Lawsuits against fossil fuel industry

In 2005, I was the lead counsel on behalf of the US in one of the biggest corporate accountability legal actions ever filed. That trial proved that the tobacco industry knew it was selling and marketing a harmful product, that it had funded denial of public health science, and had used deceptive advertising and PR to protect assets instead of protecting consumers.

Today, the fossil fuel industry finds itself in the same precarious legal position as the tobacco industry did in the late 1990s. The behaviour and goals of the tobacco and petroleum industries are pretty similar – and there are many similarities in their liabilities.

Both industries lied to the public and regulators about what they knew about the harms of their products. Both lied about when they knew it. And like the tobacco industry while I was in public service, the deceptive advertising and PR of the fossil fuel industry is now under intense legal scrutiny.

And the tide is beginning to turn. More than 1,800 lawsuits have been filed over climate liability worldwide.

Full article (890 words): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/05/us-lawsuit-big-tobacco-big-oil-fossil-fuel-companies

How one city cut gun violence in half

Snippets from the article:

Omaha 360’s strategy is “collaboration, prevention, intervention, enforcement, reentry and support services,” said Willie Barney, CEO and founder of the Empowerment Network. Barney said the program began as a small initiative with seven people, some from the Empowerment Network and others working for the city.
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Now, places like Boston; Chicago; Kansas City, Missouri; Little Rock, Arkansas; Minneapolis and Tulsa, Oklahoma, are having early conversations about what a similar program might look like in their cities, Barney said.

How it works

Omaha 360 is focused on addressing immediate threats of gun violence as well as the underlying issues that contribute to it….

Lack of employment was a top issue among young people that the group spoke with, Barney said, especially during the summer months.

“The country is not facing one gun violence problem,” Abt said. “It’s facing at least four” — everyday community violence, domestic and intimate partner violence, mass shootings and suicide.

The police department also teaches deescalation tactics, a common move among law enforcement across the nation to try and defuse potentially violent situations.

“A significant portion of our sworn law enforcement officers are crisis intervention team-trained,” Gray said.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/omaha-nebraska-cut-gun-violence-half-become-model/story?id=96799185. About 1,700 words.

From the internet (2015)

I save interesting sayings that I find on the internet. Here are some from 2015 but which still make me laugh… or learn:

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(Still Drinking, http://www.stilldrinking.org/god-s-not-dead-a-film-student-s-review):

“Don’t try to be clever. Just tell the truth.” I am absolutely behind this extremely reusable piece of advice that works in any context outside of politics, job interviews, and first dates.

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An article in Ars Technica:

New neural implant reads a person’s intentions to control robotic arm

“Erik Sorto, 34, has been paralysed from the neck down for the past 13 years. However, thanks to a ground-breaking clinical trial, he has been able to smoothly drink a bottle of beer using a robotic arm controlled with a brain implant.”

And one of the comments:

I admire this man’s priorities.

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A Grand Master was talking to another GM at the chess club.

“I played an anonymous opponent online last night. He was good, I think it was God.”
The other GM replied, “God? Really? You think God plays anonymous chess online?”
“Yes, He was really good.”
“Maybe it was Carlsen, he’s played anonymously before.”
“No, He wasn’t that good.”

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QA Engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 0 beers. Orders 999999999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 beers. Orders a sfdeljknesv.

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Article title in The Register, 9/2015, which made me create an account there:

MAMMOTH MAMMOTH fossil find with BONUS BISON BONE BONANZA

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Karen Ravn (via Ad Astra):

Only as high as I reach can I grow,
only as far as I seek can I go.
Only as deep as I look can I see,
only as much as I dream can I be.

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Personally, I’ve been hearing all my life about the Serious Philosophical Issues posed by life extension, and my attitude has always been that I’m willing to grapple with those issues for as many centuries as it takes. – Patrick Hayden.

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I was not born with enough palms to place over my face.

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Not my circus, not my monkey.

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Perfectionism is a failure to optimize across a complex goal space.

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And when I had a boss who insisted on making everything far more complicated than it needed to be, I came up with this:

When all you have is a hammer with three heads, everything looks like three nails.

Good news: The world really is getting better (2022)

The Atlantic ran an article about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers Report. Some interesting bits:

Since 1990, poverty and hunger have declined dramatically while life spans have increased on every continent. According to the report, the share of global smokers has declined by about 20 percent; children are roughly 30 percent less likely to be malnourished or stunted; rates of tuberculosis have similarly declined by about one-third; maternal deaths per live births have declined by 40 percent; the prevalence of neglected tropical diseases such as dengue and leprosy has declined by roughly 70 percent; and the share of the global population with access to toilets and safe plumbing has increased by 100 percent….

These lifesaving programs cost a fraction of a rich nation’s GDP. From a utilitarian standpoint, they represent some of the greatest bargains on Earth….

In 1990, more than 8 percent of children died before their fifth birthday. But that figure fell to 3.6 percent in 2021….

Finally, for hundreds of years, economists and philosophers have worried that overpopulation would deplete the world’s resources and lead to mass starvation. But that hasn’t happened. Thanks to scientific breakthroughs such as the Green Revolution, the number of famine victims in the 2010s was lower than in any decade on record. In the 1870s—one of the most famous decades in the history of scientific and technological development—142 people per 100,000 died of famine globally. Today’s rate of famine deaths is about 99 percent lower than that of the late 1800s, despite the world’s population being roughly five times larger.

Article (about 1,070 words): https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/09/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-goalkeepers-report-poverty/671415/.

Download the 2022 report (52 page PDF): https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/downloads/2022-report/2022-goalkeepers-report_en.pdf.