{"id":50036,"date":"2019-12-09T09:43:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T14:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=50036"},"modified":"2019-12-09T09:43:37","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T14:43:37","slug":"big-oil-needs-to-pay-for-the-damage-it-caused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=50036","title":{"rendered":"Big Oil Needs to Pay for the Damage It Caused"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yesmagazine.org\/opinion\/2019\/11\/15\/climate-crisis-big-oil-pay\/\">Big Oil Needs to Pay for the Damage It Caused<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.yesmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/exxon-knew.jpeg\" alt=\"protestors hold up a sign that says exxon knew\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> Environmental activists rally for accountability for fossil fuel companies outside of New York Supreme Court on October 22, 2019, in New York City. New York\u2019s attorney general, Letitia James, is taking on ExxonMobil in a landmark case that accuses the oil corporation of misleading investors about the company\u2019s financial risks from climate change.DREW ANGERER\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This month in a Manhattan courthouse, New York State\u2019s attorney general Letitia James argued that ExxonMobil should be held accountable for layers of lies about climate change. It\u2019s a landmark moment\u2014one of the&nbsp; first times that Big Oil is having to answer for its actions\u2014and James deserves great credit for bringing it to trial. But it comes with a deep irony: Under the relevant New York statutes, the only people that New York can legally identify as victims are investors in the company\u2019s stock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is true that Exxon should not have misled its investors\u2014lying is wrong, and that former CEO Rex Tillerson had to invent a fake email persona as part of the scheme (we see you, \u201cWayne Tracker\u201d) helps drive home the messiness. But let\u2019s be clear: On the spectrum of human beings who are and will be hit by the climate crisis, Exxon investors are not near the top of the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, if the \u201cjustice system\u201d delivered justice, the payouts for Exxon\u2019s perfidy would go to entirely different people, because the iron law of climate is, the less you did to cause it, the more you\u2019ll suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>The high-end estimate for economic damage from the global warming we\u2019re on track to cause is $551 trillion, which is more money than exists on planet Earth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big Oil Needs to Pay for the Damage It Caused Environmental activists rally for accountability for fossil fuel companies outside of New York Supreme Court on October 22, 2019, in New York City. New York\u2019s attorney general, Letitia James, is taking on ExxonMobil in a landmark case that accuses the oil corporation of misleading investors [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[2683,2688,7013,4390,1041,328,28637,6085],"class_list":["post-50036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-accountability","tag-big-oil","tag-bill-mckibben","tag-exxon","tag-exxonmobil","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-tamara-toles-olaughlin","tag-yes-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50037,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50036\/revisions\/50037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}