The state of Maine has filed a lawsuit against five major oil companies and their top lobbying group, accusing them of carrying out a decades-long disinformation campaign about climate change and their contribution to it in order to maximize profits.filed Tuesday in state court, accuses Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, Sunoco and the American Petroleum Institute of withholding internal knowledge about fossil fuels’ catastrophic effects all while spinning public doubt.
A government graph included in the lawsuit shows a rise in global average temperature over the past several decades. This rise is called “one of the most obvious signs of climate change” by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The lawsuit cites instances going back to the 1950s when scientists and other experts internally warned the defendants about carbon dioxide emissions, produced by human activities, harming the Earth’s environment and sea levels., Exxon Mobil actually painted global warming as a positive, arguing that “warming would reduce mortality rates in the US” and “an enhanced greenhouse world would be one with more agricultural productivity.