Bad News for Emperor Penguins, Fish, Seals, and Whales in Antarctica
Yesterday The Guardian Science Editor Robin McKie reported, “‘Simply mind-boggling’: world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe — An unprecedented leap of 38.5C in the coldest place on Earth is a harbinger of a disaster for humans and the local ecosystem.” McKie quoted Prof. Michael Meredith, science leader at the British Antarctic Survey, “In sub-zero temperatures such a massive leap is tolerable but if we had a 40C rise in the UK now that would take temperatures for a spring day to over 50C [122° Fahrenheit]– and that would be deadly for the population.”
Glaciologist Prof. Martin Siegert, of the University of Exeter, was also quoted, “No one in our community thought that anything like this could ever happen [ . . . . ]” I have been reading that several times in the past three years. For example, my October 26, 2021 post “Rethinking Weather Forecasts” noted, “Recently, a professor of statistics at my college said the probability of 115 F (46 C) in Seattle before June 2021 was zero, but it happened. He added at the time there were better odds buying one lottery ticket, and winning.”
A photo caption in McKie’s article noted, “Thousands of emperor penguin chicks drowned last year when the sea-ice broke up before they could fully fledge.” The article quoted Prof. Kate Hendry, a chemical oceanographer based at the British Antarctic Survey, “If krill starts to disappear in the wake of algae, then all sorts of disruption to the food chain will occur.” McKie noted, “A critical example is provided by the algae which grow under and around sea ice in west Antarctica. This is starting to disappear, with very serious implications, added Hendry. Algae is eaten by krill, the tiny marine crustaceans that are one of the most abundant animals on Earth and which provide food for predators that include fish, penguins, seals and whales.”
My October 26, 2021 post included: “121.2 Fahrenheit (49.6°C) air temperature in Lytton, BC June 29, 2021 shattering records. Dr. Jason Box was quoted, ‘That’s basically unlivable, at least for nature. [ . . . .] We have to prepare [for] extreme disruptions to our lives.’” The post also mentioned “More than one billion marine intertidal animals [ . . . ] may have perished along the shores of the Salish Sea during the record temperatures at the end of June, [2021] said University of British Columbia researcher Chris Harley,” and “a heat wave that “killed or harmed three billion animals” in Australia according to a July 28, 2020 bbc.com news article,” and a “California family found dead on hike killed by extreme heat, sheriff says.” [. . . .] “What next?”
Good News for Climate Activists at U. S. Supreme Court
Surprisingly, news reports in the past year noted U. S. cities and states have consistently won battles with Big Oil to keep climate-impact lawsuits out of federal courts, where they are more likely to lose, and in state courts where they are more likely to win. April 26, 2023, Kate Yoder wrote at Grist.org, “The Supreme Court just unleashed a flood of lawsuits against Big Oil.” Yoder noted, “Nearly two dozen lawsuits filed by cities and states aim to put fossil fuel companies on trial for deceiving the public about climate change.” [ . . . . ] “On Monday [April 24, 2023], the justices rejected petitions from Chevron, Shell, BP, and other oil companies to move these cases from the state courts where they were filed to federal courts, an arena considered more friendly to the industry. The Supreme Court’s rejection brings an end to a long jurisdictional battle, meaning that cases in Colorado, Maryland, California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and more can finally proceed — potentially toward jury trials.”
Yoder quoted Richard Wiles, president of The Center for Climate Integrity, “It’s the industry’s worst nightmare to have to explain their lies in front of a jury.”
Ella Nilsen reported at cnn.com January 8, 2024, “Supreme Court declines to weigh in on Minnesota’s climate lawsuit against big oil companies.” Nilsen wrote regarding these legal battles, “Two of these cases, one from Massachusetts and one from Honolulu city and county, could go to trial as soon as 2025.”
C.J. Polychroniou’s April 19, 2023 truthout.org interview with economist Gregor Semieniuk noted more challenges for Big Oil and its investors in the article “What Would It Take to Defeat Big Oil? A Progressive Economist Weighs In.” Polychroniou wrote, “On March 29, [2023] Semieniuk testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget during a hearing on ‘[ . . .] The Cost of Oil Dependence in a Low-Carbon World.‘ In his testimony, he discussed his 2022 research that found that current oil and gas assets may be overvalued by more than $1 trillion, a figure that exceeds the subprime housing mispricing that triggered the 2007 financial crisis.”
Semieniuk was quoted, “We calculate that some $400 billion in potentially stranded assets could be sitting on U.S. financial business balance sheets. That’s 30 percent of the global total, and $100 billion more than the stranded assets at production sites in the U.S., because both U.S. oil companies and their financial investors invest in oil and gas production and oil and gas companies abroad. And they invest on behalf of ultimate owners: holders of retirement plans, often invested via pension funds, and the affluent at the top of the distribution, that have a lot of financial wealth to invest. [ . . . .]”
Avalon Zoppo’s December 20, 2023 law.com article “Circuit Consensus: Climate Claim Suits Against Big Oil Belong in State Courts” may explain why federal courts decided against Big Oil in the venue matter, and are likely to do so in the future. Zoppo wrote, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has become the latest federal appellate court to deliver a procedural loss for major energy companies in lawsuits accusing them of deceiving consumers about their products’ effects on climate change. [par break] A three-judge panel Tuesday sent the District of Columbia’s lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and Chevron back to state court, holding that the complaint relies solely on D.C.’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act and is not preempted—as the companies argued—by federal common law of interstate air pollution.”
Zoppo quoted Judge Neomi Rao for a three-judge panel including Gregory Katsas and Florence Pan, “In the Clean Air Act, Congress displaced federal common law through comprehensive regulation, but it did not completely preempt state law, nor did it provide an independent basis for removal, as it has done in many other statutes.”
Zoppo wrote, “Rao added in a footnote that almost every other federal appeals court has come to the same conclusion in litigation other state governments have brought against oil and gas companies alleging the concealment of fossil fuel products’ harm to the environment. [par break] She cited cases in the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth circuits. The Second Circuit, for instance, sent a similar case back to state court in September that Connecticut brought against Exxon under the state’s Unfair Trade Practices Act.”
Therefore, it seems Big Oil is headed the way of Big Tobacco, but this may not be soon enough for many coastal cities and island nations facing sea rise, and many humans and nonhumans facing deadly heat, droughts, and floods.
Reversal in Big Oil’s political power reminds me of actor Russell Crowe’s Mississippi deposition scene as the character Jeffrey Wigand in the 1999 film The Insider, and the 60 Minutes 1996 Mike Wallace interview with actual Jeffrey Wigand that led to the film.
My March 4, 2024 post “Same Planet, Different Worlds” notes, “The [March 4, 2024 article by Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman at The Guardian “Fury after Exxon chief says public to blame for climate failures”] also quoted Naomi Oreskes, [Harvard University] Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science, and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, ‘For decades, they told us that the science was too uncertain to justify action, that it was premature to act, and that we could and should wait and see how things developed. Now the CEO says: oh dear, we’ve waited too long. If this isn’t gaslighting, I don’t know what it is.’ She added, ‘The playbook is this: sell consumers a product that you know is dangerous, while publicly denying or downplaying those dangers. Then, when the dangers are no longer deniable, deny responsibility and blame the consumer.’”
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