Common sense wins in climate change case in California

June 29, 2018
Common sense triumphed in a June 25 decision on climate change in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Common sense triumphed in a June 25 decision on climate change in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Judge William Alsup forced context into hysterically myopic climate politics when he granted a motion by five major oil companies to dismiss a lawsuit calling their production of oil and natural gas a public nuisance.

BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell could have been held liable for inestimable damages if Alsup had let the case proceed. Plaintiffs, the government of California and several cities in the state, might appeal.

The judge held that climate change is best addressed by the executive and legislative branches of government.

“The problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case,” he wrote.

Alsup supplied the vital context in this earlier passage of the ruling: “With respect to balancing the social utility against the gravity of the anticipated harm, it is true that carbon dioxide released from fossil fuels has caused (and will continue to cause) global warming. But against that negative, we must weigh this positive: our industrial revolution and the development of our modern world has literally been fueled by oil and coal. Without those fuels, virtually all of our monumental progress would have been impossible. All of us have benefitted. Having reaped the benefit of that historic progress, would it really be fair to now ignore our own responsibility in the use of fossil fuels and place the blame for global warming on those who supplied what we demanded? Is it really fair, in light of those benefits, to say that the sale of fossil fuels was unreasonable?”

This represents pointed challenge to the retrospective moralizing that steers climate politics—too often with wacky lawsuits—toward impossible remedies.

The complexities of climate change and connected systems defy the absolute responses demanded by activists pretending solutions can be painless.

Alsup’s ruling implies they ignore too much.

(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted June 29, 2018; author’s email: [email protected])