Are Fossil Fuels the Next Cigarettes?
Summary
California is taking some of the world’s biggest energy companies, including Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, to court, accusing them of concealing the damage caused by fossil fuels on the state for more than half a century. “The diversity of claimants is growing apace,” said Paul Benson of ClientEarth, an environmental law organization in London, who led a lawsuit against Shell’s board this year alleging that the company wasn’t reining in carbon emissions fast enough. The decision, along with the Fed’s roundly optimistic economic forecasts, suggests that officials see a better chance of a “soft landing” for the economy, with higher rates neither crashing the labor market nor pushing the United States into a recession. Lawyers for the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange accused Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, two longtime Stanford law professors, of enriching themselves with money that their son, FTX’s founder, stole from customers. Learfield feared that bankruptcy would damage its reputation with colleges, and its chief executive, Cole Gahagan, pushed back against advisers’ suggestion that the company at least threaten a Chapter 11 filing to win concessions.