Last Tuesday, the State of New Jersey filed a lawsuit against five oil and gas companies and a petroleum trade organization – ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and the American Petroleum Institute to which they are affiliated – alleging that they had known for decades about the harmful impact of fossil fuels on climate change but instead deceived the public about that link. According to the lawsuit, the defendants failed to warn the public about the role of fossil fuels in climate change and instead ‘launched public `relations campaigns to sow doubts about the existence, causes, and effects of climate change’.
The suit seeks civil penalties and damages, including for damage to natural resources such as wetlands, alleging that taxpayers will have to pay billions of dollars to protect communities from rising sea levels, deadlier storms, and other harmful effects and arguing that those costs should be paid by the defendants. A number of other states and cities have filed similar suits against oil and gas companies in recent years. See https://www.yahoo.com/news/nj-sues-oil-gas-firms-212248964.html.
