alt Hacker News> Most of the lawsuits assert that oil companies should help pay the escalating costs being imposed on the public by climate-fueled extreme weather because they knew the risks their products posed but worked to publicly question climate science and stymie efforts to curb emissions.
"They knew the risks"
Everybody knew the risks. Climate science has been researched at universities and published openly.
If politicians have failed to regulate, and consumers have enjoyed the benefits of (relatively) cheap fuel and energy, why would the fossil energy companies be singled out as the culprits? People wanted the high material standard of living that comes from (relatively) abundant available energy, cheaper and plentiful food that comes from abundant nitrogen fertilizers (made from natural gas). We were all part of this.
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If people were happy to accept the risks then why obfuscate the risks?
Why shouldn’t a company be responsible for the pollution and health impacts their products have?
It’s so basic
> lawsuits assert that oil companies should help pay the escalating costs being imposed on the public by climate-fueled extreme weather because they knew the risks their products posed
How would one even begin to adjudicate that? How do you determine which storm or what portion of a storm was caused by climate change, and how do you determine what portion of climate change was caused by Exxon’s CO2 emissions or whatever?
Same reason we go after drug dealers but not drug users, and pimps but not prostitutes. We want the consequences to fall on the entity making the most money, or more cynically , the least sympathetic entity.
The difference is that exxon knew the risks but spent time and effort to sow doubt. This is exactly like how tobacco companies tried to muddy the waters on health effects of tobacco use. The oil companies could have acknowledged the problems of burning fossil fuel but it took them almost 20 years to even admit climate change is real