Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by marcus_holmes 2138 days ago
I'm struggling to see why this is a "Prominent Climate Lawyer" - this case is about pollution, not climate.

Not that I'm defending the fossil fuel industry. They've always played dirty with cleaning up their messes (see also the mining industry, who use the same dirty tactics).

I get that there's a connection because Big Oil. And Climate Justice, kinda. But this is a pollution lawsuit.

The danger is that if we only oppose pollution if it's also about climate, then we won't fight when it's "just" pollution. We need to hold their heads to the grinder for polluting the places they operate in, because the money needs to be spent cleaning those places up. Which is also a danger - if any wins from this get diverted into fighting climate change, then who pays to clean up this mess?.

Or maybe it's just a journalist trying to spice up a story. Again.

2 comments

When you use the word "pollution" what is that is being polluted. It's the climate and one of it's components. So it's totally reasonable to be both.

This is pretty insane mental gymnastics to say that a lawyer working on things related to pollution is not working on things related to the climate.

No, the climate is a specific thing. It's not affected by localised pollution. You can pour as much oil as you like into any given lake, river, jungle, desert and you're not going to affect the climate (unless you subsequently burn it, of course).

It is pretty insane mental gymnastics to say that everything related to pollution is also related to climate change. These are two separate Environmental concerns.

For most people, "climate" lawyer is synonymous with "pollution" lawyer.