‘Climate Homicide’: Paper in Harvard Env. Law Review calls for ‘prosecuting’ big U.S. oil firms for ‘climate deaths’
By Marc Morano
The wacky world of climate change strikes again! Blaming fossil fuel companies for ‘climate homicide’ is all part of the plan to merge public health and climate change. We have already seen a doctor diagnose the first patient in the world as suffering form ‘climate change’ in 2021.
Of course, the reality is exactly the opposite. During the era of fear about ‘global warming,’ climate related deaths have dropped dramatically, proving that mankind has adapted to climate change by using the very oil and other fossil fuels that Harvard Law now wants to charge companies with murder over!
Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths
Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2024
70 Pages Posted: 25 Jan 2023 Last revised: 24 Mar 2023
Public Citizen
George Washington University – Law School; Justice Innovation Lab; DC Justice Lab
Date Written: January 23, 2023
Abstract
Prosecutors regularly bring homicide charges against individuals and corporations whose reckless or negligent acts or omissions cause unintentional deaths, as well as those whose misdemeanors or felonies cause unintentional deaths. Fossil fuel companies learned decades ago that what they produced, marketed, and sold would generate “globally catastrophic” climate change. Rather than alert the public and curtail their operations, they worked to deceive the public about these harms and to prevent regulation of their lethal conduct. They funded efforts to call sound science into doubt and to confuse their shareholders, consumers, and regulators. And they poured money into political campaigns to elect or install judges, legislators, and executive officials hostile to any litigation, regulation, or competition that might limit their profits. Today, the climate change that they forecast has already killed thousands of people in the United States, and it is expected to become increasingly lethal for the foreseeable future. Given the extreme lethality of the conduct and the awareness of the catastrophic risk on the part of fossil fuel companies, should they be charged with homicide? Could they be convicted? In answering these questions, this Article makes several contributions to our understanding of criminal law and the role it could play in combating crimes committed at a massive scale. It describes the doctrinal and social predicates of homicide prosecutions where corporate conduct endangers much or all of the public. It also identifies important advantages of homicide prosecutions relative to civil and regulatory remedies, and it details how and why prosecution for homicide may be the most effective legal remedy available in cases like this. Finally, it argues that, if our criminal legal system cannot focus more intently on climate crimes—and soon—we may leave future generations with significantly less for the law to protect.
Keywords: climate change, homicide, criminal law, prosecution, accountability, causation, fossil fuels, big oil, negligent homicide, manslaughter, murder, felony murder, misdemeanor manslaughter, fraud, RICO, racketeering, conspiracy, prosecutors, public benefit corporation, environmental crime
Suggested Citation:
Arkush, David and Braman, Donald, Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths (January 23, 2023). Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2024, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4335779 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4335779
UK Guardian: Authors of paper accepted for publication in Harvard Environmental Law Review argue firms are ‘killing members of the public at an accelerating rate’
Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths – Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2024
‘Climate homicide’: Could Big Oil be sued for disaster deaths? ‘Prosecuting Big Oil for Climate Death’ urges new paper in the Harvard Environmental Law Review– The paper, “Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil for Climate Death” — written by Arkush and Donald Braman, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School — will be published next spring in the Harvard Environmental Law Review. “We concluded there aren’t really any legal or factual barriers to prosecution,” Arkush said.
Morano: “We already have academics demanding that ‘climate change’ be added to death certificates as a cause of death.”
By: Marc Morano – Climate Depot March 24, 2023 12:25 PM
Authors of paper accepted for publication in Harvard Environmental Law Review argue firms are ‘killing members of the public at an accelerating rate’
Oil companies have come under increasing legal scrutiny and face allegations of defrauding investors, racketeering, and a wave of other lawsuits. But a new paper argues there’s another way to hold big oil accountable for climate damage: trying companies for homicide.
The striking and seemingly radical legal theory is laid out in a paper accepted for publication in the Harvard Environmental Law Review. In it, the authors argue fossil fuel companies “have not simply been lying to the public, they have been killing members of the public at an accelerating rate, and prosecutors should bring that crime to the public’s attention”. … The paper also argues that the case for climate homicide has been bolstered by attribution science, which seeks to ascertain how much the climate crisis has worsened individual extreme weather events. Some studies have even been able to attribute a specific number of extreme weather deaths to the climate crisis. The duo argue that this growing body of science is among the most powerful tools to prove that oil companies’ actions have more than met the standard for a prosecutor to bring a homicide case. Bringing homicide charges against oil companies for deaths caused by the climate crisis would be unprecedented, but corporations have been tried for homicide before. California prosecutors charged the utility PG&E with manslaughter for its role in the deadly Camp Fire that leveled the town of Paradise in 2018. And federal prosecutors charged BP with manslaughter following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. In both cases, the companies pleaded guilty and paid billions in fines and penalties.
Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths – Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2024
70 Pages Posted: 25 Jan 2023 Last revised: 24 Mar 2023
More on co-authors of paper David Arkush here and here.
‘Climate homicide’: Could Big Oil be sued for disaster deaths? ‘Prosecuting Big Oil for Climate Death’ urges new paper in the Harvard Environmental Law Review– The paper, “Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil for Climate Death” — written by Arkush and Donald Braman, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School — will be published next spring in the Harvard Environmental Law Review.
“We concluded there aren’t really any legal or factual barriers to prosecution,” Arkush said.
Tony Heller of Real Climate Science Debunks:
https://realclimatescience.
By Tony Heller
Death rates from natural disasters including “all geophysical, meteorological and climate events” are down 95% over the past century, and academics want to sue oil companies for deaths caused by meteorological events.
POLITICO Pro | Article | ‘Climate homicide’: Could Big Oil be sued for disaster deaths?
Natural Disasters Data Explorer – Our World in Data
Fossil fuels keep billions of people alive day to day around the world. They provide our heat, light, communications and transportation. They make it possible for trucks to bring food. People who want to ban fossil fuels are advocating genocide.
On March 23, 1913 “scores” of towns were wiped out by tornadoes in six states. Omaha was largely destroyed.
24 Mar 1913, Page 13 – Arizona Republic at Newspapers.com
23 Mar 1913, Page 9 – The Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times at Newspapers.com
24 Mar 1913, 1 – Evening Times-Republican at Newspapers.com
©Climate Depot. All rights reserved.
This article is courtesy of DrRichSwier.com, an online community of citizen journalists, academics, subject matter experts, and activists to express the principles of limited government and personal liberty to the public, to policy makers, and to political activists. Please visit DrRichSwier.com for more great content.
