Featured California sues

Oh the irony
See link for what Gavin Newsom was doing a decade ago when he knew about climate change, but ignored it

Gavin Newsom’s SUV Big Enough to Best a Bus – NBC Bay Area

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom might as well tote around town in a bus. His current ride, a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV equipped with the latest in mobile technology, has a bigger engine than the latest addition to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority's buses.

Mike

 

If we apply Matthew 20 then Gavin Newsom should just simply shut off all power creating electricity from fossil fuels and shut down all refineries & incoming Raw oil.
Or maybe the fossil fuel industry should do it for him. Block the state from receiving all incoming fossil fuel. Because late in the day he's finally realizing that the downside of fossil fuel. Maybe he'll stop going to the most opulent restaurants and having those opulent steaks - knowing how hideous feedlots can be. Has he seen the light?
Gavin Newsome apparently enjoys the benefit of quick & easy travel as well as electricity in his office - but doesn't have a solution yet to do it fossil fuels free. But sure Gavin Newsome, go ahead and Sue the fuel company's and win. Then act surprised when the incoming fuel costs are double to pay for it all.
Supposedly we learned from the 18th Amendment what the downside was for forclosing access to something that people want. Even though it's not good for people. Maybe we didn't learn.
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If fossil fuels only hurt the imbiber, your analogy isn’t a bad one.
Since FF hurts everyone (with most harm going to the poor), your analogy doesn’t really apply.

 

The higher costs of ff's hurt the poor (the most) - as well as the physical & environmental effects of ff. How would such a lawsuit cure.
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This article caught my eye.

I wonder if the oil and gas people weren't just providing what their customers required.

Where do we stop - do we sue the inventor of the car, the participants of the Industrial Revolution or even the inventor of the wheel.

Admittedly I am maybe not smart enough to completely understand this lawsuit or not looking at it the right way but at first glance it seems pretty far out there.

Aren't the oil and gas people providing what we as a society are demanding of them?

 

Don't see how using one of the few hybrid SUVs available back then was ignoring it. There was more efficient options, but it isn't like the new Tundra hybrid is much better than that old GM. Then gasoline the diesel egine isn't a like comparison.

Let's see. Oil companies lied about the dangers of global warming. That lie allowed to net more profit. Holding them accountable for that accountable for such fraudulent behavior might result in them having a tantrum. So nobody should seek compensation.

Too bad for the cigarette companies that they didn't get everyone hooked.

I imagine that is what the fund mentioned in the second paragraph of the OP quote is for. Similar have been done with things like abestos.

It isn't about them supplying the fossil fuels. It is about them lying about the risks they knew about.

 

Today is now. California isn’t a state run by a king. California sues means California the state sues. Doesn’t compute.

 

Historically it was really the coal industry making most of the CO2 (with humonmgous support from Dems) and the oil industry was secondary. Coal industry message was basically "global warming: try it - you'll like it." Coal lobby did not deny climate change, they just felt it was manageable. Historically there was always thought to be peak oil., as far back as 1980 the issue was no more oil.(I know I was considered a critical skills person). Now chem engrs like me are considered: death, the destroyer of worlds.

 

Also, what about those of us who are continuing to use gas and oil right now? Many California Drivers included are aware of Global Warming, the pollution a car generates and are choosing to continue to drive.

I have two gas vehicles (one a PHEV) and don't know what I would do without them. My PHEV Vehicle electric is actually powered by coal and natural gas - I am aware of global warming - would I be criminally and financially liable?

This lawsuit is really out there possibly- what about the countries who are continuing to produce oil - what about countries who continue to burn coal?

I can think of question after question maybe I'm just not looking at it right.

Maybe if nothing else the news sparks environmental concern and conversation .

Another point - California as a state is financially not managed very well, hemorrhaging taxpayers and businesses each year could this be a political move?

Wasn't it a few years ago where California actually sued itself over its public electric utility?

 

didn't someone snag some exxon emails admitting fossil fuel climate change and plotting a coverup?

 

Worse, for Exxon. In the 70s, Exxon had their own researchers study the issue. Their own conclusions were that FFs were a major contributing factor to climate change.
Exxon buried their own research and kept throwing shade and FUD and anyone else's research, even though it agreed with their own conclusions.

Funny (not funny) fact, the Koch brothers also paid for their own research into climate change. They got a bunch of denialists scientists. The results... supported the accepted conclusion regarding climate change.

(Koch-funded) scientist changes opinion, finds warming due to humans (including Kochs) | Grist

 

These don't have relevance to the suite. It is about what posts #12 mention #13.

 

Understood, thank you.

Admittedly I just read the post header and not the article. After reading your post I did go back and read the article which I should have done in the first place before posting.

 

US Coal perspective from 2017:

What Is Killing the US Coal Industry? | Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)

 

Useful graphics for world and by country:

https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-fuel

 

As far back as Nobel laureate Arrhenius 1890-1900 we had the first vocal advocate of fossil fuels impacting CO2 and possible impact on Earth's temperatures. .

 

People have known what was going on in California with fossil fuels for a long time. Here is an article where they mention housewives protesting California pollution in the 1950's over 70 years ago.

"Environmental Crisis" in the Late 1960s · Exhibit · Give Earth a Chance: Environmental Activism in Michigan (umich.edu)

" A group of Beverly Hills housewives formed Stamp Out Smog in the 1950s and drew attention to the city’s problems through demonstrations in which they wore gas masks. At one media event in 1964, the group’s president cut a cake celebrating smog’s twenty-first birthday."

" In the late 1960s, Los Angeles’s persistent smog problems and deadly smog events in New York City drew public attention to the consequences of air pollution."

When did scientists first warn humanity about climate change? | Live Science

"Scientists first began to worry about climate change toward the end of the 1950s, Spencer Weart, a historian and retired director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland, told Live Science in an email. "It was just a possibility for the 21st century which seemed very far away, but seen as a danger that should be prepared for."

"The ancient Greek debates were among the first documented climate change discussions, but they focused only on local regions. It wasn't until a few millennia later, in 1896, that Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) became the first person to imagine that humanity could change the climate on a global scale, according to Weart. That's when Arrhenius published calculations in The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science showing that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere could warm the planet."

 

1968 .... junior high .... actor Wally Cox (voice of Underdog cartoons) & a regular on early Hollywood Squares game show (often played the part of the nerd), he did a spot for promoting Detroit diesel, back when GM was still making transit buses for most everyone. Found the promo on YouTube extolling the virtues of diesel over gasoline engines. They played it in one of our classes - loved the 16mm film tech ...
The actual propaganda begins at around the 2:45-minute mark when an actor playing the typical curmudgeon on those early shows starts bitching at bus driver Wally Cox.
Funny the things one remembers from ½ a century ago.

The LA County's air quality @ that time - it could literally be so brown - you could barely see buildings if they were just a ½ dozen miles away.

And to this day both sides still push propaganda. Anywho ... our sprinter's turbo diesel runs so clean - there's no scent coming from the exhaust - and according to the Sierra Club, less pollutants as well.

[QUOTE ] "... Because diesels are more efficient, they do in fact emit less carbon dioxide than gasoline engines. Diesel fuel contains about 12 percent more energy per gallon than ordinary gasoline, and about 16 percent more energy than gasoline that contains ethanol. ...." [/QUOTE]

Do Diesel Engines Produce Less CO2 Than Regular Engines? | Sierra Club.

i did not know that! Fun fact - according to wiki, Wally was encouraged to go into acting - by of all people - Marlon Brando.
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