Posted on 05/29/2025 5:33:22 PM PDT by artichokegrower
She probably knows that, but is really seeking an out of court settlement from the oil companies. Under no circumstances should they settle.
saying they contributed to an extraordinarily hot day that led to her mother’s fatal hyperthermia.
= =
Was the mother wearing clothes?
That will make her hot.
Clothes are the real problem.
Reporting on this lawsuit indicates it’s being pushed by a pair of activist groups with ties to major left-wing funding sources, Public Citizen and the Center for Climate Integrity (the latter, ironically, funded by the Rockefellers of Standard Oil fame, who have been playing both sides of this issue for some time):
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https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2025/05/29/climate-wrongful-death-lawsuit/
. . .“Why shouldn’t we hold someone legally accountable for this kind of behavior?” Public Citizen’s Climate Program Director David Arkush told the New York Times, which was the first outlet to report on the lawsuit. “There would be no question that we would hold them accountable if they caused other types of deaths. This is no different. They foresaw this, they did it anyway, and they hurt people.”
Misti Leon, Julie’s daughter, told the New York Times that learning of the fossil fuel industry’s climate lies felt like “a punch to the gut.”
“My reaction was shock and disbelief,” she said. “It actually felt more personal.”
Ten U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and dozens of local governments have taken Big Oil companies to court to make them pay for their climate deception. But Leon’s case is the first that seeks to hold them accountable for an individual climate victim’s death.
“Big Oil’s victims deserve accountability,” said CCI President Richard Wiles. “This is an industry that is causing and accelerating climate conditions that kill people. They’ve known it for 50 years, and at some point they must be held accountable.”
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https://www.citizen.org/about/person/david-arkush/
David Arkush (he/him) is the director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. He is an expert on the climate crisis, financial regulation, regulatory law and policy, and consumer and worker protection. He has broad experience building coalitions and advocating for the public interest, having lobbied extensively before Congress and regulatory agencies and litigated complex cases in the federal courts. He was recently instrumental in developing within the U.S. Climate Action Network a comprehensive, widely supported platform of strong, equitable climate policies, the Vision for Equitable Climate Action.
Before running the Climate Program, David spent five years directing Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, where he led strategic research and advocacy campaigns and played key roles in the passage of laws including the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. A TIME magazine profile of David notes that he has “advocated for consumer protection, advised breaking up the largest, too-big-to-fail banks and addressed other industry-structure issues, while investigating the financial sector’s myriad ties to the government.”
David has also taught Administrative Law and Legislation at the University of Richmond School of Law. He graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, where he served as managing editor of the Harvard Civil Rights—Civil Liberties Law Review, and with honors from Washington University in St. Louis, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Media Appearances:
David has appeared on CNN, CBS, ABC, CNBC, NPR and Fox News Channel, and been published in or quoted by publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, HuffPost, the Chicago Tribune, TIME, Bloomberg, POLITICO, Roll Call and The Hill.
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https://keywiki.org/David_Arkush
David Arkush
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David Arkush works for Public Citizen as director of the Congress Watch division of Public Citizen.[1]
Attendee at Obama’s 2009 ‘Regulatory Reform’ Discussion
David Arkush was an invited guest for remarks made by Barack Obama on June 17, 2009 regarding “regulatory reform”.[2]
External links
Public Citizen website
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https://keywiki.org/Public_Citizen
Public Citizen
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Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization founded in 1971. Its mission is to “represent consumer interests in Congress, the executive branch and the courts.” Public Citizen initiated the Declaration for American Democracy.
It is a member of the Moving Ideas Network. . .
Proteus Fund
Public Citizen is a grant recipient of the Proteus Fund.[10]
Board of Directors
Members of the Public Citizen Foundation board:
Robert Fellmeth, Chair
Jim Bildner
Mark A. Chavez
Joan Claybrook
Liz Figueroa
Jim Hightower
Steve Skrovan
Sidney M. Wolfe, MD
Members of the Public Citizen, Inc.:
Jason B. Adkins, Chair
Joan Claybrook
David Halperin
Joy Howell
Adolph Reed, Jr.
John Richard
Sidney M. Wolfe, MD
Experts
Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
David Arkush, director of the Congress Watch division of Public Citizen
Craig Holman, PhD, legislative representative for Public Citizen, serving as the organization’s Capitol Hill lobbyist on ethics, lobbying and campaign finance rules
Taylor Lincoln, research director of the Congress Watch division of Public Citizen
Angela Canterbury, Director of Advocacy for the Congress Watch division of Public Citizen
Sidney M. Wolfe, MD, founder and director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group
Peter Lurie, MD, MPH, deputy director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen
Annette Ramirez de Arellano, DrPH, researcher at the Health Research Group at Public Citizen
Tyson Slocum, director of the Energy Program at Public Citizen
Lori M. Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch division since 1995
Bill Holland, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch division
Todd Tucker is the research director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch division
Allison Zieve is the director for the Litigation Group at Public Citizen
Greg Beck is an attorney for the Litigation Group at Public Citizen
Deepak Gupta is an attorney for Litigation Group at Public Citizen and directs the Group’s Consumer Justice Project
Michael Kirkpatrick is a senior attorney for the Litigation Group at Public Citizen
Paul Alan Levy, senior attorney for the Litigation Group at Public Citizen
Scott Nelson, senior attorney for the Litigation Group at Public Citizen
Adina Rosenbaum, attorney for the Litigation Group at Public Citizen and directs the Group’s Freedom of Information Clearinghouse.
Tom “Smitty” Smith, state director of Public Citizen’s Texas Office since 1985.[11]
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https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/proteus-fund/
The Proteus Fund is a center-left “pass-through” funder and donor-advised fund provider. Since the Fund’s creation in 1995, Proteus has routed hundreds of millions of dollars from major grantmaking foundations and anonymous donors on the Left to activist groups targeting issues including legalizing same-sex marriage, reducing religious freedom to dissent policies on gay rights and abortion, abolishing capital punishment, reducing military spending, and promoting liberal campaign finance policies.
The Proteus Fund moves money through a number of “donor collaboratives” (donor-advised funds) funded by major grantmaking foundations. Through these “collaboratives,” Proteus coordinates the efforts of state, local, and national activist groups so that their efforts are not needlessly duplicated. These funds and collaboratives vet the activist groups to ensure that they are effective and that they stay on message. These “collaboratives” and donor-advised funds include the Piper Fund, the Civil Marriage Collaborative, the Rights, Faith and Democracy Collaborative, the Themis Fund, the Security and Rights Collaborative, and the Colombe Foundation.
Proteus has also developed strategies for persuading voters to tip the scale of public opinion in specific states and localities. They use research (such as polling and message testing and advertising) to persuade swing voters to gain majorities for left-of-center policies in referendums and elections. Proteus Fund documented both strategies in Hearts and Minds: The Untold Story of How Philanthropy and the Civil Marriage Collaborative Helped America Embrace Marriage Equality. 1
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https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/center-for-climate-integrity-cci/
The Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) is a left-of-center environmentalist organization that advocates in support of left-of-center policy aimed at addressing climate change. CCI has claimed that the world has less than 15 years before facing consequences of “existential proportions” related to climate change and has estimated that the United States will have to invest hundreds of billions to build 50,000 miles of 30- to 60-foot seawalls to prevent cataclysmic flooding. 1 2 2 CCI is funded by English billionaire Christopher Hohn through his Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. 3
CCI president and environmental activist Richard Wiles operates several affiliated groups that seek to punish oil companies for supposedly creating climate change and working against the passage of left-of-center environmentalist legislation. One of these sites, the Climate Docket (formerly Climate Liability News), has been described as a “dark money news” outlet. 3 Wiles describes climate change as “the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced” and has attributed natural disasters including Hurricane Harvey, California’s wildfires, record snowfall, and record heat to man-made climate change. Wiles has claimed that the damage from 16 natural disasters in 2017 was exacerbated by conventional energy emissions and climate change, advocating for the complete abandonment of conventional energy sources. 4
Data produced by the CCI was used as foundational evidence to convince 60 U.S. Representatives to oppose language in COVID-19 legislation that sought to grant oil companies immunity from prosecution on issues related to climate change. 5
Advocacy Reports
Center for Climate Integrity made its advocacy debut after publishing two reports that garnered great attention: the “High Tide Tax” and the “Smoking Gun.” In June 2019, CCI and Resilient Analytics published “HIGH TIDE TAX: The Price to Protect Coastal Communities from Rising Seas.” Written primarily by Richard Wiles and CCI scientist Sverre LeRoy, the 27-page study’s conservative estimates predict that sea level rise will require building 50,000 miles of seawalls in 22 states that will cost $400 billion by 2040. Florida alone would face a cost of $76 billion. 1 The authors suggest that fortification costs should be funded by massive taxes on conventional energy companies, claiming that they caused the problem of sea level rise through climate change. 8
The study was funded by left-leaning climate change activist institutions, including the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Tortuga Fund, Patagonia, and the MacArthur Foundation. 9 Critics have accused “High Tide Tax” of being a “masquerade” produced by attorneys for the sole purpose of laying the foundations for litigation against oil companies. 10. . .
CCI’s ultimate goal is to pursue litigation against conventional energy companies to receive alleged “damages” for climate change in order to fund environmentalist projects. CCI lists BP, Chevron, Exxon, Shell, and ConocoPhillips amongst the responsible parties for climate change threats like heatwaves, wildfire, flooding, and other extreme weather events. The lawsuits seek billions of damages from each company and claim that the companies engaged in decades of disinformation about the reality of the dangers of climate change. 18 Richard Wiles has argued that the suits will have great impact, as previous litigation advanced same-sex marriage, civil rights, and tobacco and opioid restrictions. Wiles has argued that establishing legal precedents in places like Honolulu will lead to legislative success against fossil fuel companies in establishing left-of-center environmentalist policies at the federal level. 19
CCI has tried and failed to generate lawsuits in Fort Lauderdale, Oakland, San Francisco, and New York. 15 20 Despite its initial failures, CCI has successfully pushed for litigation in Rhode Island, Baltimore, Boulder, Seattle, and Honolulu. 21 22 23
Funding
The Rockefeller Family Fund and Rockefeller Brothers Fund are funders of Center for Climate Integrity. The two foundations have also financed the #ExxonKnew publications and climate lawsuits. 24 The Rockefeller Family Fund provided the $1 million grant used to launch CCI in 2017. 25
From 2020-2021, the Rockefeller Family Fund reported granting $4,800,000 to the Center for Climate Integrity.26
Christopher Hohn, a British national, has financed Center for Climate Integrity through his Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). Hohn provided $7 million to CCI, and $9 million more to other left-of-center climate activist groups, through the Foundation in order to support legal action against conventional energy companies for causing climate change. 27 Hohn’s other activities include supporting the radical Extinction Rebellion (XR), which rallies protests against American interests for supporting conventional energy sources. Critics have labeled XR a cult, and its founder believes humankind faces extinction. 28 . . .
Facepalm alert.
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