California to investigate whether Exxon Mobil lied about climate-change risks

a reply to: infolurker

Don't worry, in earth history always have a warming period followed by an ice age that decimate anything in its path.

People are barking at the wrong clima problem, warming brings proliferation of life, ice is death and by historical accounts it hits faster than the warming trend freezing everything in its path as it stands.

Earth clima has become an inconvenient to human life, no the other way around.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Actually, I should point out to something - the HUGE lawsuit of the tobocco companies was never prosecuted. The filing of the lawsuit with the change of common law that said it was up to the state to prove that smoking was the CAUSE of a particular illness so that illness could be presumed instead of proven brought about the Master Settlement Agreement. The tobacco companies traded 25 billion dollars of other peoples money in exchange for government protection of their market share.

The common law was changed right back as soon as the settlement was reached.

The proof that the tobacco companies lied was not brought to court at all.

Tired of Control

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

First I've heard of this. Got any links to back that up?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The common law in question is this: If you want to sue a manufacturer in a claim that his product CAUSED your disease, you as the applicant must prove your assertion.

As of today's date, there is no actual proof that smoking CAUSES lung cancer. The only so-called proof comes from epidimiological study that claim to show that smokers get lung cancer more frequently than never-smokers. The only accepted use for this information is that it highlights an area of research that should be investigated further. Well, they have been investigating further. They have conducted scientific research since the 1950s (about 65 years of research) with the scientist who actually proves it getting the Nobel prize, no doubt.

The result: Nada, Zip, Zero

(I can prove this as well)

So the law had to be changed to facilitate tobacco litigation. So they changed the common law of the burden of proof from having to provide proof to using statistics as a substitute without even one person being used as an example


Tobacco Medicaid Litigation:
Snuffing Out the Rule of Law
www.cato.org...

Abrogation of Affirmative Defenses

In tort law, an affirmative defense is one that answers the plaintiff's allegations by stating, in effect, that even if the allegations are true, the defendant should prevail because the plaintiff has no legal claim. [25] To take an obvious example from criminal law, if a prosecutor contends that A murdered B, A might answer by asserting self-defense. Affirmative defenses include such claims as duress; statute of limitations; contributory negligence; and, most important to tobacco litigation, assumption of risk. In a nutshell, the assumption-of-risk doctrine, which until now has immunized the industry from liability, says, "If the user or consumer . . . is aware of the danger, and nevertheless proceeds unreasonably to make use of the product and is injured by it, he is barred from recovery." [26] Thus, under a traditional tort regime, if a consumer knows about the risks of smoking yet still smokes and thereby contracts a tobacco-related illness, he has no more claim against the tobacco manufacturer than would a nonsmoker who suffers the same illness caused by another agent. Florida may thereafter provide no assistance, some assistance, or complete assistance to the victim, but the amount of assistance has no effect on the responsibility of the tobacco manufacturer to the individual or to the state. [27]

That centuries-old rule of morality and law was revoked by the Florida Medicaid Third-Party Liability Act. Procedurally, the act lets the state circumvent the rules of subrogation and sue the industry directly. Substantively, because the act gives a direct claim to the state, which therefore no longer stands in the shoes of a Medicaid patient, the assumption-of-risk defense ordinarily available against the patient no longer makes sense. In justifying those changes, Florida officials attempted to square them with the traditional law by claiming that tobacco companies fraudulently misrepresented the risks of smoking, targeted underage customers with their ads, and concealed the addictive nature of cigarettes. Consequently, the story goes, smokers could not have made an informed judgment about the dangers inherent in smoking, so the assumption-of-risk defense is not applicable. In short, smokers cannot assume a risk they know nothing about. Let's see whether Florida's claims support that logic.

You can read the whole paper for yourself if you like.

So the Tobacco Companies, seeing the deck stacked against them, did the next best thing. They negotiated a settlement. They agreed to pay 246 billion to the participating states over the next 25 years and then in perituity. They argued that the settlement must include even non-existing tobacco companies, even if they were not be sued and that the states had to ensure that their market share did not fall below 1997 levels as a result of signing the agreement.

kac.org...

The original MSA agreement protected
participating tobacco companies, referred to as
“Participating Manufacturers,” from losing market
share to smaller, non-participating manufacturers
of tobacco products

Of course this also means protecting their market share against the black market.

As you can see, Kansas was sued by the Tobacco companies and won as it has against 18 other states.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Dang. I should have known it would be your standard "no one has proved that cigarettes cause cancer" conspiracy theory.

Kudos at posting information from the Cato Institute. THEY wouldn't be biased in the least... /sarc

Reading that mess of an article is tough. It's arguing that statistics aren't a reliable source of proving something and you need anecdotal evidence in addition to it or something, thus the state is picking on cigarette companies by trying to sue them.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

books.google.ca... 7VrNqMIteB3i8rpKQYYpF4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiM7dDwobvKAhXEnYMKHYM-CsIQ6AEIKzAC#v=onepage&q=tobacco%20litigation%20changed%20the%20law%20for%20you%22& f=false

This is a link to the Congressional senate record. I can't cut and past for you but on page 9588 in the first column, about 2/3 of the way down, with the Paragraph that starts "States legislators have evn changed the laws retroactively...."

Tire of Control Freaks

a reply to: Krazysh0t

And I keep asking you for proof that smoking causes lung cancer. Really Krazyshot, it must be lying really really close to hand. Its such common knowledge after all.

Why has it been so difficult for you to provide proof (not epidimiology and not statistics but the actual biological pathway) by which smoking causes cancer.

I wasn't the one who decided that anyone that didn't buy into the global warming theory was a denialist just like people who don't believe that smoking causes lung cancer. That was the people on your side of the debate.

If smoking CAUSES lung cancer why do so few smokers get lung cancer. According to epidimiology, only about 8 % of smokers get lung cancer and that would be after decades of smoking.

Why don't ALL smokers get lung cancer?

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: Krazysh0t

And I suppose the anti-smoking zealots wouldn't be biased either / sarc

Anyway - yes - litigation against Exxon is exactly the same type of law suit. It comes down to the state needs money, Exxon has money, the state wants it.

Really when RICO was pased, it was supposed to be used to break the back of organized crime only.

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: Krazysh0t

And I keep asking you for proof that smoking causes lung cancer. Really Krazyshot, it must be lying really really close to hand. Its such common knowledge after all.

Stop crying to me that I won't provide evidence for your pet conspiracy every time you enter a thread that I'm speaking in.

Why has it been so difficult for you to provide proof (not epidimiology and not statistics but the actual biological pathway) by which smoking causes cancer.

Because proving to a random smoker on the internet that refused to see the data in front of her that the link is controvertible isn't at the top of my todo lists.

I wasn't the one who decided that anyone that didn't buy into the global warming theory was a denialist just like people who don't believe that smoking causes lung cancer. That was the people on your side of the debate.

You get that label for denying science versus being skeptical of it.

If smoking CAUSES lung cancer why do so few smokers get lung cancer. According to epidimiology, only about 8 % of smokers get lung cancer and that would be after decades of smoking.

Why don't ALL smokers get lung cancer?

Tired of Control Freaks

Because cancer doesn't work that way.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

They are also using the same tactic in Canada

www.fctc.org...

Quebec governments have adopted a number of legal reforms that were designed to make it easier for consumers and citizens to challenge wealthy defendants. These include facilitating class action suits, in part by providing financial support for the costs of cases which are considered to be in the public interest. Lawyers may work on a contingency fee basis, receiving a percentage of any final award. The consequences of failure are less in Quebec than in other jurisdictions, as unsuccessful litigants do not have to pay all the legal costs of the winning side.

Because Quebec follows a civil law system, changes to law made by legislature have a greater influence on court rulings than in systems that give higher weight to legal precedents. Among the Quebec laws designed to support litigation against tobacco companies is the 2009 Quebec Tobacco-related Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act. This set the stage for the pending Quebec government suit, but also instructed the courts to consider statistical evidence as proof of causation in tobacco class action suits.

en.wikipedia.org...

For any two correlated events, A and B, the following relationships are possible:

A causes B; (direct causation)
B causes A; (reverse causation)
A and B are consequences of a common cause, but do not cause each other;
A causes B and B causes A (bidirectional or cyclic causation);
A causes C which causes B (indirect causation);
There is no connection between A and B; the correlation is a coincidence.
Thus there can be no conclusion made regarding the existence or the direction of a cause-and-effect relationship only from the fact that A and B are correlated. Determining whether there is an actual cause-and-effect relationship requires further investigation, even when the relationship between A and B is statistically significant, a large effect size is observed, or a large part of the variance is explained.

This is all true except when the state needs money!

Be careful Krazyshot - when a state is large enough to give you everything you want, it is also large enough to take everything you have.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

You know if you want to disprove the correlation between cigarettes and cancer, you need to produce evidence that causal relationship is more likely one of the other causal relationships you just listed.

In any case (because I'm tired of you talking about cigarettes), why do you have a problem with holding a company responsible for lying to its consumers?

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Basically what this comes all comes down to is that the Tobacco Companies were not successfully litigated because the evidence was presented and proved the case.

What this comes down to is this:

Because the state issures health care, the state can substitute itself in the place of someone harmed by a product, can then use statistics to prove causation, can change laws to remove legal precedents that provide defence against the accusation and prevail against a manufacture and take their money.

So I break my hip and state provides me with health care. The state then thinks to itself, everyone knows that a fall off a ladder causes some people to have a broken hip, therefore, I will sue the ladder makers for the cost of whatever percentage of broken hips I think might have been caused by a ladder or was contributed to by a previous fall from a ladder.

Hey payday: I not only collect the dollars for healthcare from the patient but I also collect money from a manufacturer of a product that may or may not have caused the injury!

In the Exxon case, the state wants to lay charges against Exxon for supposedly knowing about the theory of global warming and the risks of burning fossil fuels. This was common knowledge in the 1980s and in fact, was first publically proposed in the 1800s

Just what "crime" did Exxon commit? No reasonable person can think of one but the state is the state and will create or change the laws to make it a crime to speak against the state's position on any topic.

This accomplishes 2 things.

1. It effectively and efficiently shuts down debate. If the state can charge Exxon, they can charge any individual scientist.

2. It advertises to the world that the financial rape of the tobacco companies was just a start and not the end. Hundreds of years of legal precedants and common law are now open to change at the states will. the Court system is useless as only the state prevails.

Conclusion: It is therefore no longer possible to manufacture anything in the states. Better to manufacture outside the US state reach and export the product to the states.

There goes our justice system, manufacturing base and as I previously mentioned - without rule of law - individuals are not ssafe either when the state needs money

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Show me proof that Exxon lied?

Simply funding research is NOT proof of a lie even if that results of that research don't agree with the tenents of the global warming religion.

If anyone lied, it was the scientist who conducted the research. Exxon was merely relying on the scientist.

If the global warming theory as the main source of global warming is eventually disproved, is Al Gore or any politician going to stand up and say that they lied or are they going to say that they were mislead by some scientist?

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Oh please! Is it really so hard for you to contemplate that a company would lie or hide scientific evidence to protect their profits? Pharmaceutical companies get caught doing it all the time.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

If anyone lied, it was the scientist who conducted the research. Exxon was merely relying on the scientist.

That's sort of what this case is meant to determine. What did they know and when did they know it.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The real cause of lung cancer:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

Human papillomavirus
(HPV) are small non-enveloped DNA viruses that infect squamous epithelial cells.
Relevant studies have reported lung cancer-related HPV infection rates that fluctuate
between 10% and 80%, depending on the various research methods and geographical
factors. Various scholars gathered statistics from global research reports
and found that 22.4% of the patients with lung cancer presented with an HPV infection,
which suggested that HPV infection may relate to the tumorigenesis of nonsmall
cell lung cancer. This article will review the history and discovery of HPV, the
correlation between HPV and lung cancer development, and carcinogenesis caused
by HPV regulatory genes, such as p53, p21, p16INK4a, and genes related to hypermethylation
and genome instability in lung cancer patients with HPV infection. In
addition, because studies have highlighted the difference in clinical prognosis for
HPV-positive and HPV-negative patients, articles demonstrating the correlation
between HPV infection and prognosis for lung cancer patients will be reviewed.

What is that again????

between 10 and 80 % of lung cancers linked to HPV (in a field of study where HPV strains are still being identified and methods of detection are still being developed??????)

So Krazyshot - if HPV is finally pinpointed as the CAUSE of lung cancer, in exactly the same way it has been identified as the CAUSE of cervical and oralphangeal cancers.....

Does that mean that the denialists were RIGHT about the link between cancer and tobacco AND they they are also right to deny global warming theory????

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I agree - so the pharmaceutical companies are guilty that is proof that all companies are guilty.

Some people commit murder - therefore ALL people commit murder?

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Still talking about cigarettes huh? Well let me know when you want to talk about climate change and this exxon mobile thing again. I'm tired of talking about cigarettes with you.

a reply to: Phage

So some scientists give research results that support global warming - other scientists give other results - who do you believe?

With the might and magesty of the UN and the states of over 156 countries, why is everyone so worried about what Exxon is doing?

To me - this whole thing is proof that the state knows that the global warming theory is on shaky ground and is scared stiff!

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: Krazysh0t

I agree - so the pharmaceutical companies are guilty that is proof that all companies are guilty.

Some people commit murder - therefore ALL people commit murder?

Tired of Control Freaks

No one is calling anyone guilty. You go to court to determine guilt.