There has often been hypocrisy in politics and government. But several cities in California may be charming that standard to a new level when it comes to their supposed engagement against climate change.
Here’s the kicker: The people pointing that accusatory put ones hands on at the Golden State’s top cities are none other than the lawyers for ExxonMobil.
It exchanges out that Big Oil is trying to turn the tables on Big Government when it comes to a series of Dick nuisance lawsuits filed by California cities and counties last year.
Those satisfies are using an argument similar to the successful cases brought against Big Tobacco in the 1990s. That is, they requisition the oil companies have long known about the damaging effects fossil fuels be enduring on the environment. They further allege those companies have being done to suppress and fraudulently refute scientific climate data in order to screen their industry and avoid any responsibility for climate change-related damages.
But ExxonMobil’s attorneys did some legwork and inaugurate something interesting in municipal bond offerings of many of the same big apples and counties suing them. Those offerings include several exemplars of climate change threats being downplayed or even completely overlooked.
The Big Oil lawyers also note that:
- San Francisco has twice made union offerings for its Municipal Transportation Agency since 2014 that do not repress the words “global warming” or “climate change.”
- San Mateo County is suing the oil associates because it says in its complaint that it is “particularly vulnerable to sea level get somewhere” and that there is a 93 percent chance the county experiences a “spellbinding” flood before 2050. But San Mateo noted in bond offerings in 2014 and 2016 that the county “is not able to predict whether sea-level rise or other impacts of climate difference or flooding from a major storm will occur.”
- Imperial Run aground, California claims in the lawsuit that it faces a very high liable to be from sea level rise and its economic vulnerability from climate modify is valued at more than $106 million. But the city has never forewarned investors that such disasters await them.
The sanctimonious clime change alarmism only gets worse when you throw in the flatulence some of the political leaders have used recently.
For example, August Beach Mayor Serge Dedina excoriated the oil companies in front of the report media last summer, exclaiming: “They knew about sea-level swell. They knew the damage it would cause, and they should be held obligated!”
I guess Imperial Beach’s bondholders could say the same about him.
The California plaintiffs should prefer to not yet formally responded to the ExxonMobil countersuit claims, though a few of their legates have been quoted saying they won’t be intimidated or or dissuaded by the corporation’s “attempted end-run around the California courts.”
The funny thing is you don’t comprise to look at bond offerings to find blatant cases of state and neighbouring governments saying one thing about climate change and doing the contradictory when it comes to putting their money where their passages are.
For example, California is still building its roads and freeways to accommodate myriad vehicles, not less. Remember the 2011 405 Freeway “Carmageddon,” when the affirm paid almost $2 billion to widen the highway to make way for more passenger cars? Where was the concern for climate change there? Yes, California has the strictest emissions controls and other policies like pursuing high-speed rail. But the car-based education of the state, which includes a near-religious to devotion to keeping the overwhelming mass of its highways toll free, is still dominant.
Others note that California but has massive regulations that make it very hard to build residential possessions in densely populated areas. That leads to more sprawl, varied driving, and more fossil fuel use.
Of course California is hardly unequalled in this hypocrisy. This is a national problem. The civil engineering league and website StrongTowns.org has long documented the massive costs to our finances and habitat caused by almost every state government’s reliance on car-centered infrastructure customs. That includes New York state, which has just decided to also sue the oil followings for the same claim of climate change science suppression.
There’s also a diverse widespread problem of dozens of cities and counties not being entirely unembellished in all aspects of their municipal bond offerings. The SEC began a major crackdown on that in fresh years that continues today.
But the climate change hypocrisy is chiefly egregious, considering the hyperbole and public shaming the politicians engage in when examining the environment. It’s one thing for climate alarmists and global warming skeptics to wrestle with it out in the political or scientific arena. But politicians warning us about global warming and favourable sea level dangers can’t keep pretending that reality is something else when they go to the banks and big investors.
We’re either in sober danger from climate change or we aren’t. Our leaders need to cut out the answer and respond accordingly.
Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com postpositive major columnist. Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.
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