Community Editorial Board: Considering Boulder’s climate lawsuit

Members of our Community Editorial Board, a group of community residents who are engaged with and passionate about local issues, respond to the following question: Last year, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Boulder’s lawsuit seeking to hold two of the state’s largest oil and gas companies financially responsible for climate-change damages could continue. The companies have now brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the lawsuit should be heard in federal court, not state court. Your take?

A lawsuit brought by the City of Boulder against ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy has now reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The companies are asking the Court to move the case from state court to federal court. Their position is that climate change is a global problem and that regulating emissions is a matter for the federal government. At first, I was inclined to agree. Delegation of responsibility is an important principle to me, and the issue initially seemed to fall within federal authority. However, while serving on the Environmental Advisory Board, I came to see that the companies’ argument functions largely as a soundbite. To their credit, Boulder’s lawyers structured the lawsuit to address a different question entirely.

This case is not really about regulating emissions or setting national climate policy. The claim is that companies like ExxonMobil and Suncor knew for decades that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change, yet misrepresented or concealed those risks. And Boulder is asking state courts to determine liability for damages that local communities are already facing. Courts do this all the time in cases involving tobacco and environmental contamination. Consider this example: If a national corporation were knowingly but secretly poisoning Boulder Creek, shouldn’t the city have the right to seek damages? The pollution from Exxon and Suncor is happening within our jurisdiction — there is a clear nexus. And determining who pays and how liable they are for harm is not the same as regulating an industry.

Critics of the lawsuit argue that climate change should be addressed through technological innovation rather than litigation. Innovation certainly plays a role, and the United States has historically been good at developing new technologies. But innovation alone has rarely solved major public problems. Regulation and liability have always been part of the equation. When I hear these arguments, I’m reminded that there is a reason we have laws against child labor and dumping pollutants into rivers. Without those rules, many companies would have little incentive to change harmful practices.

From the companies’ perspective, moving the case to federal court makes sense. With the current makeup of the Supreme Court, they are likely to dismiss the lawsuit. From Boulder’s perspective, the appeals process looks like an effort to delay accountability. Ultimately, the question isn’t whether Boulder can solve climate change through the courts. It’s whether communities facing real costs today have the right to ask who should help pay for them.

Hernán Villanueva, chvillanuevap@gmail.com

It’s hard for me to decide which is worse: Boulder’s profound ignorance or its immoral greed. Let me take on stupidity first, and, yes, that is a provocative word. 

Boulder is suing Suncor and Exxon for their share of climate-change-induced costs to the City and County of Boulder. This is not a unique money-grab strategy — other states have tried this, unsuccessfully. The two biggest events in Boulder County were the Marshall Fire and the Boulder Flood — disasters to be sure, but fires and floods have always happened and always will. Placing blame on oil companies for the inevitable is ludicrous.

Let’s play this out as if it goes Boulder’s way. Boulder is seeking treble damages on a gigantic list of grievances. Let’s say Boulder gets a big fat settlement, and evil Exxon is driven out of business. Now what? We can’t survive a single day without the direct or indirect use of fossil fuels. Every product we buy is either created by and shipped here by the energy of fossil fuels or is itself made of fossil fuels, as most of our clothes and anything made of plastic. Or steel. Or cement. Our food is grown with fertilizer produced directly from natural gas. We’d starve to death before we froze to death without fossil fuels.

Therein lies the rub — the greatest of hypocrisies. Boulder claims that Exxon misled them about the effects of added CO2 in the atmosphere, even though this was settled science in the 19th century and common knowledge for the past fifty years. But was it Exxon’s job to make sure that Boulder didn’t remain ignorant? And if Boulder has now seen the light, why does it continue to demand Exxon products? We aren’t compelled to buy, but we still do.

Maybe Boulder views itself as an addict that isn’t responsible for its actions and needs a guardian to step in with some tough love. But this isn’t akin to being addicted to cigarettes. If cigarettes were banned worldwide, the human race would mostly benefit. If fossil fuels were banned, the world would quickly descend into a hellscape that would make the Walking Dead look like Disneyland. 

What about the moral conundrum here? Exxon does not put CO2 into the atmosphere. We do. We buy these products (oil, gasoline, natural gas) and we burn them. We put the CO2 into the atmosphere. Exxon produces oil because we pay $50, $80, $100 per barrel or more for it. If we stop demanding oil, companies will stop supplying it.

It’s hard to decide if we are ignorant or immorally greedy, but I suspect we are both. I’m disgusted by this, and you should be too. The Supreme Court should put a stop to it!

Bill Wright, bill@wwwright.com