One year ago, on this day, May 29th, 2025,
May 29 2025 case filed against Exxon etc by daughter of woman who died of hyperthermia in 2021 heat dome – https://climatecasechart.com/wp-content/uploads/case-documents/2025/20250529_docket-25-2-15986-8-SEA_complaint.pdf
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 427ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that from the late 70s, Exxon was well aware of the carbon dioxide threat, and had even helped oceanographers take samples of CO2 on their oil tankers, and had made many predictions and presentations for the C suite. But Exxon decided in the mid 1980s that it would change its stance on the reality of carbon dioxide build up, and it became one of the chief proponents and funders of outfits like the Global Climate Coalition, established in 1989 to resist both domestic US and international climate policy. And Exxon also funded various denialist groups, so much so that in 2006 the UK Royal Society had published an open letter asking them to knock it off.
Exxon was also instrumental in the Dubya Bush White House 2001 to 2008 especially with their apparatchik in the CEQ writing climate policy and spreading denial.
The specific context was that we’re now getting the long predicted weather anomalies, disasters sometimes happening much sooner than the scientists had thought, because, well, that’s nonlinear patterns for you. And what do you do when you’ve been hit by one of these well, you sue, if you can. You use court to try and do what the politics hasn’t been able to do.
What I think we can learn from this is that most court cases fail, but that doesn’t mean you don’t use it as one of your venues for seeking justice, I guess.
What happened next.
On April 9 this year –
Defendants’ motion to stay proceedings denied.
A trial court in Washington State denied fossil fuel industry defendants’ motion to stay proceedings pending the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court’s review of Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County. The Washington trial court found that the outcome of the Boulder proceedings was “far from certain,” including whether the Court would issue a substantive ruling and whether the Court would resolve the issues in this case. The court also found that a potentially 14-month stay could prejudice the plaintiff’s ability to conduct discovery, that the public interest weighed against the stay, and that potential prejudice to the defendants was mitigated by the fact that some documents had already been preserved and some discovery had already been conducted in other similar cases.
https://www.climatecasechart.com/collections/leon-v-exxon-mobil-corp_b93f
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
May 29, 1968 – UN body says “let’s have a conference, maybe?”-
May 29, 1969 – “A Chemist Thinks about the Future” #Keeling #KeelingCurve
May 29, 1989- “We will all be flooded” –
May 29, 1992- ANAO says it will look at DPIE’s energy management programme
May 29, 2007 “Climate Clever” ad campaign in attempt to save John Howard – All Our Yesterdays