By Fred Palmer, J.D. Senior Fellow-CO2 Policy, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change and Head of Saving Us Coal

Fred Palmer

July 29, 2020 - A June 29 Grist News story details lawsuits seeking money damages filed against oil majors for selling products, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, that when combusted put CO2 in the air. Among the companies sued are Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell and Conoco Phillips. These are fabulous companies with a combined stock market capitalization of over $500 billion. Every day they operate in the public interest and create products that when used facilitate Modernity itself. These companies should be applauded for the good they do for all people, everywhere, all the time; nonetheless the companies are being sued in Washington DC court and the courts of many States, including New York.

The basis for each CO2 lawsuit is a reversal of the public interest reality and the theory is simple: allegations are made that each company is selling a product that is adverse to human health and welfare, the companies know or should know that the products are an existential threat to humanity itself and each company must pay damages for climate change now and into the future. If successful, the lawsuits will become endless against endless defendants and the financial burden associated with the damages they will claim could put US fossil fuel chain industry companies into bankruptcy. One unstated goal of the lawsuits is just that, of course, as the concept is driven by the people that brought us the Green New Deal and are determined to eliminate the use of fossil fuels including coal altogether. 

The great oil companies sued, are vilified in the litigation as demonic for being in the fossil fuel business. The “scientific” legitimacy for the universal defamation of all in the fossil fuel business, including the oil company defendants, is the Obama 2009 EPA CO2 Endangerment Finding. Such finding says more CO2 emissions from humans living their lives, by definition breathing along with driving a car, is a “current threat” to our health and welfare every day we engage in such activity. EPA has primary jurisdiction over US air quality and content control: absent the CO2 Endangerment Finding there would be no legal basis for the lawsuits. Certainly, there is no objective data that establishes a causal effect from CO2 in the atmosphere to catastrophic global warming. To the contrary, over a century of fossil fuel use and growing atmospheric CO2 content establish just the opposite by showing more people living longer and living better since fossil fuel use began. CO2 benefits to people and the Human Environment are a clear, undeniable and dispositive metric.

The outcome of these lawsuits depends on the law, not politics. Nonetheless politics has reared its head, no shock of course in the political season.

Two weeks ago, Bloomberg Law reported that Joe Biden’s 100% renewable energy plan will include a directive to the Attorney General to “strategically support ongoing plaintiff-driven climate litigation against polluters”. In other words, in a Biden Administration, the Plaintiff Bar is embraced and climate lawsuits are welcome. Of course, such support from a sitting President will in itself guarantee a plethora of lawsuits against anyone involved in any aspect of distributing fossil fuels for public use no matter the benefits to people from such use. In our Modern world these benefits include advancing “life, liberty” and the pursuit of happiness”, a central concept to our Declaration of Independence. No matter to the Democratic Party and Joe Biden, though: to them CO2 is an existential threat to the human community so they will protect us from ourselves telling us what energy we can use, how and when we can use it and what we must pay for it.

In all circumstances, there is an answer to the lawsuits and there is a path forward to protect in perpetuity the robust use of fossil fuels. The very first step needs to be a repeal of the EPA Endangerment Finding; concomitant with the repeal process and following is a national education effort on why repeal is the correct step and why using more fossil fuels is a positive for human health and welfare, and the climate, not a negative.

Of course, the nature and effect of CO2 on the Human Environment has always been, is now and will always be the substantive issue in the lawsuits and politically. In all contexts, is more CO2 in the air good, or bad? Does it hurt humanity and threaten our existence, or does it develop the biosphere for food, shelter, a more livable world with nighttime winter warming and no little Ice Age? Should we live our lives based on always wrong projections from computer models that run hot, can’t hind cast and are “flux adjusted” for values that are unknown? Or should we trust over 200 years of observations now confirmed by 40 years of satellite data that fossil fuel use and positive human development go together hand in glove, and that catastrophic warming will never occur with at most CO2 warming will be a welcome 1-2 degrees Celsius?

It is no secret: at the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, we come down on the side of fossil fuel use and embrace CO2 emissions. We do so because we are pro-human development evolving through the always cleaner and more efficient use of fossil fuels. We also are serene in our belief that the Creator got it right on Planet Earth for billions of people today and the billions to come, all living longer and better through the use of fossil fuels. At the Center, we also know we can carry the day in advancing these pro people concepts but we need your financial support to do so.

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