On September 16, with great fanfare, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced his office had filed a lawsuit against five major oil companies. Accusing them of knowingly misleading the public regarding the alleged harm that fossil fuels would inflict on the climate, Bonta’s office seeks billions in compensatory damages. But the climate change theory that Bonta’s case relies on must ultimately be validated by observational data. And the data does not support the theory.
Suing oil companies is becoming big business. Along with California, state and local government climate change lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry have been filed in Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, and Hawaii. Alleging these companies have directly caused global warming and extreme weather, they seek damages for consumer fraud, public nuisance, negligence, racketeering, erosion, flooding and fires.
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