6 ms·

In a court hearing, oil companies publicly backed the science of climate change

22 points by eaguyhn 9y ago

PaulKeeble 9y ago
The science has been settled since the 1970's. Since then it has been a political issue and football that has been kicked around and ignored for a long time. The collapse of Kyoto in the 1990's was probably the moment when I knew humanity wouldn't choose to save its habitat and certainly wasn't interested in doing it in the least expensive way, which is what the 2C warming "goal" is about, it is the cheapest route. Alas the USA collapsed the deal then and it is on its way to trying to collapse the Paris agreement now. The oil companies are fully aware of this and have been as long as we the people have been since the science was settle 5 decades ago. They can't be sued for our collective choice to not do anything, that isn't fair.
- mannykannot 9y ago
  Suing the oil companies is not going to make a difference, anyway. What matters is the broad public opinion, and the good news is that we seem to have passed one tipping point, in that the consensus now is that climate change is both real and problematical, and deniers are increasingly being seen as cranks.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    It will take money from people who continue to fund denial and political diversions. It will increase the potential costs they consider the next time a major industry has to choose between ending human civilization and their quarterly profits. It will punish shareholders who supported this behaviour. It's not the only answer but I don't see any way that it hurts.
    - mannykannot 9y ago
      Agreed; I am not particularly upset that it is happening.
cryptoz 9y ago
Wouldn't that imply that Chevron has never produced an ad for the product? But I've seen there ads hundreds of times! So the lawyer is saying that if a company spends tens of millions on advertising, that it has no effect on the economy that he is arguing is causing global warming?
- jstanley 9y ago
  Only if you think the customers wouldn't otherwise have bought any oil, which I think is unlikely. Nobody buys oil for fun. The only purpose of the advert is to make people buy from Chevron instead of their competitors, but the same amount of oil is getting sold either way.
dhuramas 9y ago
Alsup is a badass - be it patent law, or DACA, etc- he takes a balanced view, and "does his homework"(which might be problematic from a legal POV). I would like it if more judges were like him.
- travmatt 9y ago
  For those unaware, Alsup is the judge who won plenty of respect when he rightly called out Oracle for trying to inflate the importance of some lines of Java: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20121127123047829 http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20121127123047...

22 points by eaguyhn 9y ago

The science has been settled since the 1970's. Since then it has been a political issue and football that has been kicked around and ignored for a long time. The collapse of Kyoto in the 1990's was probably the moment when I knew humanity wouldn't choose to save its habitat and certainly wasn't interested in doing it in the least expensive way, which is what the 2C warming "goal" is about, it is the cheapest route. Alas the USA collapsed the deal then and it is on its way to trying to collapse the Paris agreement now. The oil companies are fully aware of this and have been as long as we the people have been since the science was settle 5 decades ago. They can't be sued for our collective choice to not do anything, that isn't fair.

mannykannot 9y ago
Suing the oil companies is not going to make a difference, anyway. What matters is the broad public opinion, and the good news is that we seem to have passed one tipping point, in that the consensus now is that climate change is both real and problematical, and deniers are increasingly being seen as cranks.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  It will take money from people who continue to fund denial and political diversions. It will increase the potential costs they consider the next time a major industry has to choose between ending human civilization and their quarterly profits. It will punish shareholders who supported this behaviour. It's not the only answer but I don't see any way that it hurts.
  - mannykannot 9y ago
    Agreed; I am not particularly upset that it is happening.

cryptoz 9y ago

Wouldn't that imply that Chevron has never produced an ad for the product? But I've seen there ads hundreds of times! So the lawyer is saying that if a company spends tens of millions on advertising, that it has no effect on the economy that he is arguing is causing global warming?

jstanley 9y ago
Only if you think the customers wouldn't otherwise have bought any oil, which I think is unlikely. Nobody buys oil for fun. The only purpose of the advert is to make people buy from Chevron instead of their competitors, but the same amount of oil is getting sold either way.

dhuramas 9y ago

Alsup is a badass - be it patent law, or DACA, etc- he takes a balanced view, and "does his homework"(which might be problematic from a legal POV). I would like it if more judges were like him.

travmatt 9y ago
For those unaware, Alsup is the judge who won plenty of respect when he rightly called out Oracle for trying to inflate the importance of some lines of Java: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20121127123047829 http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20121127123047...