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Assume for sake of argument that climate change is catastrophic and that ExxonMobil knew as much. We’re to believe that the real victims here are ExxonMobil’s i

Assume for sake of argument that climate change is catastrophic and that ExxonMobil knew as much. We’re to believe that the real victims here are ExxonMobil’s investors?

wmf 7y ago
No, just that the investors are the first victims to sue.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Also, the most likely set of victims to win in the current political climate.
hristov 7y ago
They might not be the greatest victims but they certainly are some of the victims. They invested money in a company whose business model was unsustainable. The company knew that the business model was unsustainable but did not tell them. In the US publicly traded companies have a duty to let their shareholders know all material risks to the company that the company is aware of. The response to this is usually “but everyone knows about climate change”. But that is not the case. By now everyone has heard of climate change but many still don't believe it/dispute it. You can call these people stupid and uneducated but they are entitled to the same protections under the law which means that they have a right to be alerted to the potential danger to their investments posed by climate change. I am sure even the more ignorant would pay more attention if the climate change warnings came directly from an oil company they are thinking of investing in. Furthermore, the NYAG says he has evidence that Exxon knew it was happening as long as 30 years ago. Back in the late 80s and early 90s climate change was far from settled thing.
- positive_future 7y ago
  > Back in the late 80s and early 90s climate change was far from settled thing. I was under the assumption that the basic tennets of climate change were well understood by scientists more than 100 years ago. While the climate models have been developed only recently, enabling more accurate predictions, climate science is centuries old as it relates to understanding human impact on our climate. Climate science was as "settled" in the 80s and 90s as it is today. Yes, the predictions are more accurate today, but the confidence that we are changing Earth's climate was just as strong then as now. I remember in 1997-8 being taught in US public schools, in no uncertain terms, that we are changing the climate, warming the atmosphere into a runaway greenhouse effect. This was in the US South in a very red state that mostly denies climate science today. The only way to interpret the idea that climate science was "less settled" in the 80s 90s is political. It has been "settled" for 100+ years in rational scientific discourse.
  - hristov 7y ago
    Perhaps i misspoke. By less settles i meant that it was less known about and believed among the average population rather than as a scientific consensus. The relevant discussion here is corporate risk disclosure. If a corporation says it does not need to disclose a known risk because everyone knows about it it has to be something that is really universally known and universally believed to be true. Something like gravity. That certainly was not and it is not true about climate change. There are still people that believe it is not true and there were much more of them in the 80s and 90s. We are not talking about scientific consensus here. The exxon stock was not sold exclusively to scientists. We are talking the average joe.
    - SturgeonsLaw 7y ago
      > believed among the average population Yes, and 45% of the population believe in ghosts [0], 29% of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim [1] and 40% of Americans believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old [2], so frankly I put very little stock in what the average Joe thinks these days. There has been a constant propaganda campaign waged in the media by people who have an interest in maintaining the status quo regarding extractive industries, and a rather large proportion of the population has eaten it all up. --- [0] http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/ghosttoplines.pdf http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/ghosttoplines.pdf [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/09/14/a-startling-number-of-americans-still-believe-president-obama-is-a-muslim/?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/09... [2] https://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationists.html https://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationist...
- euroPoor 7y ago
  And this kind of comment is where the disinformation starts. Looking at history not even at climate science journals settles the argument: Earth Summit was 1992, Kyoto Protocol was 1997. Climate change already was enough of a thing to have the international community come together for treaties saying we need to mitigate and work towards saving the planet.
- lazyjones 7y ago
  > By now everyone has heard of climate change but many still don't believe it/dispute it. Nobody disputes climate change since climate has been changing for billions of years, just the human contribution towards it. Also, many people consider the distinction important...
FranzFerdiNaN 7y ago
Since you can’t sue a company for propaganda, spreading lies, lobbying politicians, willfully destroying the earth and killing humans indirectly despite knowing what your product does, this is the best possible option. It’s also peak capitalism, where only investors matter.
wisty 7y ago
An occasional plot point in fiction is to have some kind of investigator buy a single share in a company to uncover what they're really up to. If they told investors that climate change was a major threat (as they may have been legally be obliged to?) then that information would have become available to the wider public. Also, we allow public companies to exist knowing that they will be more open and transparent than private companies. If a private company does something evil, we can knock on the owner's door. You can't do that if it's public. It's a trade-off - we don't hold an owner responsible but there's a requirement for more disclosure. If they're breaking the rules that usually stop public companies turning evil, then it's very clearly a concern.
fallingfrog 7y ago
In a capitalist system, they’re the only people who really matter, so it’s unsurprising.
raxxorrax 7y ago
Seriously, I understand everyone currently would sell their mother to lure in investors, but aren't they the one who take primary responsibility even? Ethically I would say yes, but laws seem to fail here again.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> Assume for sake of argument that climate change is catastrophic and that ExxonMobil knew as much. We’re to believe that the real victims here are ExxonMobil’s investors? The law doesn't really subscribe to the theory of exclusive victimhood any more than it does to the theory (also popular in internet discussion groups) of exclusive responsibility; for any individual act the law has no problem with their being a number of different responsible parties (and even different classes of responsibile parties) and/or a number of different (classes of) victims.

Assume for sake of argument that climate change is catastrophic and that ExxonMobil knew as much. We’re to believe that the real victims here are ExxonMobil’s investors?

wmf 7y ago

No, just that the investors are the first victims to sue.

WorldMaker 7y ago
Also, the most likely set of victims to win in the current political climate.

hristov 7y ago

They might not be the greatest victims but they certainly are some of the victims. They invested money in a company whose business model was unsustainable. The company knew that the business model was unsustainable but did not tell them. In the US publicly traded companies have a duty to let their shareholders know all material risks to the company that the company is aware of. The response to this is usually “but everyone knows about climate change”. But that is not the case. By now everyone has heard of climate change but many still don't believe it/dispute it. You can call these people stupid and uneducated but they are entitled to the same protections under the law which means that they have a right to be alerted to the potential danger to their investments posed by climate change. I am sure even the more ignorant would pay more attention if the climate change warnings came directly from an oil company they are thinking of investing in. Furthermore, the NYAG says he has evidence that Exxon knew it was happening as long as 30 years ago. Back in the late 80s and early 90s climate change was far from settled thing.

positive_future 7y ago
> Back in the late 80s and early 90s climate change was far from settled thing. I was under the assumption that the basic tennets of climate change were well understood by scientists more than 100 years ago. While the climate models have been developed only recently, enabling more accurate predictions, climate science is centuries old as it relates to understanding human impact on our climate. Climate science was as "settled" in the 80s and 90s as it is today. Yes, the predictions are more accurate today, but the confidence that we are changing Earth's climate was just as strong then as now. I remember in 1997-8 being taught in US public schools, in no uncertain terms, that we are changing the climate, warming the atmosphere into a runaway greenhouse effect. This was in the US South in a very red state that mostly denies climate science today. The only way to interpret the idea that climate science was "less settled" in the 80s 90s is political. It has been "settled" for 100+ years in rational scientific discourse.
- hristov 7y ago
  Perhaps i misspoke. By less settles i meant that it was less known about and believed among the average population rather than as a scientific consensus. The relevant discussion here is corporate risk disclosure. If a corporation says it does not need to disclose a known risk because everyone knows about it it has to be something that is really universally known and universally believed to be true. Something like gravity. That certainly was not and it is not true about climate change. There are still people that believe it is not true and there were much more of them in the 80s and 90s. We are not talking about scientific consensus here. The exxon stock was not sold exclusively to scientists. We are talking the average joe.
  - SturgeonsLaw 7y ago
    > believed among the average population Yes, and 45% of the population believe in ghosts [0], 29% of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim [1] and 40% of Americans believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old [2], so frankly I put very little stock in what the average Joe thinks these days. There has been a constant propaganda campaign waged in the media by people who have an interest in maintaining the status quo regarding extractive industries, and a rather large proportion of the population has eaten it all up. --- [0] http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/ghosttoplines.pdf http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/ghosttoplines.pdf [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/09/14/a-startling-number-of-americans-still-believe-president-obama-is-a-muslim/?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/09... [2] https://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationists.html https://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationist...
euroPoor 7y ago
And this kind of comment is where the disinformation starts. Looking at history not even at climate science journals settles the argument: Earth Summit was 1992, Kyoto Protocol was 1997. Climate change already was enough of a thing to have the international community come together for treaties saying we need to mitigate and work towards saving the planet.
lazyjones 7y ago
> By now everyone has heard of climate change but many still don't believe it/dispute it. Nobody disputes climate change since climate has been changing for billions of years, just the human contribution towards it. Also, many people consider the distinction important...

FranzFerdiNaN 7y ago

Since you can’t sue a company for propaganda, spreading lies, lobbying politicians, willfully destroying the earth and killing humans indirectly despite knowing what your product does, this is the best possible option. It’s also peak capitalism, where only investors matter.

wisty 7y ago

An occasional plot point in fiction is to have some kind of investigator buy a single share in a company to uncover what they're really up to. If they told investors that climate change was a major threat (as they may have been legally be obliged to?) then that information would have become available to the wider public. Also, we allow public companies to exist knowing that they will be more open and transparent than private companies. If a private company does something evil, we can knock on the owner's door. You can't do that if it's public. It's a trade-off - we don't hold an owner responsible but there's a requirement for more disclosure. If they're breaking the rules that usually stop public companies turning evil, then it's very clearly a concern.

fallingfrog 7y ago

In a capitalist system, they’re the only people who really matter, so it’s unsurprising.

raxxorrax 7y ago

Seriously, I understand everyone currently would sell their mother to lure in investors, but aren't they the one who take primary responsibility even? Ethically I would say yes, but laws seem to fail here again.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> Assume for sake of argument that climate change is catastrophic and that ExxonMobil knew as much. We’re to believe that the real victims here are ExxonMobil’s investors? The law doesn't really subscribe to the theory of exclusive victimhood any more than it does to the theory (also popular in internet discussion groups) of exclusive responsibility; for any individual act the law has no problem with their being a number of different responsible parties (and even different classes of responsibile parties) and/or a number of different (classes of) victims.