Message From the Editor

This week came with a plethora of news for climate change lawsuits across the country. In breaking news, Multnomah County, Oregon is suing a line up of fossil fuel companies, associations, and consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

Despite a history of consulting for a long list of fossil fuel companies, this is the first time McKinsey & Company has been included as a defendant in a climate lawsuit. The list of other organizations being sued include ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Koch Industries, American Petroleum Institute, Western States Petroleum Association, and more.

The lawsuit will seek to hold fossil fuel companies and their “misinformation agents” accountable for the unprecedented 2021 heat dome that saw temperatures in the county reach 116º Fahrenheit.

Over in Montana, Investigative journalist Dana Drugmand has been following the youth climate trial that concluded on Tuesday of this week.

In her most recent article, she details how the state’s defense lacked climate science. The state canceled two of their expert witnesses, including Judith Curry who was set to testify, and the remaining witnesses repeatedly affirmed that they were not climate scientists.

The outlook of the trial is hopeful. “When you compare it with irrefutable evidence that plaintiffs put on through an entire week of testimony last week, I think the evidence speaks for itself,” says Mat dos Santos, an attorney with Our Children’s Trust, “We’re expecting to win this one.”

We also published a piece by activist Tolmeia Gregory, who sparked a viral response when she challenged a Shell executive at last year’s Cannes Lion festival. She discussed standing up to fossil fuel executives and asking the uncomfortable questions.

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Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

P.S. Investigative journalism like this is made possible by readers like you. Can you donate $10 or $20 right now to support more of this essential work?

Image credit: European Space Agency (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Oregon County Sues Fossil Fuel Entities and Enablers for Contributing to Deadly 2021 Heatwave

— By Dana Drugmand (4 min. read) —

Major fossil fuel entities and trade associations including Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Western States Petroleum Association, as well as consulting behemoth McKinsey & Company, were slapped with the latest climate liability lawsuit today with the filing of a complaint in the Oregon Circuit Court in Multnomah County, Oregon.

The northwestern Oregon county is the state’s most populous and includes the city of Portland. In this new lawsuit, it seeks to hold fossil fuel companies and their “misinformation agents” accountable for the unprecedented 2021 heat dome that saw temperatures in the county reach 116º Fahrenheit. Climate scientists and researchers in attribution science have determined that this extreme heat event would have been “virtually impossible” without anthropogenic climate change, which is driven primarily by burning fossil fuels.

Montana’s Narrow Defense in Youth Climate Trial Was Devoid of Climate Science

— By Dana Drugmand (5 min. read) —

The historic youth climate trial in Montana concluded today ahead of schedule, after the state presented a condensed defense on Monday that steered clear of disputing climate science. It also excluded testimony from witnesses it had previously planned to call upon, including a neuropsychologist who admitted she had no expertise on climate change’s mental health impacts on youth and climatologist-turned-climate-denier Judith Curry, who had been billed as the state’s star witness.

Curry’s withdrawal came unexpectedly on Friday. Phil Gregory, an attorney for the youth plaintiffs, informed Judge Kathy Seeley that Curry’s anticipated court appearance had been canceled. The precise reason for the cancellation is unclear, and the Montana attorney general’s office did not respond to DeSmog’s inquiry.

Confronting Big Oil at Cannes Lions: The Viral Moment That Exposed the Ad Industry’s Complicity in the Climate Crisis

— By Tolmeia Gregory (4 min. read) —

There is something uniquely intimidating about standing a few feet away from somebody working in a senior position in a company that is in part responsible for fueling the climate crisis that keeps you up at night, worried for your future.

Add a heatwave to this scenario, and the discomfort of feeling like an outsider amidst a crowd who’ve jetted in from across the globe creates the perfect cocktail for a panic attack — which is precisely what I experienced this time last year when I asked Dean Aragón, chief executive officer of Shell Brands, a disruptive question during an event at Cannes Lions 2022.

The Effort to Make Louisiana the Keeper of Carbon

— By Sara Sneath (6 min. read) —

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting a three-day listening session this week in Louisiana’s capital city to hear the public’s opinions on the state’s bid to take over permitting authority of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the fossil fuel industry’s preferred response to climate change.

While the EPA has already expressed its intent to give permitting authority to the state, those who testified on the first day of the three-day public hearing spoke to a deeper matter: Whether the state of Louisiana should continue to tie itself to fossil fuels.

As the Climate Warms, Use of Clean Energy Credits Comes Under Increased Scrutiny

— By Patrick Cooley (5 min. read) —

The two corporations investing billions to build three new factories just outside Columbus, Ohio, have said that the facilities will be carbon neutral — despite Ohio’s near-total reliance on electricity from fossil fuels. 

Both Honda and Intel have stated that renewable energy credits, or RECs — certificates purchased on a marketplace that fund clean power companies — will help them meet that goal. But so far those plans have received little scrutiny.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: McKinsey & Company

McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm headquartered in New York City. It was founded in 1926 and in 1990, McKinsey & Company established a think tank, called the McKinsey Global Institute, “to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving global economy.” McKinsey has publicly taken the threat of global climate change seriously but has advised at least 43% of the world’s top 100 largest carbon emitters, including BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Gazprom and Saudi Aramco. McKinsey & Company is a private company, and does not publicly report its revenues or net income.

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database and Koch Network Database.