How Did We Get Here?
Hon. Bernie Sanders / US Senate
(July 31, 2023) — Look around:
Over the last few days, nearly 2/3 of the population of the United States of America was living under either a flood warning, watch, or a heat advisory. Temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean are the highest ever recorded. Wildfires are ravaging parts of Greece. A typhoon has forced tens of thousands of people from their homes in Beijing. And July is on track to be the hottest month in recorded history.
Meanwhile, the latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is very clear and it is very foreboding. If the United States, China and the rest of the world do not act extremely aggressively in cutting carbon emissions, our planet will face enormous and irreversible damage.
Let me be clear about that last part: If the entire planet, led by the largest economies in the world — the United States of America and China — does not get its act together, the world that we will be leaving our children and future generations will be increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable.
What makes this issue so difficult and so complicated is that it is a crisis that no individual nation can solve alone for its own people. It is a global crisis. It is an issue that requires the cooperation of every nation on earth. Whether we like it or not, we are all in this together.
Just one example:
Despite the frightening impact of climate change on the United States, highly populated Asian countries are facing even worse challenges. Sea levels on China’s coastline are rising more quickly than the global average. Major cities like Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen are all located along the Chinese coast and could face catastrophic flooding in years to come – creating havoc with the entire Chinese economy. There are projections that Shanghai, a city of 24 million, could be underwater by the end of the century.
Now, the bad news is that developing a mutually beneficial relationship with China to save the future of this planet will not be easy. Sadly, there are “hawks” in both countries who are working hard to create a new cold war.
The good news is that we still have time — the United States, China and other countries around the world — to make the decision to act aggressively in combating climate change and prevent irreparable damage to our country and the planet.
While we must work diligently to foster international cooperation on climate change, we must also do something else. In the United States, and around the world, we must ask a very simple question.
How did we get here? How did we get to a place in time where the health and well-being of the entire planet, and the lives of billions of people, is under enormous threat?
And the answer is not complicated.
The truth is that the scientific community, for many decades, has made it crystal clear that climate change — and all the dangers it poses in terms of drought, floods, extreme weather disturbances, and disease — is the result of carbon emissions from the fossil fuel industry.
As far back as the late 1950s, over 60 years ago, physicist Edward Teller and other scientists were warning executives in the fossil fuel industry that carbon emissions were “contaminating the atmosphere” and causing a “greenhouse effect” that could eventually lead to temperature increases “sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York.” That’s what they were saying 60 years ago!
In 1975, Shell-backed research concluded that increasing atmospheric carbon concentrations could cause global temperature increases that would drive “major climatic climactic changes” and compared the dangers of burning fossil fuels to nuclear waste.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Exxon — now ExxonMobil — conducted extensive research on climate change that predicted current rising temperatures “correctly and skillfully.”
The fossil fuel companies knew.
They knew they were causing global warming and therefore threatening the very existence of the planet.
Yet, in pursuit of profit, fossil fuel executives not only refused to publicly acknowledge what they had learned but, year after year, lied about the existential threat that climate change posed for our planet.
So what happened to the CEOs who betrayed the American people and the global community? Were they fired from their jobs? Were they condemned by pundits on cable television and the editorial boards of major newspapers? Were they prosecuted? Did they go to jail for their crimes?
Nope. Not at all. Not a one of them. These CEOs got rich.
It’s obscene.
When a criminal walks into a store and shoots the clerk behind the counter, we make the moral judgment that this behavior is socially unacceptable, and that the gunman should be punished.
When a public official misuses and steals taxpayer money, we make the moral judgment that the embezzler should lose his job and, perhaps, be incarcerated.
Yet, when fossil fuel executives make calculated decisions that are life-threatening to millions of people — or to the planet — we are told that “it’s just business.”
No. That’s just not acceptable.
That is why, earlier this week, I sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to bring lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry for its longstanding and carefully coordinated campaign to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of massive profits. The letter was co-signed by Senators Merkley, Warren, and Markey.
Like the tobacco industry before them, the actions of ExxonMobil, Shell, and potentially other fossil fuel companies represent a clear violation of federal racketeering laws, truth in advertising laws, consumer protection laws, and potentially other laws — and the Department of Justice must act swiftly to hold them accountable for their unlawful actions.
More than 40 states and municipalities have filed lawsuits that seek to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for their illegal campaign of misinformation around the global crisis of climate change.
The Department of Justice must join the fight and work with partners at the Federal Trade Commission and other law enforcement agencies to file suits against all those who participated in the fossil fuel industry’s illegal conspiracy of lies and deception. The fossil fuel industry must begin to pay for the extraordinary damage they are causing.
Climate change is an existential threat to every person on earth. At every level, in every country, we must work aggressively to save the planet for our kids and future generations.
Let’s go forward together.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
THE LETTER
From: The United States Senaet
To: The Honorable Merrick Garland
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
Dear Attorney General Garland,
WASHINGTON, DC (July 31, 2023) — We write to strongly urge the Department of Justice to bring suits against the fossil fuel industry for its longstanding and carefully coordinated campaign to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of massive profits. The actions of ExxonMobil, Shell, and potentially other fossil fuel companies represent a clear violation of federal racketeering laws, truth in advertising laws, consumer protection laws, and potentially other laws, and the Department must act swiftly to hold them accountable for their unlawful actions.
The fossil fuel industry has had scientific evidence about the dangers of climate change and the role that burning fossil fuels play in increasing global temperatures for more than 50 years. As early as 1959, Edward Teller warned the American Petroleum Institute that carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels would raise global temperatures. In 1975, Shell-backed research concluded that increasing atmospheric carbon concentrations could cause global temperature increases that would drive “major climatic changes” and compared the dangers of burning fossil fuels to nuclear waste.1
Beginning in the late 1970s, Exxon—now ExxonMobil—conducted extensive research on climate change that predicted current rising temperatures “correctly and skillfully.”2
Despite these companies’ knowledge about climate change and the role their industry was playing in driving carbon emissions, they chose to participate in a decades-long, carefully coordinated campaign of misinformation to obfuscate climate science and convince the public that fossil fuels are not the primary driver of climate change.3 As stated in a lawsuit filed by the State of Minnesota, the fossil fuel industry “spent millions on advertising and public relations because they understood that an accurate understanding of climate change would affect their ability to continue to earn profits by conducting business as usual.”
To coordinate their illegal misinformation campaign, the fossil fuel industry funded a multimillion-dollar plan through the American Petroleum Institute that sought to make climate change a “non-issue.”5 According to this plan, “victory will be achieved” when “recognition of the uncertainties [in climate science] become part of the ‘conventional wisdom’”. Exxon, whose climate predictions from the 1970s have proved remarkably correct, was a primary contributor to this plan.
This type of misinformation campaign is not completely unprecedented. In 2006, a federal judge found the tobacco industry guilty of a decades-long campaign of lying about the dangers of smoking and pushing cigarettes to young people. The fossil fuel industry’s illegal misinformation campaign bears striking resemblance to that of the tobacco industry for a reason—both industries have used the same public relations firms and researchers since the 1950s.6 According to Sharon Eubanks, the United States’ lead prosecutor on that case:
“Big oil was engaged in exactly the same type of behavior that the tobacco companies engaged in and were found liable for fraud on a massive scale…the cover-up, the denial of the problem, the funding of scientists to question the science. The same pattern. And some of the same lawyers represent both tobacco and big oil.” 7
Like with Big Tobacco, the fossil fuel industry’s illegal, coordinated campaign of misinformation has proven tremendously profitable. From 1990 to 2019, the six largest private fossil fuel companies made $2.4 trillion in profits.8 In 2022, Exxon alone made $56 billion in profits—a record high for a western oil company.9 Shell reported record earnings of $39.9 billion.10 Chevron made a record $36.5 billion.11 BP made a record $27.7 billion.12 These profits have been made off the backs of people all around the world, especially frontline communities across the globe who have suffered and are suffering from the worst repercussions of climate change.
Thanks to the illegal lies of the fossil fuel industry, climate change is wreaking catastrophic damage upon the United States. Floods, droughts, extreme weather disturbances, and wildfires are causing unprecedented damage. Deloitte estimates that unchecked climate change, driven by the fossil fuel industry, could cost the United States $14.5 trillion over the next 50 years.13 These costs, and the costs of repairing our environment and transitioning away from fossil fuels, must not fall on American taxpayers. Instead, they must be borne by the parties responsible for driving climate change and lying about the negative impacts of their products. The polluters must pay.
More than 40 states and municipalities have filed lawsuits that seek to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for their illegal campaign of misinformation around the global crisis of climate change.14 The Department of Justice must join the fight and work with partners at the Federal Trade Commission and other law enforcement agencies to file suits against all those who participated in the fossil fuel industry’s illegal conspiracy of lies and deception under federal racketeering laws, truth in advertising laws, consumer protection laws, and any other applicable federal law. The future of our planet depends on it.
We look forward to meeting with you to discuss this issue as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Bernard Sanders,
Elizabeth Warren,
Jeffrey A. Merkley,
Edward J. Markey
