With regards to 1, I think these companies are the wrong ones to target. Oil companies are not the ones who are emitting CO2, they just bring the hydrocarbons to the surface and put it in containers. It's the big buyers of those containers that make the decision to burn the hydrocarbons. Targets of these lawsuits should be energy companies, trucking, shipping, flying, transporting companies.
As to 2 it certainly seems like a hard one, but not entirely without merit. Wouldn't it be negligence if you sell a product knowing that your customers are going to use that product to hurt the environment? It's not like a hazardous chemical where you can assume the buyer has processes in place to deal with the results. These companies did the research and they know their product negatively affects the environment when burned, they know the government is not enforcing any checks and balances and still they sell the product to customers who 100% are going to burn the product. In my opinion it's for sure the government and the customers themselves who bear the greatest blame, there's some negligence there.
I'm not sure why you're going back on your own argument in 3. I'm sure you could find people whose belief that their buying of oil doesn't affect the climate was cemented by the deceit of those companies. And if someone would start suing companies for negligent burning of hydrocarbons, I'm sure there would be CEO's that would happily point their fingers at the oil companies in accusation of deceit.
The trespass one seems ridiculous, I guess because a judge isn't supposed to let frivolous things affect their judgement it's a freebie to throw in?
Anyway, 2 and 3 seem to at least have some merit to my untrained eyes. Maybe it's more about sending a message than actually winning a lawsuit? If a judge takes the suit seriously and the oil companies are forced to publicly weasel out of these charges, wouldn't that be some sort of a win for the movement?
As to 2 it certainly seems like a hard one, but not entirely without merit. Wouldn't it be negligence if you sell a product knowing that your customers are going to use that product to hurt the environment? It's not like a hazardous chemical where you can assume the buyer has processes in place to deal with the results. These companies did the research and they know their product negatively affects the environment when burned, they know the government is not enforcing any checks and balances and still they sell the product to customers who 100% are going to burn the product. In my opinion it's for sure the government and the customers themselves who bear the greatest blame, there's some negligence there.
I'm not sure why you're going back on your own argument in 3. I'm sure you could find people whose belief that their buying of oil doesn't affect the climate was cemented by the deceit of those companies. And if someone would start suing companies for negligent burning of hydrocarbons, I'm sure there would be CEO's that would happily point their fingers at the oil companies in accusation of deceit.
The trespass one seems ridiculous, I guess because a judge isn't supposed to let frivolous things affect their judgement it's a freebie to throw in?
Anyway, 2 and 3 seem to at least have some merit to my untrained eyes. Maybe it's more about sending a message than actually winning a lawsuit? If a judge takes the suit seriously and the oil companies are forced to publicly weasel out of these charges, wouldn't that be some sort of a win for the movement?