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Climate Change and Corporate Litigation Anxiety
by dingo Friday, Oct 13 2006, 10:05pm
national / environment / commentary

A recent news item on NPR this week -- legal action against the automotive industry in the USA for its complicity in global warming -- has let the ‘bull’ out of the bag; the ‘cat’ has bolted; the unmentionable has finally been plainly stated! Nothing occurs in a vacuum and climate change is no exception. Liable groups/parties/corporations continue to lobby governments and manipulate public opinion in their efforts to minimise any litigation arising from their complicity in poisoning our planet. Present reality dictates that the future tenability of numerous species, including humans is under threat; nevertheless, profits and economic factors remain the primary consideration for leaders of industry and governments. [This criminally perverse view will ironically prove to be the most expensive error of judgement in human history.]

BANKSY -- sweeper

Evading the issue and distracting the public remains the preferred tactic of the Corporations and other offenders. Policy-dictating Transnational Corporations and their representatives – western capitalist governments – continue to talk of ‘financial incentives’ as a solution to curb major polluters! “Carbon taxes” and other absurd ‘solutions’ are offered as gestures of concern while the poisoners continue to wreak havoc and destruction on the planet.

A numbed public remains semi-comatose while Rome burns. A future indicator of food scarcity is the $13/kilo banana price in Australia (abnormal storm activity destroyed plantation areas). The public’s reaction to an unnecessary price-hike is to go without rather than apply pressure on a thoroughly incompetent government. The Howard government openly displays its lack of managerial skills and contempt for the average Australian consumer by not compensating for the lack of local produce. Australia is truly a nation of obedient, submissive, mindless galley slaves, bananas are $2/kilo in New Zealand!

Imagine the Howard government faced with a major crisis like diminishing water/food supplies resulting from (global warming induced) intractable drought? The servile Australian population would be forced to consume larger amounts of the national dish, Howard government bullshit, in order to survive! After ten years of feasting on this ‘delicacy’, the public is assured of its plentiful supply.

But to return to the issue of ‘financial incentives’ offered to criminally liable organisations; if we pause for a moment and attempt to concentrate on the REAL issue, SURVIVAL, we may actually be able to clearly see the correct order of priorities!

The initial strategy of the pollution industry was obfuscation, however, now that global warming is undeniable, the new strategy to avoid responsibility and litigation is INVERSION. The debate has been effectively inverted; financial penalties (massive class actions) as an obvious disincentive to pollute have been replaced by “financial incentives” – unbelievable! The tactic of reversing the issues in the debate is a stroke of genius or does it more accurately reflect the public’s diminished capacity to think clearly? Is a picture slowing forming in potassium (banana) deprived brains?

The answer to curtailing the actions of major polluters and SAVING THE PLANET is indeed financial but it lies in financial punitive measures, not in pandering to the purveyors of death and destruction. Everyone is affected by pollution, CLASS ACTIONS on a scale never before imagined and LITIGATION on a scale lawyers’ could only previously dream about are the obvious strategies to curb the polluters and save the planet!

Sue the bastards, or die!

COMMENTS

Economic Theory
by Huggsy Tuesday, Nov 7 2006, 11:27am

I think one of the problems is the economics of a guy called Coase; and his theorem for the correction of "externalities" by allocation of property rights, Coase is held in high regard in policy circles worldwide.

This is worth researching as economics is a major battleground in this fight.