37 Comments

Dark logic indeed. This seems to be the urban equivalent of the forest management issue. No forest management is required when you can blame every bad wildfire on climate change.

Expand full comment

It’s become the most ridiculous litany, a fire breaks out, due to poorly managed power lines and an over accumulation of underbrush in a stand of trees planted to replace a clear cut, well known causes of forest fires from far before the rise of climate religion, and everyone from your neighbor to CNN blames climate change.

Expand full comment

Meanwhile the government solution is to cut down the trees so they don’t catch on fire and replace nature with more lines powered by the energy it combusts. Talk about decline

Expand full comment
Feb 22Liked by Emmet Penney

This is SO good.

Expand full comment

"And, in such a state of affairs, the best among us would see no point in bringing to bear their greatest talents to serve the public, leaving government “without friends,” or with friends too few and too weak to succeed."

That is starting to happen. Not in energy but in professional services. Who is John Galt? is not just a rhetorical question from a philosophical novel about economic and social decay from the 1950s. It is a 21st century small but growing actual phenomenon.

This case is nothing but virtual signaling. There's no "there" there. Separating causation from deception to emissions to segregating defendant's emissions from State oil/gas companies around the world, then tying that to recent and projected future damage. This a "hail mary" for the TV cameras that flew the field and ended up in a court room for show.

Expand full comment

Blame Shifting is the newest and, perhaps, oldest craze….Socrates got it in the neck all those millennia ago.

Just wait until GAI gets into the Game.

Is there a genuine exit ramp for individual humans who just cannot face the onslaught? Or do we just have to watch, wonder and help where were can?

Genuine Question…not rhetoric.

Expand full comment

It’s part of a philosophy of “systemic” powerlessness that has overtaken a large part of the culture over the last century. It’s not just in civic duty or even the climate, but a broader proposition that we are at the mercy of “something else” - whether it’s the gods, the other person, the social system, or any other convenient scapegoat.

For some people, Americans have become Americants. It is undermining the power of individualism, entrepreneurialism and growth that once drove our prosperity.

One wonders who they will demand recompense from next, until they ultimately run out of scapegoats….

Expand full comment

Interesting and relevant view, but it is only one strand of the complex climate change activism that has surfaced over the last decade.

Expand full comment

Let me guess, the lawsuit also claims that climate and the oil companies are the reasons why construction on Chicago's expressways won't end until the heat death of the universe?

Expand full comment

Just one more lane bro, that will fix traffic for sure bro.

Expand full comment

Preach brother! The lack of accountability and willingness to tackle big problems and execute hard solutions will be the death of the West. Climatism is used to scapegoat failure across the entirety of our society.

Expand full comment

Shakedown to pad the budget as well

Expand full comment

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged comes to life. So many examples

Expand full comment

Spot on and instead of righteous humble governments eager for truth you get self righteous government who have no desire for truth but masquerade endless “plans” to please people knowing they will never implement them because in a few years time they will be gone.. without consequences..

self righteousness is pride, pride leads to deception and foolish weak decisions..

Expand full comment

California has cooked up a similar lawsuit.

Expand full comment

based on this, it could be that gasoline will become unavailable in Chicago as all the oil majors leave town

Expand full comment

That would be awesome. Even just a week where all the petrol stations in the city just close in protest would make such a huge impact.

Of course then they would sue for anticompetitive behavior or some other silly thing.

Expand full comment

yep, let them feel the consequences of their actions and they will have a much harder time making their asinine cases

Expand full comment

How cool if Atlas would shrug for just a month….

Expand full comment

maybe more like a shudder than a shrug, will be all that has to be done

Expand full comment

With the way the “legal system” works today, they just might win this case. Politics over law or the constitution anytime.

Expand full comment

I think the silver lining will have to be how ridiculous this looks to the average person. The screaming angry death cult versus the normies in suits in the courtroom will be plain for everyone to see.

At least the oil companies are starting to get some PR chops, but of course they had to wait for Alex Epstein to make a philosophical case for them. Maybe we need some nonsense like this to finally force the issue?

Expand full comment

Absolutely brilliant!

I agree 100%.

It's a rather grand attempt to push off Chicago's obvious infrastructure inadequacies on a 3rd-party. They say, "See, we could have fixed this stuff over the last 50+ years, if these oil companies weren't profiting from their products!"

Of course, this makes no sense, because those companies are contributing to the taxes collected by the city -- that didn't do what it was supposed to do.

It's just like New Orleans and Louisiana. They deliberately misappropriated the funds for repairing/strengthening the levees, and used it on tourism advertising for their buddies.

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/katrina_federal_money_for_louisiana_went_to_pork_not_levees/

Expand full comment

Maybe all the defendants will take these grifters long and bankrupt them further. Moron blue cities and prosecutors deflecting and projecting to prop up their tenuous power. Scammers all.

Expand full comment