XPost: soc.culture.usa, alt.politics.democrats, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: alt.politics.liberalism, talk.environment   
   From: dragon40@removeunseen.is   
      
   Recently a rash of lawsuits have been filed by California municipalities   
   targeting energy companies. The claim these lawsuits make is that these   
   California communities face imminent adverse environmental impacts due to   
   climate change, caused by energy producers, which will force them to   
   spend billions on infrastructural projects to mitigate weather- and sea   
   level-related disasters. They claim, in fact, that the magnitude of these   
   impending natural disasters is predictable, based on scientific modeling   
   of the effects of climate change. Thus, these energy companies should   
   fork over vast sums to the affected communities, to compensate them for   
   their prospective woes.   
      
   The holes in this logic are so numerous and copious that, if these   
   lawsuits were ocean-going vessels, they would all long ago have foundered   
   and sunk to the bottom of the Sea of Self-Delusion. Now, though, it   
   appears that even the municipalities in question are inclined to scoff at   
   their own predictions. How do we know this? A recent analysis of   
   information provided by these communities in connection with their sale   
   of municipal bonds proves that, in fact, they haven't a clue how climate   
   change will affect them, or whether it will affect them at all. Their   
   claims to the contrary are at best opportunistic, and at worst brazenly   
   mendacious.   
      
   Take, for example, the City of Oakland, which in its climate change   
   lawsuit alleges that, by 2100, the community will face a “100-year   
   flood...once a week[!]”, a sea-level rise of 66 inches, and tens of   
   billions of dollars in property damage. And yet in its municipal bond   
   prospectus it offers the bland assurance that “The City is unable to   
   predict when...impacts of climate change or flooding...could occur...and,   
   if any such events occur, whether they will have a material adverse   
   effect...” Quite a change in tone! The difference, of course, is that   
   when the City of Oakland is suing energy companies, it wishes to present   
   climate change catastrophe as a certainty. When it is reassuring   
   potential purchasers of its bonds, however, it wishes to present the ill   
   effects of climate change as distant and entirely speculative. Talk about   
   disingenuous!   
      
   Likewise, San Mateo County anticipates that climate change will produce a   
   rise in sea-level that will “inundate thousands of acres of County   
   land...and swamp San Francisco International Airport”, but, when it comes   
   time to hawk municipal bonds, they fall back on the same boilerplate   
   obfuscations that amount to “Climate change? Who knows what that could do   
   to us...” The City of San Francisco cites “an imminent threat of   
   catastrophic storm surge flooding”, but only when the bond market isn't   
   looking. The list goes on.   
      
   The question naturally arises: why would California municipalities waste   
   their time with such frivolous lawsuits, based on the fantasy that energy   
   companies are solely liable for natural disasters which so far are merely   
   anticipated, and certainly not by all climate scientists. Why, more to   
   the point, would these communities file such lawsuits when, thus far, the   
   courts have shown no inclination to make energy companies pay damages   
   related to climate change?   
      
   The answer appears to lie in a coordinated strategy of harassment and   
   intimidation that some on the left are pursuing against energy companies.   
   Even if the lawsuits in question fail, and most liberals must realize   
   that they will, the goal is to embroil energy companies in years of   
   litigation, force them to divulge potentially damaging information   
   (whether or not it relates to climate change), and delegitimize these   
   companies in the public eye.   
      
   The nature of this leftist strategy was recently laid bare in a court   
   filing in Texas. It seems that a major energy company is finally fighting   
   back against the left's nuisance lawsuits and its smears by mounting a   
   legal effort of its own. In essence, the court filing seeks depositions   
   and evidence from some of the most prominent figures in radical   
   environmentalist circles that have been persecuting energy companies.   
      
   The most alarming claim in the filing is that liberals connived, at a   
   meeting in La Jolla, California in 2012, to coordinate their efforts to   
   exploit every possible legal avenue to bring pressure to bear on the   
   “climate change deniers” in the energy industry. High-priced   
   environmental lawyers like those in the Pawa Law Group would work   
   together, often surreptitiously, with liberal politicians and Democratic   
   Party mega-donors to attack energy companies via phony lawsuits and   
   “abusive law enforcement tactics”, with the goal of bullying them into   
   compliance with climate change orthodoxy. Thus the “La Jolla playbook”   
   was born.   
      
   The filing argues that, by forming and executing this conspiracy against   
   energy companies, leftists are essentially subverting the legal system   
   and using it to promote a narrow and vindictive political program. As a   
   federal judge has written, these liberals may be trying to “further their   
   personal agendas by using the vast power of the government to silence the   
   voices of all those who disagree with them.” By deliberately exaggerating   
   the likelihood and severity of impending climate change catastrophes,   
   they may also be knowingly perpetrating a fraud on the American people.   
      
   As a conservative, my fondest wish is that the battle over climate change   
   will play out in the public arena, in the form of reasoned debate and   
   sensibly-crafted legislation. Lawsuits are, and should be, a last resort   
   in the quest for justice.   
      
   Nonetheless, the threat posed to American democracy (not to mention our   
   economy) by lawsuit-happy leftists is so great that we must applaud   
   efforts to hold them accountable. If environmental radicals are   
   conspiring to badger those who disagree with them, then we need to know   
   about it. We need to shine a light on their legal chicanery now, to stop   
   them from using even worse tactics in the future.   
      
   Source: http://bit.ly/2Du95Nw   
      
   --   
   "The Marxists, communists and fascists of the Democrat Party have   
   launched a strategy of deception, projection, and a new generation of   
   brown shirts who fanatically believe that their violence is honorable,   
   and necessary, to save America from some kind of a Fourth Reich   
   perpetrated by the GOP." (Douglas Gibbs )   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)