NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

That's true, but it's very much biased towards the rich[1]. I think what the parent is trying to say is that the only reason this issue got legal action was because the rich were the primary victims. Had it been some other public issue that doesn't disproportionately affect the rich (eg. fracking/mining contaminating ground water), there wouldn't be similar action.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-richest-1-own-50-of-stock...

The State Dept is run by the executive branch.

Liars who make money on their lies are fraudsters, and fraud needs to have criminal repercussions

Yes, LOTS of people lie to make money. Yes, all those people are doing something wrong. And yes, that wrong thing is bad enough for society that we should punish it.

"Everything" is not fraud. Telling lies to make money is the definition of fraud. If you think that describes "everything" that happens in the economy... Well, stop telling lies.

And yes, lots of fraud is impossible to prove because the actors know the law. Patent trolling comes to mind.

And yes, lots of powerful people commit fraud throughout their career in impunity. Fraud is normal.

However, the normalcy of fraud and of getting away with deviancy does not make fraud acceptable.

I'm routinely astounded by how surprised people are to learn that telling lies to make money is illegal.

Tech in particular needs to do something about the fact fraud has reached meme status in our industry ('fake it till you make it').

>Exxon and other energy companies knew as long ago as 30 years that carbon emissions were becoming perilous to the planet.

This is ridiculous.

No one knew about climate change 30 years ago. A small number of scientists were aware of the possibility of climate change - it took some 30 years of research, heavily dependent on modeling capability which was only really unlocked in the last decade or so, to come to any sort of alarmist consensus, not to mention less than 30 years ago the consensus was one of global cooling.

Sure, in hindsight, it all seems obvious, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and we're talking about terraforming a planet on the scale of 100 years. You'd be crazy to believe in such a thing without some hard data to back that up.

Meanwhile let's ignore that society, globally, has advanced - technologically and socially - on the back of petroleum fuel. We all may be paying a price, but we are all partaking in the reward.

> So it's not that they've endangered the public, or maybe even the environment.

And they haven't. You did. (Plural You if that wasn't obvious.)