Fighting global warming with tobacco litigation strategies

It has long been known that Exxon and the large oil companies had co-opted the strategies honed by Phillip-Morris and the tobacco companies in deflecting public scrutiny of their businesses. The basic strategy is to funnel money into think tanks and towards scientists to have them produce "research" that "refutes" the accepted scientific opinion. Thus you end up with tobacco companies arguing for decades that their product was not, in fact, addictive. Today we have power companies arguing that carbon dioxide isn't actually a pollutant. The point of all of this is to confuse the public discourse and exploit the weaknesses of our corporate media. So long as there is the appearance of debate or controversy the media will give equal weight to all sides. The media is apparently incapable of recognizing that not all opinions are equally valid and that some should be dismissed out of hand.

From a public relations perspective it's a brilliant strategy. You deflect negative attention away from your industry, you allow your present business model to survive and even thrive for decades after the point that scientific consensus has been reached.

As brilliant as the obfuscate and delay tactic is from a PR perspective it is equally as tragic for the health of the environment and the world's citizens. It's a terribly cynical business move that has far-reaching global consequences.

So the question becomes, how do you combat these tactics? Well, how about adopting a litigation strategy patterned off of the tobacco lawsuits? That's just what is happening. Last week Democracy Now interviewed a lawyer (formerly a corporate lawyer for Phillip-Morris during the tobacco litigation) who is representing a village of Inuits who are seeing the destruction of their Alaskan village due to global climate change. Amy Goodman introduced the story,

Earlier this week, a judge in Georgia blocked the construction of a coal-fired power plant, because the plant did not set limits on carbon dioxide emissions. In what’s being described as an unprecedented ruling, the judge said the plant could not receive an air pollution permit unless it limits its emissions.

Today, we’re going to look at the rapidly growing field of global warming litigation. I’m joined here in Aspen, Colorado by the attorney Stephen Susman. He’s the founding partner of the law firm Susman Godfrey. Earlier this year, he helped file a groundbreaking lawsuit on behalf of 400 villagers in the Alaskan town of Kivalina. They’re being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by global warming.

The suit accuses twenty oil, gas and electric companies of being responsible for emitting millions of tons of greenhouse gases, causing the Arctic ice to melt. Companies named in the suit include ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and Peabody. The suit also accuses eight of the corporations of being involved in a conspiracy to mislead the public about the causes of global warming.

Susman and his legal team have adopted a legal strategy similar to that used by lawyers who fought Big Tobacco in the 1990s. Stephen Susman was also involved in that litigation: he was an attorney for the tobacco giant Philip Morris.

Stephen Susman also recently represented the Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition in their successful effort to block the energy company TXU from building ten new coal-burning power plants. The case was featured in Robert Redford’s documentary Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars.

Attorney Steve Susman joins me here in Aspen, Colorado. We welcome you to Democracy Now!

Go give the interview a listen or read the entire transcript. It's a fascinating story from a legal and environmental perspective.

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