ronburgundy
Contributor
Our legal system constantly makes determinations of when people are lying, and in most cases actual lies don't matter so much as telling untruths that anyone acting in good faith would know are untrue. Sure, most cases, especially when they just stating broad opinions like "Climate Change is not happening" could not be adequately shown to be bad faith statements, but some more specific false claims about specific data could potentially be. I am not confident, the State could sufficiently support enough cases to make it at all effective. I am just arguing against the nonsense that in principle there should be no effort to prosecute companies that tell harmful lies.
It isn't directly about making an actual profit. If they were lousy businessmen and didn't manage to actually turn a profit, it wouldn't change to criminality of the act. The key is that they are presenting false information in order to alter people's consumption behaviors, and because the information is false, those behaviors cause harm to the consumers. The fact that the company is trying to profit from those consumer behaviors simply provides more than enough motive for the misinformation to have been deliberate or at at least willfully ignorant, which is a crime when it harms others.
What the oil companies are doing via climate denying is no different than company mislabeling a poisonous product as safe and edible. Just like climate deniers, technically all they are doing is engaging in speech. Do you think a company that sold your kid poison in the form of bubble gum should be able to get off without penalty, due to "free speech" arguments?
Again, profit-seeking speaks to intent and motive, plus it puts a responsibility on the seller to not only not lie, but to make a good faith effort to ensure that their claims are accurate. Lying about what you are selling is no different than lying about what your paying the seller with (i.e., using counterfeit money). Acting in good faith is a critical aspect of any long term viable economy, thus we have laws that require honesty and not making baseless claims. Yet we do not have laws that make lies in general illegal. It is a perfectly sensible distinction, and really a neccessary one for any kind of viable society.
BTW, an alternative to prosecuting it as a criminal act of harmful deception for which the companies are punished, is treating it as a civil case of the company failing to provide the promised goods (non-climate impacting fuel), and thus liable to refund all the money paid to them for those goods that were never delivered.
That also makes the issue of deliberate "lying" moot, because merely making untrue claims would be sufficient for liability.
knows I wish it did.