NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 4:15 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #97

throwawayjava wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... We…

I don't think people are surprised that it is fraud, just that there isn't a better way to prosecute it. If ExxonMobil's board hired a hitman to kill a competitor's CEO, I think people would hope that the response is to prosecute the board for murder and not merely for fraudulently claiming their company is valuable when they were actually relying on destabilizing their competitor. No one's defending the fraud, it ju…

[deleted]

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

#122

Post by ghouse » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 7:14 AM UTC

fromthestart wrote: post #105

ghouse wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is ridiculous. It's not ridiculous. I was taught about the carbon cycle, greenhouse gasses, and climate change in a United States public high school in 1993. 26 years ago. >Meanwhile let's ignore that society, globally, has advanced - technologically and socially - on the back of petroleum fuel. Sure, but society has provided massive subsidies (both direct and indirect) to carbon-based fuels. Had we not provide…

>It's not ridiculous. I was taught about the carbon cycle, greenhouse gasses, and climate change in a United States public high school in 1993. 26 years ago. Climate is a complex, chaotic system. Again, there was no certainty regarding warming without the decades of research, data gathering, and modeling that followed. Knowledge of the carbon cycle and greenhouse potential is not enough alone to prove that the planet…

> Much better off without fuel for local and global shipping and power generation and raw material for plastics?

No. That's an absurd characterization of my position. I do believe we're much better off when the market, absent direct and indirect subsidies, finds the most efficient solution. That _may_ mean less shipping, more efficient power generation (trading CapEx for OpEx), and more efficient use of plastics.

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

#123

Post by jeandejean » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 9:54 PM UTC

perfunctory wrote: post #73

jeandejean wrote: post #44

I'm super worried by these lawsuits. Instead of forcing the oil industry to invest in cleaner energies, to clean the atmosphere by for instance paying for planting massive amount of trees, or even to extract oil more sustainably... They want them to pay investors that were deceived by a fact everybody fucking knew for decades. Makes me feel we're doomed and incapable of focusing on real challenges.

> Instead of forcing the oil industry to ... It does not have to be "instead". Can be in addition to. These things are not mutually exclusive. NYAG does what they can in their power.

Very true!