The mayor of Honolulu, Hawaii is very concerned about the effects of climate change on the planet and he wants everyone to know that he plans to do something about it. Will he be cutting back on his personal carbon footprint? Ditching his car for a bicycle? Switching to Impossible Burgers for lunch? Nope. He’s going to sue ExxonMobil for a bazillion dollars. That should fix everything. (Free Beacon)
The mayor of Honolulu is adding his city to a list of governments suing major energy producers such as Exxon Mobil and BP for damages related to climate change even though courts have proven reluctant to wade into such matters and translating those damages into hard dollar amounts is nearly impossible.
“We have sent to the Honolulu City Council a resolution for their approval to file a lawsuit against big oil companies that have contributed a lot to our climate crisis,” Mayor Kirk Caldwell said at a press conference earlier this week.
While the major oil and gas companies seem like an obvious target for liberals, Mayor Caldwell seems to be missing a few targets here. Shouldn’t he be suing the cattle ranchers who raise all those farting cows? Probably not, because their pockets aren’t all that deep, particularly these days. (Though I shouldn’t be giving him ideas.)
An average of 30,000 people fly in and out of Hawaii every day of the year to visit this tropical paradise. That’s an awful lot of jet fuel burning up and cluttering the atmosphere. Perhaps Caldwell could sue the airport and the airlines. Of course, that would cut into the tourism industry and cripple Hawaii overnight so we can’t have that, can we?
We could play this game all day, but perhaps this is a good time to remind everyone of what’s really going on here. Back in 2016, the Free Beacon published a leaked memo from a secret meeting among liberal groups held at the Rockefeller Family Fund in Manhattan. Their stated goal was to engage in “a coordinated campaign of legal action, divestment efforts, and political pressure” designed to take down ExxonMobil.
The meeting—which included top officials at GreenPeace, the Working Families Party, and the Rockefeller Family Fund—took place as climate change groups have pushed for a federal criminal probe of ExxonMobil’s environmental impact, similar to the 1990s racketeering case against Big Tobacco.
So this all comes down to politics and the agenda of the climate crew. Of course, as far as the Mayor is concerned, bagging a few billion dollars from the energy giant probably wouldn’t hurt either, I’m sure. But he should be careful what he wishes for. Another group attempted to take down Chevron through a massive, coordinated and corrupt shakedown effort and you know how that worked out, right?
