a group of Gulf Coast residents sought damages from more than 100 oil, coal and chemical companies for their alleged contributions to climate change, which the Mississippi plaintiffs alleged furthered property damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20110116/ISSUE01/301169986
There will never be a shortage of opportunists looking for a quick cash out.
The supremes spanked this, as is appropriate.
But we cannot be complacent. The Greedy will never cease to look for weakness.
This weekend, Australia’s Greens leader Bob Brown said that coal companies should pay for the damages caused by the Queensland floods. Australia’s federal government chastised him, saying that “now is not the time for pointing fingers.”
Unfortunately, the chastisement did not deal with the erroneous connection Brown made between burning coal and global warming but rather whiningly suggested that since the miners and mining companies had also been harmed by the floods that everyone should “pull together.” Resources Minister Ferguson said that the 40 percent MRRT tax that Brown wanted to tap into had already been allocated to other schemes.
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/no-time-for-finger-pointing-over-floods-greens-warned/story-e6frfku9-1225988908215
If private companies can be successfully sued for weather events, this country is truly finished.
Imagine them charging us a surcharge for good weather. Then it is truly finished.
They already do! It is the energy cost recovery because they have committed to use X amount of combustible material per week to get the best price. If you are in an area with wind you pay five times more for good weather or bad for that matter.
Completely unmentioned in that article was the very thing that could derail the two remaining nuisance lawsuits: both share the same lawyer I describe in my article from last November who has uncomfortable ties to an enviro-advocacy group, “Global Warming Nuisance Lawsuits Are Based on a Fatal Flaw” http://biggovernment.com/rcook/2010/11/27/global-warming-nuisance-lawsuits-are-based-on-a-fatal-flaw/