One thing California has always been famous for, in my mind, is its air pollution. When I think of California this is the image that comes to mind (that and this damn song by Notorious B.I.G.).
California sued six of the world’s largest automakers over global warming on Wednesday, charging that greenhouse gases from their vehicles have caused billions of dollars in damages.
[...]It comes less than a month after California lawmakers adopted the nation’s first global warming law mandating a cut in greenhouse gas emissions.
[...]The complaint, which an auto industry trade group called a “nuisance” suit, names General Motors Corp. [...], Ford Motor Co. [...], Toyota Motor Corp. [...], the U.S. arm of Germany’s DaimlerChrysler AG [...] and the North American units of Japan’s Honda Motor Co. [...] and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. [...].
[...]The lawsuit seeks monetary damages for past and ongoing contributions to global warming and asks that the companies be held liable for future monetary damages to California.
It said California is spending millions to deal with reduced snow pack, beach erosion, ozone pollution and the impact on endangered animals and fish.
The fact that an “auto industry trade group” calls this “a ‘nuisance’ suit” (nuisance, i.e., one that is annoying, unpleasant, or obnoxious) tells us it’s going to take a fuck of a lot more than one law suit in one state to get the auto industry to change its behavior.
Lacking in all of the articles related to this news is a critical dialogue of our culture and society, an analysis needed in order to get anything meaningful accomplished. One unspoken premise is that it’s okay to allow emissions at all as long as they’re below a certain level (a level, mind you, agreed upon by government officials and industry executives, so much as there is a difference).
This is a good move by the state of California to attempt to hold industry accountable for its actions — or rather, its inactions. The costs of industry pollution are pushed onto consumers and taxpayers not just literally through higher product prices, but also through the drain on resources required to clean up industrial pollution and the general costs of the consumption of finite resources.
It’s a good attempt, but I do not foresee any substantial changes being made in the near future.
Wow, great post. I’m sick of the fact that all the pressure to reduce greenhouse gasses is on citizens, when industry is the major culprit.
So long as they’re the ones in power, big business won’t be pointing the finger at themselves.
On days when the weather is just right, I can smell Staley’s here on the West side.
What’s good for business is good for us, right?