Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bostonian | Hacker News Reader

The pretext of the lawsuit is that Exxon misled its investors, but the real aim is to attack a fossil fuel giant. Suing Exxon obviously hurts its shareholders. There is a Wall Street Journal editorial on "New York’s Climate Show Trial" https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-climate-show-trial-11... .

View on HN

Note that it is widely said that the WSJ does good news, but that its editorial section is considered by many to be biased. To quote Wikipedia's summary of that view, "The Journal editorial board has promoted pseudoscientific views on the science of climate change, acid rain, and ozone depletion, as well as on the health harms of second-hand smoke, pesticides and asbestos." They go into more detail at [1].

That's not a statement one way or the other about this particular editorial, but the WSJ editorial page does have a history of climate denial and I'd take their views on this trial with a grain of salt.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal#Editor...

The WSJ has gotten much, much worse since it was purchased by the Murdoch empire a decade ago. Even their non-opinion stuff reads like a business tycoon's lens on Fox News. It is absolutely a mouthpiece in the alt-right Murdoch propaganda machine.

I think you may be reading a different WSJ than I am

considered by many to be biased

If you're going to cite Wikipedia as authoritative, at least don't use weasel words at the same time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Word...

From a pragmatic perspective, dealing with the climate crisis is the pretext.

There's a history of using the judicial system in this way in the US (particularly on race issues), partly because the judicial appointments tend to be the longest, and so judges can take the long view and make decisions that aren't politically expedient in the short-term.

In an era where the failures of the legislative branch to come up with good ways to deal with market externalities are culminating in mass extinction and global crisis, maybe it makes sense to try to get the judicial branch to find interpretations of existing laws that can help mitigate the problem?

I don't think it does make sense. It's not like climate change is an issue the legislature hasn't addressed at all; many people have thought it through, and both Congress and individual states have passed many laws about it. It's very dangerous to let prosecutors and judges make up reasons why things they don't like are illegal.

The issue has not been fully addressed by the legislature at all. There is real harm being caused by these externalities, and relief in court is the normal route for seeking remediation when there isn't some other mechanism in place to compensate for the harm. Same as anything else. If a big company causes harm to someone through malfeasance, they have a right to seek compensation through the civil courts. Criminal courts have a different standard.

People should definitely be free to sue Exxon if they think Exxon has harmed them. But that's not what this case is about.

In the current trial, the government is only looking to show that Exxon didn't plug in the right numbers to some financial models. If they can, they'll exact a huge fine to punish Exxon for causing climate change, even though they never proved in court that Exxon isn't allowed to cause climate change.

They absolutely can seek damages for Exxon hiding an enormous long-term liability. Which still exists and still hasn't been paid for.

Certainly, hiding liabilities to inflate your company’s value is bad. But is that really what anyone cares about here? If Exxon can show that their financial models were always properly adjusted for the future risks of climate change, how many people do you think will conclude that they did nothing wrong?

Actually, yes. If Exxon and all other companies operated as if those future liabilities mattered and didn't hide the full price from investors and engage lobbyists to keep that full price from being levied on them, then we wouldn't be in this pickle.

Take with a grain of salt as this is an opinion piece (not a news article) written in a publication owned by Rupert Murdoch, who has substantial oil interests.

If anti-environmentalism, funded by the likes of Exxon were less prevalent, we wouldn't need these show trials.

But you reap what you sow.

Wow this was a really interesting read. I didn’t expect the lawsuits to be as frivolous as claimed here, and it makes sense that these are essentially abusing legal processes for activism or public theater.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt... (Matt Levine, Money Stuff: Everything Everywhere Is Securities Fraud)

That's a really fascinating article. The "Chicken LIBOR" collusion will be a case that I'll have to follow closely in the future.

Here's a great Planet Money episode about Chicken LIBOR if you want to deep dive on it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/05/09/609890025/epis...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com