Big Apple V. Big Oil

New York City is filing a lawsuit against BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell. The city seeks to recoup the costs of rebuilding from Superstorm Sandy plus the $20 billion it plans to spend on mitigating the problems associated with mega-weather events associated with climate change. New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio says he expects to win the argument about the defendants’ role in causing global warming, but the author of the article questions his motives and second-guesses the lawsuit’s argument. He wonders why the city doesn’t sue Russia, Venezuela, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia over the operations of Gazprom, Citgo, Pemex, and Aramco, and adds that Chinese energy giants Sinopec Group and China National Petroleum are larger than ExxonMobil and dwarf BP or Chevron. “Whatever our hopes for a green future, modern life for the past 150 years is unthinkable without oil, gas, and coal,” he says. The City claims that the defendants knew what burning fossil fuels does to the atmosphere, but persisted with a business model that ignored those consequences.