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The Nuremberg trials, but for fossil fuel executives, politicians, lobbyists, & climate-change denying media experts

Sankara

Sankara

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May 19, 2019
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Bernie Sanders tweeted this and it was amazing to see a politician actually bringing this into the public:


twitter text: "Fossil fuel executives should be criminally prosecuted for the destruction they have knowingly caused. #GreenNewDeal"

Which made me think: the world society conducted the Nuremberg trials against the Nazi regime and their supporters for facilitating the genocide of the Jews and gypsies and romas and communists and socialists and queers. With climate change looming and billions of people, if not the entirety of humanity, facing death and extinction, shouldn't all those people in power who knowingly argued against any form of action against curbing climate change face some sort of punishment for the crimes against humanity they have committed? The future genocide that they have contributed to the last 40 years? Actors such as:

-The fossil fuel executives who have funneled money into misinformation campaigns and keep drilling oil, coal and gas despite knowing that it exacerbates climate change?
-The politicians who took money from the fossil fuel companies and legislated for more oil extraction?
-The lobbyists who dedicated their lives and money to sway politicians and public opinion to be in favor of the status quo?
-The climate change-denying "experts" who come on media to obfuscate and spread lies and doubt? People like Nigel Lawson and Bjorn Lomborg whose entire life has been obscuring any form of action against reducing the carbon footprint of the Western countries.

A lot of these people are rich and powerful and they have been deliberately sabotaging any form of political movement against the biggest threat to our existence since the nuclear arms race. Shouldn't they be held accountable for the crimes against humanity they've committed?
 
Lant_War

Lant_War

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Jul 14, 2018
17,926
Climate Change damages are going to be bigger than the Holocaust. They absolutely should be prosecuted.
 
Murfield

Murfield

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Oct 27, 2017
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There should be accountability but I wouldn't use that analogy.

Their crimes will stand on their own.
 
thediamondage

thediamondage

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Oct 25, 2017
6,973
should everyone who eats meat also get tried? What about everyone who buys a new phone every year? What if you use the internet more than 30 minutes a day? Or is it only people who profited more than a certain threshold?

Do the people of the Maldives, whose islands are going to get submerged by the ocean, have a better claim against people who drive more 30 miles a day than the 18 year old who is going to die early due his job being mining for the rare earth minerals used in everyones electronics?
 
WhoTurgled

WhoTurgled

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Oct 27, 2017
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thediamondage said:
should everyone who eats meat also get tried? What about everyone who buys a new phone every year? What if you use the internet more than 30 minutes a day? Or is it only people who profited more than a certain threshold? Do the people of the Maldives, whose islands are going to get submerged by the ocean, have a better claim against people who drive more 30 miles a day?
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these are very important questions!
 
WrenchNinja

WrenchNinja

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Oct 25, 2017
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thediamondage said:
should everyone who eats meat also get tried? What about everyone who buys a new phone every year? What if you use the internet more than 30 minutes a day? Or is it only people who profited more than a certain threshold?

Do the people of the Maldives, whose islands are going to get submerged by the ocean, have a better claim against people who drive more 30 miles a day than the 18 year old who is going to die early due his job being mining for the rare earth minerals used in everyones electronics?
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just asking questions right
 
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Sankara

Sankara

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DarthWalden said:
Don't forget to include the folks who drive vehicles and fly on airplanes.
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false equivalence. obviously someone driving a car isn't remotely the same as those who deliberately and intentionally sabotaged the climate change movements. Nor do they have any sort of political and economic power as the ones that I am talking about.

thediamondage said:
should everyone who eats meat also get tried? What about everyone who buys a new phone every year? What if you use the internet more than 30 minutes a day? Or is it only people who profited more than a certain threshold?

Do the people of the Maldives, whose islands are going to get submerged by the ocean, have a better claim against people who drive more 30 miles a day than the 18 year old who is going to die early due his job being mining for the rare earth minerals used in everyones electronics?
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that's exactly what the Nuremberg trials took into account - where the blame lies. Obviously the people I mentioned in the original post are some of the worst culprits with the political and economic power they hold compared to someone who just eats meat
 
Wetwork

Wetwork

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Oct 27, 2017
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Considering these companies hire scientists to push their narratives that argue against climate change science, lobby for policy that protects their profits st the sacrifice of our planet, and will be responsible for extinctions and damages worldwide, they definitely should be tried in a fair and just court worldwide.
 
Wyman Manderly

Wyman Manderly

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Oct 27, 2017
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thediamondage said:
should everyone who eats meat also get tried? What about everyone who buys a new phone every year? What if you use the internet more than 30 minutes a day? Or is it only people who profited more than a certain threshold?

Do the people of the Maldives, whose islands are going to get submerged by the ocean, have a better claim against people who drive more 30 miles a day than the 18 year old who is going to die early due his job being mining for the rare earth minerals used in everyones electronics?
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Let's start with the executives, lobbyists and politicians and work our way down.
 
dabig2

dabig2

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Oct 29, 2017
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thediamondage said:
should everyone who eats meat also get tried? What about everyone who buys a new phone every year? What if you use the internet more than 30 minutes a day? Or is it only people who profited more than a certain threshold? Do the people of the Maldives, whose islands are going to get submerged by the ocean, have a better claim against people who drive more 30 miles a day?
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I would start with this and go from there:

The biggest emitters
Although industrialization came late to China, it now emits more CO2 than any other country. Excluding emissions from international aviation and shipping, China was responsible for more than 29% of global CO2 emissions in 2016.

Interactive maps and charts from the Our World in Data website depict countries’ shares of global CO2 emissions.

As the chart below shows, China’s share of global CO2 emissions was almost double that of the US, the next-largest polluter. In 2016 the US accounted for more than 15% of the total, and India almost 7%. Together, these three economies generate more than half of the world’s CO2 emissions.
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With the exception of Russia, Japan and Germany, other countries each accounted for less than 2% of global emissions. Energy-rich nations like Canada, Saudi Arabia and Iran each generated between 1.6% and 1.9%, while the remaining countries’ shares were less than 1.5% each.
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My fellow Americans, we are the baddies. We've been the baddies for a long, long time now. When you take into account the time-lag effect of a carbon emitted till when it "impacts" the environment (10-20 years but much shorter for things like methane), then a majority of the manmade carbon that is floating up in the atmosphere since the Industrial age came from the good ol USA. So all the wildfires, the Arctic melting down, and all the tipping points we've crushed can be traced to FREEDOM.

It's our duty to accept the consequences of our actions and inactions. Try as you might to shift the blame to China and India, we've still contributed by far the most poison into our biosphere and we're still doing it at quite a clip. And that's all knowing that we have a problem already! We've known it since 1988, decades longer if you were an oil&gas executive!


But pointing fingers gets us nowhere. We're all trapped in the same biosphere. So if Brazil wants to continue burning our lungs, sanction them. If China doesn't slow their roll, sanction them. But don't think of Americans as pure innocent climate angels. It's long past time we've been sanctioned and suffer monetary costs for our own long long loooooong running sins.

Using our money and capital to help these other countries not destroy the environment is a nice start. Or we can just give the rich and corporations more tax breaks and immunity I guess. Worked out well so far for all of us, right?
 
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Ludovico

Ludovico

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Oct 25, 2017
250
This is a framing I can get behind.
I'm hoping we're reaching critical mass - too much bad news lately for people to just ignore what's happening.
Stop these bastards from gouging the earth, don't let them escape accountability for thier crimes against humanity.
 
Dust

Dust

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Oct 25, 2017
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There won’t be any trails when world is a Mad Max desert wasteland with oil warlords.
 
Gwenpoolshark

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The Nuremberg trial comparison is even more apt than just the scale of the criminal harm caused to society. These are crimes and harm that will force us to fundamentally rethink the concept of justice and criminal acts, in the same way that the Post-War era brought about a new concept of what war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide meant in the international legal context.

I don't think we really have an international justice system capable of comprehending or prosecuting the scope of what has been perpetuated. If we are to survive and move onto a just world, we will need to readjust.
 
Hey Please

Hey Please

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Oct 31, 2017
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It will happen, for some. But karma, like god, doesn't exist and so ensuring they pay their penance at large is mere fantasy.

Still, this is a good start.
 
a916

a916

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Oct 25, 2017
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I'd be all for it... it would never happen because it would open up a lot of other powerful lobby groups and really blow it wide open. I don't think there's enough people in power that care or want to even go after this unfortunately.
 
samoyed

samoyed

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Oct 26, 2017
14,694
If:

1) You didn't bury a climate change report in the 70s at the executive level of one of the largest oil companies in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_controversy

2) You didn't spend millions on climate change denial lobbying


3) You didn't spend millions on lobbying for meat subsidies



Then I am probably not going to bother sending you to Nuremberg. The actual lobbyists though, I'm open to either sending them to Nuremberg, putting them in jail, or just seizing all their assets.
 
19thCenturyFox

19thCenturyFox

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Oct 29, 2017
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An eye for an eye gets a worse reputation than it deserves. Shitstains like Trump/Epstein/the Koch brothers break laws all the time and they get slaps on their wrists, they are used to this, they don't fear consequences for good reason. They will settle out of court and pay fines, some go to celeb prison for a few months to "atone".

The thing is: When I think of the Nuremberg Trials I don't think about threats of fines or jailtime.

Unfortunately there were enought influential Nazis left after the Nuremberg Trials to infest several countries which sought out their expertise be it to put people on the moon or to build an intelligence community from the ground up in the beginning stages of the Cold War. Unfortunally we didn't have our priorities straight, maybe we'll do better next time.
 
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Sankara

Sankara

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19thCenturyFox said:
Unfortunately there were enought influential Nazis left after the Nuremberg Trials to infest several countries which sought out their expertise be it to put people on the moon or to build an intelligence community from the ground up in the beginning stages of the Cold War. Unfortunally we didn't have our priorities straight, maybe we'll do better next time.
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This is true and often forgotten.
 

Deleted member 32561

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Like, I fucking WISH.

But a lot of "normal" people just don't like holding others accountable for things they've done in the past that they never actually apologized for. Especially when it doesn't involve direct violence. I'd say, from a practical standpoint, better to focus on stopping them from their current crimes, and ensure history remembers them as villains.
 
Kthulhu

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Oct 25, 2017
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I know a lot of people here think this will never happen, but future generations probably aren't gonna be cool with the fact the people who messed up the climate are just chilling in retirement.
 
19thCenturyFox

19thCenturyFox

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Shodan14 said:
You are aware that the "Nuremberg defense" was specifically dismissed at the Nuremberg trials, right?
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I am aware. It's just that I can't stand for clearly very influential people who are usually boasting about their power and who are abusing said power unabashed to just claim one day, in unison no less, that they were just meaningless parts of a giant system, unaware of any crimes and just following orders, only seeing the big picture in retrospect.

No one will be insane enough to use that defense again, especially today.
 
Matt

Matt

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Oct 24, 2017
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That's...that's a really serious thing to propose.

There certainly have been laws broken by companies and individuals related to climate change, and they should be prosecuted.

But otherwise it would be ex post facto....
 
Clefargle

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There are far too many and they will mostly be dead before people get to this point. They’re gonna skate
 
RSTEIN

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LegendofJoe said:
The coming collapse of their industry will accomplish that.
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Energy is energy so management will move over to alternative energy. Hell, many of the largest renewable energy projects and companies are run by former fossil fuel executives. Field workers, contract drillers, oil field services, maintenance guys, well, they won't be so lucky.
 
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Sankara

Sankara

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Matt said:
That's...that's a really serious thing to propose.

There certainly have been laws broken by companies and individuals related to climate change, and they should be prosecuted.

But otherwise it would be ex post facto....
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The coming generations will live a very, very serious life, so serious proposals are on the table.
 

Deleted member 25600

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If I recall correctly, fossil fuel companies knew about climate change for decades and continued to proceed with business as usual with the knowledge they specifically were killing the planet.

So yeah, hang them high.

Edit; Also this -

 
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