The Big Climate Change Legal Battle Looming

Big oil faces big test in climate-change court showdown with SF, Oakland

Kurtis Alexander, March 19, 2018 (San Francisco Chronicle)

“A San Francisco judge who must decide whether to hold the world’s largest oil companies responsible for global warming is ordering up what many are calling the most comprehensive, and unusual, debate on climate change that the courts have seen…Fossil-fuel corporations including Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell are scheduled to present their views on climate science in federal court [March 21] alongside attorneys for San Francisco and Oakland. The two cities are among several communities suing the oil giants for their alleged role in sea- level rise...U.S. District Judge William Alsup has given both sides eight questions to answer…[that] cover the basics of climate change and the latest scientific findings on what’s driving the phenomenon…Alsup appears to be searching for [ways to put on the oil companies on the record that climate change is happening and what is causing it. The cities] argue that the extraction and production of fossil fuels has heated the planet and begun lifting ocean levels above roads, homes and utilities’ infrastructure…[They] also claim that the oil and gas industries knew of the harm they were causing but sought to cover it up, much the way tobacco firms undermined research into lung cancer in past decades…” click here for more

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