Peak World Articles

The Alaska Native village of Kivalina is bringing lawsuits against several oil, power, and coal companies. This isn't the first suit dealing with global warming, however it sounds like this is the first one where the party actually is incurring damage that can be linked to global warming. The ice normally protects their village from storms. But, now that the ice is not present as much of the season it is causing massive erosion for the village.

The village needs to be relocated. The costs of such a move is estimated to be around $400,000,000. So, they have definite damages and more and more scientific evidence to back them up. On the surface one might think they have a pretty good chance of winning this lawsuit.

I am certainly no lawyer but I have taken several business law classes several years ago. While my retention may not be that great from those classes I do remember and understand the importance of legal precedence. Therein lies the problem for this village. They are in uncharted territory here. So, they don't have many or perhaps any previous similar legal wins to cite in their case.

Follow up:

The problem is even worse because what judge would want to create a new legal precedence that would open the doors for potentially billions and billions of dollars in lawsuits? It is quite apparent as the global warming issue becomes worse and it will affect many more communities.

Judges just like anyone else can be influenced by political pressure. After all they have bills to pay themselves and don't want to loose their jobs. This issue would open major political and economic havoc. The energy companies have the politicians in their back pockets via their campaign contributions, so the politicians will figure out a way to make sure these suits aren't successful.

Unfortunately, the ones to be hurt the most by global warming will be poor communities and countries. Yet, the rich countries are the ones causing the problems. The US will not allow that can of legal worms to be opened.

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