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Trial Set in New York on Exxon's Climate Statements

posted by martyb on Monday October 21 2019, @04:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the lies,-damn-lies,-and-statistics dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Charges that Exxon Mobil misled investors on the financial risks of climate change will be heard in court this month after a New York judge gave the green light for a trial.

[...] Barry Ostrager, a New York judge, rejected motions on Wednesday night and set a trial to begin next Tuesday.

The lawsuit alleges that Exxon defrauded investors by claiming to fully account for the financial impact of future climate change mitigation policies, when it was not actually doing so.

[...] "As a result of Exxon's fraud, the company was exposed to far greater risk from climate change regulations than investors were led to believe," according to the complaint, which said the scheme enabled Exxon to avoid large asset write-downs that would have represented billions of dollars in lost revenue.

The complaint points the finger at the highest levels of Exxon, including former chief executive and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who "knew for years that the company's representations... were misleading," the complaint said.

An Exxon spokesman said the New York case against it "is misleading and deliberately misrepresents" the company's practices for assessing climate policies.

"The New York Attorney General's allegations are false," the spokesman said.

[...] In August 2018, the US Securities and Exchange Commission ended an investigation into Exxon's decision not to write down assets because of future climate change regulations, taking no action against the company.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @10:14PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @10:14PM (#910027)

    For example, in 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected a high end estimate of 60 cm (2 ft) through 2099,[6] but their 2014 report raised the high-end estimate to about 90 cm (3 ft).[7] A number of later studies have concluded that a global sea level rise of 200 to 270 cm (6.6 to 8.9 ft) this century is "physically plausible".
    [...]
    Since the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago, the sea level has risen by more than 125 metres (410 ft), with rates varying from less than a mm/year to 40+ mm/year

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise [wikipedia.org]

    So on average the sea level has been rising 100 cm/m * 125 m / 20e3 yr = 0.625 cm/yr. That would be 625 cm per century, or 2-3 x the worst possible predictions from the climate models, nearly an order of magnitude greater than the IPCC "high end". That is what I would say we should prepare for.

    All along the Mississippi there are already levees ~700 cm tall built pretty much entirely since 1900. During this time of "extreme change" the US prospered and became the most wealthy nation in the known history of Earth.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @10:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @10:46PM (#910039)

    625 cm per century

    That should be 62.5 cm/century. The current rate is ~ 20 cm/century.