We and a growing number of lawmakers are proposing legislation to ensure that the companies that helped drive the climate crisis help pay their fair share of the ensuing damage.
It’s hard to make someone pay after the fact.
And in that case, only the lawyers win. Remember there was a will that was battled for 190 years, iirc, in England and when it was settled, there wasn’t anything left for the claimants.
Usually people cannot be prosecuted of things that were not crimes when they commited the thing.
Good luck but I don’t see how you do this equitably. How do you definitively pin a weather event on global warming, decide on a contribution by fossil fuel provider but only for one you’re suing, and make it through the legal process to recover any appreciable amount?
I would rather see escrow/cleanup/penalties as consequences tied directly to emissions/pollution but that’s now political so I guess whatever we can do
Some ecosystems were never good places to build homes, too. Once-in-250-year floodplains are still floodplains.
Yesterday there was a thread here on Lemmy where everyone was complaining that California wouldn’t let them rebuild in a fire zone. That’s easy to say it’s a bad idea until it’s your home
Yes, and The Netherlands would like a word about floodplains.
The oil companies should pay for the damage they did heating homes at our request?
They should have to pay for the decades of lies that lead to this problem.
No, the oil companies should pay for the damages they helped cover up