, earlier this year, that “your core product is our core problem,” but his straight talk hasn’t accomplished much. For now, statements from men such as Exxon’s C.E.O., Darren Woods, hold sway. “We are growing value by increasing production from our advantaged assets to meet global demand,” Woods said, as the news of those robust profits was announced.Brett Kavanaugh
Exxon helped to found and lead the Global Climate Coalition, an alliance of some of the world’s largest companies seeking to halt government efforts to curb fossil fuel emissions. Exxon used the American Petroleum Institute, right-wing think tanks, campaign contributions and its own lobbying to push a narrative that climate science was too uncertain to necessitate cuts in fossil fuel emissions.
But the impact of Inside Climate News’ 2015 reports and others can hardly be overstated. Worried that the evidence would just disappear into the news cycle, I went to a Mobil station in Burlington, the biggest city in Vermont, where I live, and sat in front of a pump with a sign alerting people to the stories; I blocked business for a few minutes, until I. A few months later, I paid a fine of a couple hundred dollars, which may have been the only legal repercussion so far of those revelations.
Six federal appeals courts across the country had heard those arguments over the years, and all six rejected them. But the industry persisted, appealing to the Supreme Court. Cities and states, for their part, argued before the Court that these claims were precisely the kind that state courts are used to adjudicating, and that there was no compelling reason to shift jurisdiction.
None of this means that the cases will be simple to prove. For one thing, events that happen in nature have multiple causes. And even when experts can attribute damage to a changed climate—a scientific field that is maturing rapidly—apportioning the blame to particular companies can be difficult. “You can certainly make a determination of how much carbon these companies are responsible for, but in our view that doesn’t completely define their responsibility,” Simons said.