As climate-change lawsuits against the oil industry mount, Exxon Mobil Corp. is taking a bare-knuckle approach rarely seen in legal disputes: It’s going after the lawyers who are suing it. Exxon has even given that campaign a vaguely sinister-sounding name: “The La Jolla playbook.” —Bloomberg, 13 February 2018
For the second year in a row, “electricity is making up a smaller share of U.S. household bills than ever before,” a fact that can be traced directly to the fact that natural gas has retained its position as the No. 1 electricity generation producer in the U.S. in 2017. —Energy In-depth, 15 February 2018
Last spring, a group of environmental scientists reported an impressive finding: Hydraulic fracturing (better known as fracking) in the Marcellus Shale region of the eastern United States was leaking enough methane to power a city twice the size of Washington, D.C. (We didn’t come up with that comparison, apt though it may be.) Turns out that wasn’t true. —Retraction Watch, 22 January 2018
Backed by Greenpeace, the BBC is continuing to mount a one-sided crusade against shale gas development. —The Conservative Woman, 15 February 2018
Why has no other country developed gas and oil from shale to the same degree as the United States? Or, why is oil and gas development in the United States so much more widespread than the rest of the world? Despite owning 3% of the world’s proven oil reserves, why are more than 50% of the world’s drilling activity and more than 90% of the world’s frac activity happening in the United States? —Leen Weijers, 12 February 2018
China lowered manufacturer subsidies for many electric cars and plug-in hybrids by about 30%, with the central government planning to re-evaluate this aid again around midyear. —Nikkei, 15 February 2018
The NRDC is like the rest of these Watermelon groups lying about Global Warming/Climate Change so is the EDF and Center for Biological Diversity all their lawsuits are purely political not scientific these Green Nazis must be stopped and so the ESA and other enviromental regulations need either amended or repealed
It is about time that the oil companies started counter suing. Anyone reading Climate Change Dispatch comments know that I have been advocating this for months. It is long over due to make those filing these baseless suits pay.
Those suing have no grounds at all. They must prove what has just been assumed with no data. One is the assumption that mankind is raising the level of carbon dioxide. There is a lot to refute that assumption. Our emissions amount to one half to two percent of CO2 release, nature is responsible for the rest. For instance, the eruptions of three volcanoes released more carbon dioxide than mankind has in our entire history. Going back to geological history, temperatures would increase first and carbon dioxide would follow.
All of the suits are based on the assumption that extreme weather events are increasing and our emissions are the cause. Yet, even the IPCC along with many other sources state that such events are not increasing.
Yet, the damage from filling law suits are easy to prove. There is the cost of attorneys and employees preparing a defence.
Such counter suits will be a strong factor in stopping these bases suits. With any luck it will result in some lawyers standing on street corners holding signs saying “please help.”
Time to fight back against the Greed and coruption of California’s liberal politcians like Moonbeam Brown and Gavin Newsom
You know these oil companies need to say “You sue us, we’ll just stop selling our product in your jurisdiction.” Let’s see how far that goes…
I say fill your gas tank at an ExxonMobil station. Reward them.