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WHY IS AMERICA LETTING THE OIL INDUSTRY DESTROY THE PLANET?  
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Thom Hartmann
March 22, 2024
The Hartmann Report
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_ The men who made the intentional decision to murder my father are
long dead; the men and women who today are plotting to render much of
our beautiful planet uninhabitable are very much with us… _

A pump jack drills oil crude from the Yates Oilfield in West
Texas’s Permian Basin, near Iraan, Texas, U.S., March 17, 2023. ,
REUTERS/Bing Guan

 

When my mom got pregnant with me in 1950, my dad, whose lifetime
ambition had been to be a history professor, decided to abandon the GI
Bill, drop out of college, and go to work in a steel plant in Grand
Rapids, Michigan to financially prepare for their new arrival. It was
hot, dirty work and the steel came out of the furnace over
asbestos-covered rollers, leaving Dad working in a cloud of the stuff.

In 2006, Dad was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an insanely painful and
ultimately 100% deadly disease. I tracked down a lawyer who did suits
on behalf of asbestos victims, and he showed up to depose Dad on
videotape along with more than a dozen asbestos industry lawyers,
several of whom were quite verbally abusive to Dad. They barely fit
into my parent’s small living room and left my father in tears.

After the lawyers’ fees, I think Mom ended up with around $135,000,
which was better than nothing, although the industry lawyers had filed
an appeal that forced him back to the hospital for a painful second
biopsy to “prove” he had mesothelioma. And then they
procrastinated so long that the money didn’t come until after he’d
died. These were Trump-style-relentless lawyers representing a
murderous industry that had known since the 1930s
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their product caused this exact disease.

EVERY SENIOR EXECUTIVE IN THE INDUSTRY FOR THE MORE-THAN-70 YEARS
BETWEEN THE TIME THEY DISCOVERED HOW DEADLY ASBESTOS WAS AND MY
DAD’S DEATH KNEW. AND PARTICIPATED IN THE COVER-UP.

Just like the executives in the tobacco industry, who have known with
certainty that they were peddling death and disease since the 1940s
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responsible for an estimated half-million American deaths every year,
including my younger brother Stan who died of COPD last year.

“Psychopath” is the only word
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adequately describes these executives, their decision-making
employees, and their hired-gun marketers who make millions
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poisons.

AND NOW COMES THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY, WITH A WHOLE NEW CROP OF
PSYCHOPATHIC EXECUTIVES, MARKETERS, AND ATTORNEYS. BURNING THEIR
PRODUCTS PRODUCES AIR POLLUTION THAT CAUSES
[[link removed]] ASTHMA,
CANCER, HEART DISEASE, AND STROKES; ACCORDING TO HARVARD’S T.H. CHAN
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, AN ESTIMATED 350,000
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DIE PREMATURELY EVERY YEAR BECAUSE OF THIS INDUSTRY’S PRODUCTS.

And that doesn’t scratch the surface of the death and destruction on
the horizon, as severe weather driven by global warming from fossil
fuel emissions kick in. Such events have cost America over $2
trillion
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more than 16,000 lives just since Ronald Reagan began denying the
science in 1980. Over 60,000 people died
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Europe just last year from a series of severe heatwaves.

A new study
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the international NGO _Global Witness
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could be 11.5 million excess deaths from global warming worldwide by
2100 just based on the emissions of five companies between now and 26
years from now: Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, and Chevron.

And now we learned that the industry, which has been publicly praising
the Paris Accords around reducing emissions and getting climate change
under control, have been lying to us again
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instead are — across the board — increasing their production of
their toxic products.

This and other analyses of the death and destruction wrought by the
fossil fuel industry’s carbon pollution have led a number of legal
experts to suggest that now may be the time to lay the foundation for
the prosecution of fossil fuel companies and their executives for
murder or, at the least, manslaughter.

THIS WOULD NOT BE A NEW OR NOVEL EVENT.

California utility PG&E was convicted of multiple manslaughter counts
and paid $3.5 million in fines when their decision to use money that
could have upgraded or buried their power lines — but instead went
to
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in bonuses and stock buy-backs for their senior executives — led to
the death of 85 people in the Camp Fire that consumed the town of
Paradise.

Similarly, when BP’s failure to properly use and maintain their
blowout preventers led to 11 deaths (and a massive oil spill) in the
Deepwater Horizon disaster, that company pleaded guilty to
manslaughter. BP and PG&E ultimately paid billions in fines and
compensation.

A NEW ANALYSIS PUBLISHED
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THE _HARVARD ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REVIEW_ (VOL. 48, NO. 1, 2024)
TITLED _CLIMATE HOMICIDE: PROSECUTING BIG OIL FOR CLIMATE
DEATHS _LAYS OUT THE CASE FOR HOLDING FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY EXECUTIVES
AND THEIR COMPANIES ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE DEATHS THEY ARE CAUSING AS YOU
READ THESE WORDS.

“For decades,” the authors write, “fossil fuel companies
(‘FFCs’) have known that their product causes ‘globally
catastrophic’ climate change. Rather than warn the public or alter
their business models, they waged a multi-decade disinformation
campaign to sow doubt and delay regulatory responses.

“Today, as experts continue developing and delivering ever more
detailed and precise warnings of climate catastrophe, and vast numbers
of people are killed at an accelerating rate by wildfires, floods,
droughts, heatwaves, and other climate-related calamities, FFCs
continue to expand the production, marketing, and sale of the products
they have long understood to cause mass death.

“Activists and journalists have called executives of major oil
companies ‘mass murderers,’ lamenting that ‘millions of human
beings will die so that they can have private planes and huge
mansions,’ and a growing chorus of communities devastated by FFCs’
lethal conduct have begun to demand accountability.”

THE AUTHORS ARE BLUNT, ARGUING THAT THESE EXECUTIVES AND THEIR
COMPANIES ARE KNOWINGLY COMPLICIT IN THE DEATHS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE
IN AMERICA AND AROUND THE WORLD, WITH THE NUMBERS STARTING TO EXPLODE
AS WE CROSS MULTIPLE CLIMATE TIPPING POINTS.

AND STILL, LIKE THE ASBESTOS AND TOBACCO EXECUTIVES OF THE LAST
CENTURY, INSTEAD OF MITIGATING THE HARMS OF THEIR PRODUCTS, THEY
INSTEAD FIGHT EVERY EFFORT AT TRANSPARENCY OR ACCOUNTABILITY.

“As additional evidence of FFCs’ knowledge of the lethal risks
they were generating surfaces through leaks and court-mandated
discovery, obstacles to a successful prosecution [for murder or
manslaughter] are falling away. At the same time, with every new wave
of climate-related deaths, the justification for prosecution grows.

“Although some of the harmful externalities that FFCs generate may
be suitable for tort or regulatory suits, the lethality of FFCs’
conduct, their awareness of the risks they are generating, and their
efforts to obscure those risks make criminal prosecution for homicide
particularly appropriate.

“Perhaps most importantly, if FFCs continue to fight against all
major efforts to reduce the harms they are generating, and if they
continue to obstruct or delay state and federal regulation and civil
suits designed to reduce the lethal impact of their conduct, then
homicide prosecutions may prove necessary to prevent the escalating
threat that their lethal conduct poses to millions of potential
victims in the United States.”

INDEED, AT A CONFERENCE IN HOUSTON THIS WEEK, SAUDI ARAMCO’S CEO,
AMIN NASSER, WAS EXPLICIT WITH A COMMENT
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DREW LOUD APPLAUSE FROM HIS OIL INDUSTRY AUDIENCE:

“We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas, and
instead invest in them adequately.”

SIMILARLY, _FORTUNE 
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REPORTED
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MONTH THAT THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY IS POSITIONING ITSELF TO BE THE
LARGEST DONOR TO THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN, HAVING ALREADY GIVEN HIM OVER $7
MILLION FOLLOWING HIS RECENT PROMISES TO “DRILL, BABY, DRILL” AND
TO END ALL SUBSIDIES FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLES AND SOLAR OR WIND POWER
PROJECTS.

And, in response to President Biden’s tightening emission standards,
the largest fossil fuel lobbying group has proudly announced
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“8-figure” advertising campaign called “Lights On
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Institute_ CEO Mike Sommers told _CNN_, “dismantle policy
threats” to the industry.

Commenting on it, _The Los Angeles Times 
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board
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emphatic:

“Californians should be wise enough to see this messaging for what
it is: The behavior of a threatened, greed-driven industry trying to
trick us into letting it hold onto its dirty and harmful old ways of
doing business.”

This denial of the crisis and doubling down on advertising and more
emissions is, of course, no solution.

IN PAST ARTICLES HERE ON 
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REPORT
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I’VE ARGUED FOR THE US GOVERNMENT TO NATIONALIZE THE THREE LARGEST
AMERICAN FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES BY PURCHASING THEIR STOCK IN THE
MARKETPLACE; THE TOTAL COST WOULD BE LESS THAN THE TRUMP TAX CUTS FOR
BILLIONAIRES, AND WITH NEW MANAGEMENT THE COMPANIES COULD HELP OUR
NATION’S TRANSITION AWAY FROM ITS ADDICTION TO OIL, COAL, AND
NATURAL GAS.

Today there are families all across the country who are mourning the
loss of their loved ones to climate-change-fueled floods, heatstroke,
and violent weather as much as I grieved my father’s death at the
hands of the asbestos industry executives.

They deserve justice, and the industry needs a wake-up call like the
asbestos industry got in the late 1990s, leading to a wave of
bankruptcies.

HOLDING MURDEROUS EXECUTIVES AND THEIR ROGUE COMPANIES BENT ON
PROFITING FROM UNNECESSARY DEATH AND DESTRUCTION IS IMPERATIVE. AS NEW
JERSEY ATTORNEY GENERAL MATTHEW PLATKIN NOTED
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FEW MONTHS AGO:

“Based on their own research, these companies understood decades ago
that their products were causing climate change and would have
devastating environmental impacts down the road.

“They went to great lengths to hide the truth and mislead the people
of New Jersey and the world. In short, these companies put their
profits ahead of our safety. It’s long overdue that the facts be
aired in a New Jersey court and the perpetrators of the disinformation
campaign pay for the harms they’ve caused.”

THE MEN (THEY WERE ALMOST CERTAINLY ALL MEN) WHO MADE THE INTENTIONAL
DECISION TO MURDER MY FATHER FOR PROFIT ARE LONG DEAD; THE MEN AND
WOMEN WHO TODAY ARE PLOTTING TO RENDER MUCH OF OUR BEAUTIFUL PLANET
UNINHABITABLE ARE VERY MUCH WITH US.

It’s beyond time to hold them accountable.

_Thom Hartmann is a NY Times bestselling author of 34 books in 17
languages & nation's #1 progressive radio host. Psychotherapist,
international relief worker. Politics, history, spirituality,
psychology, science, anthropology, pre-history, culture, and the
natural world._

* big oil
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* Climate Change
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* corporate profits
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