Climate Murder? Media Picks Up Novel Legal Theory Suggesting Big Oil Is Homicidal
NICK POPE
CONTRIBUTOR
April 11, 2024
A new narrative is making its way through major media outlets about major oil corporations: climate change that they purportedly caused is taking lives, and they could be held liable for homicide.
In recent weeks, numerous outlets have run stories or opinion pieces promoting or otherwise examining the novel legal theory, which is the subject of a new paper published by the Harvard Environmental Law Review, according to a Tuesday E&E News report detailing the architects’ efforts to market their idea to prosecutors. The Boston Globe, The Guardian, Newsweek, Inside Climate News and other outlets have all recently published pieces promoting the idea that leading oil companies could or should be charged with murder for their role in climate change, which the theory’s architects claim has caused thousands of deaths in the U.S.
David Arkush, who runs Public Citizen’s climate program, and Donald Braman, a professor at George Washington University’s law school, articulated the theory in a March paper. Public Citizen is a left-of-center organization founded by failed Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader that, among other things, pressures American International Group (AIG) to stop providing insurance coverage for fossil fuel companies, according to its website and Influence Watch. (RELATED: Dems, Media Push New Study Linking Climate Change To Inflation, But Economists Aren’t Buying It)
https://dailycaller.com/2024/04/11/media-narrative-big-oil-climate-homicide-murder/