Village sues companies over climate change

Sometimes the most remote places are the catalysts for change to benefit us all. Just yesterday I was thinking of how weird it was that climate change hasn't prompted megabucks lawsuits against big corporations - but now this is changing.

Global warming exists and is caused largely by industrial pollution and other human-made emissions. I've known it for probably 20 years, and scientists have certainly known it for longer. I think global warming is something of a misnomer, because it doesn't always mean warmer temperatures in every area in every season. Every weather statistic lately is always a record though. You notice that? Record highs! Record lows! Record rain! Record drought! More accurately, it's climate change.

There's no question that human-made climate change is the reason we had that record-setting heat wave this past August or why we've had so many ice storms this month. None. The head-up-their-ass crowd will deny it, but science says they're wrong.

Overall, however, the average worldwide temperature has increased, and it's more so in the Arctic, where people for centuries had survived on the cold climate. Now the village of Kivalina, Alaska, inhabited mostly by the Inupiat people, wants Corporate America held accountable. The centuries-old village is eroding into the Arctic Ocean because artificial warming there is melting sea ice that protected it from storm surges and waves. So the community is filing a federal lawsuit against 9 oil companies (including Exxon Mobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell), 14 power companies (including Duke Energy), and a coal firm over greenhouse gases that are responsible for much of this climate change.

Relocating Kivalina has already cost at least $400,000,000, and another relocation looms. Even official reports by the Army Corps of Engineers and the General Accounting Office confirm global warming has devastated Kivalina.

The village's lawsuit might be opposed by the "no regulations" cultists who constantly spew anti-science dogma to defend Coprorate (sic) America. However, fans of reason and fairness are 100% in favor of the suit. With Big Business constantly demanding and getting goodies from the government (it's called corporate welfare), the damage to Kivalina is certainly not the fault of Kivalina's villagers or other Americans who have been adversely affected by climate change.

The suit also charges some of the companies with conspiracy for misleading the public about the causes and results of climate change. I think these companies' actions should be punishable under RICO: There's been an ongoing campaign of intimidation against those of us who use science to challenge Corporate America's greed.

It's my hope that Kivalina prevails. Nobody can credibly doubt that at least some of the corporations named in the suit contributed to the damage to the village.

(Source: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080226/global_warming_erosion.html)