounts spent by other groups engaged in the climate debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As independent investigator Russell Cook repeatedly points out, there is\u00a0no evidence that any of the scientists and policy analysts who accepted money either directly or indirectly from the fossil fuel industry were\u00a0\u201cpaid to lie.\u201d There are no letters or contracts, just innuendo and libels spread by leftist activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably 99% of the money spent by the fossil fuel companies went to organizations, not to individuals, as was the case when\u00a0the much-maligned Willie Soon was paid by\u00a0the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and those organizations had policies in place to protect the integrity and independence of their staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth,<\/em>\u00a0most\u00a0of the scientists and experts engaged in the climate debate benefit financially\u00a0in some way for the work they do (otherwise they couldn\u2019t do it!) but very few think they are shading the truth in return for that support.\u00a0They never agreed to do that. They\u00a0believe they are speaking the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what about those\u00a0dollars 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\u00a0to mislead the public into supporting public policies that financially benefited those groups?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did the funding\u00a0persist even in the face of compelling evidence that the global warming scare is based on\u00a0junk science? In that case, was the motive to cover-up their earlier crimes? How much did Greenpeace, Sierra Club,\u00a0MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers, etc. know, and when did they know it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth,<\/em>\u00a0the climate alarmism\u00a0industry was engaging in the very\u00a0unethical and fraudulent practices that it is accusing the fossil fuel\u00a0industry of performing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The actual statements produced and ads run by the defendants and their \u201cfront groups\u201d reproduced in this lawsuit\u00a0are invariably\u00a0reasonable, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defense in these cases ought to eagerly present more of them, especially the Mobil ads,\u00a0Patrick Michaels\u2019 excellent newsletter, and Willie Soon\u2019s peer-reviewed research, no less than 100 or 200 pages, and\u00a0let the judge or the jury decide how credible they are. Then\u00a0display those articles and\u00a0ads opposite fundraising appeals from Greenpeace, Environmental Defense Fund, etc. The difference could hardly be more striking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth,\u00a0<\/em>the environmental groups are engaged in propaganda and made false claims to advance the agendas of their funders while groups funded by\u00a0the fossil fuel\u00a0industry did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, I always look for references in these lawsuits to the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change and its five-volume \u201cClimate Change Reconsidered\u201d (CCR) series. I didn\u2019t find a single reference to it in this lawsuit (but I didn\u2019t search the document for it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attorney Peter Ferrara liked to say CCR was to climate alarmists\u00a0\u201clike holy water and a crucifix are to demons.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most recent volume (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels<\/em>) 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth,<\/em>\u00a0global warming skeptics have just as much intellectual fire power as the alarmists, maybe even more. That\u2019s just a fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One hopes the defense teams\u00a0and the\u00a0judges (or their\u00a0clerks) hearing these cases are\u00a0smart and honest\u00a0enough to recognize all\u00a0this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disclaimer: The Heartland Institute is often mentioned in the lawsuits discussed in this article but it has not been named as a defendant.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on climate change lawsuits, click\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Climate Change Reconsidered, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":267914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691818076,691820002,691818886,691818087,691821148,691821147],"class_list":{"0":"post-267903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-co2","10":"tag-exxon-mobil","11":"tag-fossil-fuel","12":"tag-global-warming","13":"tag-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-changes-ipcc","14":"tag-lawsuits","16":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0eyJidWNrZXQiOiJjb250ZW50Lmhzd3N0YXRpYy5jb20iLCJrZXkiOiJnaWZcL2xhd3N1aXQtc2V0dGxlLTIuanBnIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjoiMTIwMCJ9fX0.webp?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-17H1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":431711,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=431711","url_meta":{"origin":267903,"position":0},"title":"SCOTUS Agrees to Hear Case on Colorado Dispute over Climate Change; (it should throw that case and all the others out)","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"16\/03\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"I don\u2019t just write about these things, I try to get something done. 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