One lawsuit just helped melt the fossil fuel industry’s defence against being held accountable for climate change
There was a time when oil and gas companies happily linked themselves to the idea of planet-wide environmental changes. “Each day Humble supplies enough energy to melt 7 million tons of glacier!” boasts the headline from a 1962 double-page spread in Life magazine for Humble Oil, now part of ExxonMobil.
Fast forward 60 years and that advert takes on a prophetic quality. Millions of people have experienced first-hand the tragic consequences of how burning fossil fuels is overheating our planet beyond recognition. Not just by melting glaciers but fuelling storms, fires and floods.
The fossil fuel industry today would never dream of linking its activities to melting glaciers. Instead, it actively denies responsibility for the consequences of extracting and selling some of the most harmful products ever known to humanity.
Benjamin Franta, Associate Professor of climate litigation writes in The Conversation. Read more here