By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
What Happened: Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court told Exxon it couldn’t hide evidence it knew about global climate change (and its role in producing it) for years before they admitted it.
- The ruling crushed Exxon’s hopes of keeping the information from the state’s attorney general, Maura Healey, who is currently investigating the company’s alleged history of climate perfidy.
- As Think Progress notes, “In January 2017, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge ruled Exxon must comply with Healey’s investigation and turn over 40 years of documents on climate change. Exxon appealed.
SolarWakeup’s View: When you’re getting sympathy cards from Phillip Morris International and Reynolds American, you know you’ve suffered a pretty significant court loss.
Until yesterday, U.S. cigarette manufacturers had been the most famous corporations to be held responsible for suppressing evidence that its products were literally killing people. And while the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision to require Exxon to turn over more than 40 years of documents related to their understanding of climate change and its products’ roles in exacerbating it doesn’t absolutely mark Exxon as guilty of gross negligence and malfeasance, it’s not a stretch to think the documents they’ve fought for more than a year to keep secret will.
I’ll let Think Progress do the heavy lifting here:
…the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Friday affirmed a lower court’s ruling that state Attorney General Maura Healey has authority to investigate Exxon. The court ordered the oil company to hand over documents to the attorney general’s office as part of her investigation into the company’s history of climate deception.
Healey and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are both looking into whether Exxon misled shareholders about the risks that climate change posed to the company’s business.
I recognize it’s hard to stay focused on something like this with everything else that’s going on in our world, but it’s hard to underestimate its importance not just to the solar industry – although the significance there can’t be undersold either – but to the world.
I don’t expect Exxon to pay any significant consequences, but maybe if Healey and Schneiderman can find evidence that the oil companies have known about climate change for 40 years, maybe I can stop having discussions with some of my relatives who still believe climate change is a Chinese hoax. And then maybe – just maybe – we can finally set about the business of fixing the problem instead of debating whether it’s real.
And I know the solar industry is ready to help.
More:
Massachusetts court rules in favor of attorney general in Exxon climate change case