When Scabs Are A Danger To Public Health

A dozen oil workers rally in front of the United Metro Energy (UMEC) terminal in Brooklyn on their 113th day on strike August 10. They’re fighting one of the largest suppliers of heating oil and motor fuels in New York. The strike began months prior, on April 19. After workers spent one of the hottest summers in decades on the picket line, the rally provided a much-needed morale boost. The workers were joined by dozens of supporters, including fellow Teamsters and some perhaps unexpected allies — four of New York City’s elected democratic socialists, all of whom campaigned for the drastic reduction of fossil fuel use.

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Oil Industry Bigwigs Given Platform At COP26 Despite Organisers’ Claims

Representatives of major oil companies including BP will be speaking at COP26, despite reassurances from organisers that they wouldn’t be welcome, a programme from inside the venue reveals.

Last month, it was revealed that oil companies including BP were being excluded from official roles at COP26, with organisers casting doubt on the firms’ claimed ambitions to eliminate carbon emissions.

At the time, the exclusion was seen as a victory for environmental campaigners, who have long called for major polluters to be excluded from UN climate conferences.

However, a programme of events obtained by openDemocracy reveals that representatives of Big Oil have been allowed into the conference under the umbrella of a trade association that has a stall at the heart of COP26.

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The Dirty Dozen Documents Of Big Oil’s Secret Climate Knowledge

“Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes,” said ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy. “Did we join some of these ‘shadow groups’ to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing illegal about that.”

These are the words McCoy was caught saying on a secretly recorded video released by Unearthed, Greenpeace U.K.’s investigative journalism arm, and the British Channel 4 News this summer exposing how the oil giant and lobby groups such as the American Petroleum Institute seed doubt about climate change and undermine legislation to stop global warming.

These revelations quickly spurred calls for Congress to investigate Exxon’s and other fossil fuel companies’ efforts to obstruct climate action.

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For The First Time, Big Oil Is Held Liable For Climate Change

A Dutch court on Wednesday ruled Royal Dutch Shell must dramatically reduce its carbon emissions because of its contributions to climate change, the first time a fossil-fuel company has been held legally liable for its role in heating up the planet. The landmark decision could set a precedent for similar cases against oil, gas, and coal industries.

The Hague District Court ruled that the energy giant has a “duty of care” to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and that its current reduction plans are not concrete enough. According to the court’s judgment, the company must slash its emissions by 45 percent by 2030, from 2019 levels, to meet global climate goals under the Paris Agreement — a much higher reduction than Shell’s current aim of lowering its emissions 20 percent in that same amount of time.

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Could Baltimore’s Climate Change Suit Become A Supreme Court Test Case?

What began as a narrow jurisdictional question to be argued Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court in a climate change lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore could take on far greater implications if the high court agrees with major oil companies to expand its purview and consider whether federal, rather than state courts, are the appropriate venue for the city’s case and possibly a host of similar lawsuits. 

The high court initially agreed to hear a request by the oil and gas industry to review a ruling by the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in which the court affirmed a federal district judge’s decision to allow Baltimore’s lawsuit to be tried in state, rather than federal, court based on a single jurisdiction rule.  

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Scheer Intelligence: How Big Oil Weaponized The Judicial System

Steve Donziger has dedicated the latter part of his life to fighting oil companies’ greedy destruction of indigenous lands and peoples in the Amazon. After a decades-long legal battle against Chevron, which Chris Hedges details in a recent column for Scheerpost, Donziger was charged with misdemeanor civil contempt for refusing New York Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s orders to turn over to Chevron his client communications—which would force him to violate attorney-client privilege— his personal electronics, his passport and to cease trying to collect the $9.5 billion from Chevron for his Indigenous clients.

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