EDITORIAL: Next, maybe Boulder should sue the sun
An old Colorado wisecrack targets Boulder’s superiority complex. “How do you know someone is from Boulder? They tell you.”
In a breathtaking display of hubris, Boulder and Boulder County politicians are suing ExxonMobil and Suncor, with the left-leaning Colorado Supreme Court allowing the suit to continue in a ruling issued Monday.
This lawsuit singles out the two energy providers for creating a public nuisance and violating consumer protection laws by — gasp — producing fossil fuels that power nearly all human activity. Let’s unpack the greed, arrogance and hypocrisy of this sanctimonious legal tantrum, as the city guzzles energy like tech bros chugging kombucha.
Boulder’s per capita carbon footprint, estimated at 10–13 metric tons of CO2 equivalent, dwarfs the global average of 4.7 metric tons. While Boulder politicians adulate themselves for solar panels and bike lanes, the city’s non-student residents consume up to 20,833 kilowatt hours annually. That compares to Mexicans, who consume 13% of that amount, and Africans, who consume 0.48% of the average Boulder resident.
This affluent enclave, with a median home price of $1.1 million, burns through absurd amounts of coal- and gas-powered electricity while preaching climate purity. It’s like a vegan in leather Birkenstocks lecturing a butcher.
The greed-driven lawsuit includes a demand for hundreds of millions in damages to fund responses to wildfires and floods Boulder blames on climate change.
Boulder politicians want ExxonMobil and Suncor — which pass all costs to consumers — to foot the bill for alleged climate impacts, conveniently ignoring that its residents fly to Aspen in private jets while heating and cooling McMansions. It’s as if they’re suing the sun for melanoma, claiming solar rays are a “public nuisance” without a warning label.
The arrogance is staggering. Boulder, importing 96.63% of its electricity from the grid (58.5% gas/coal), dares to demonize the companies they willfully do business with. Suncor’s Commerce City refinery and ExxonMobil’s products fuel Boulder’s delivery trucks, ambulances, Amazon vans, and nearly every home, business and government office in town.
The city’s high cost of living, caused by decades of exclusionary zoning and growth limitations (let’s keep minorities and the poor at bay) forces nearly all teachers, firefighters, cops, service personnel, nurses, physicians and hourly wage earners of all kinds to live in distant communities from which they commute with fossil fuels.
Without fossil fuels, Boulder’s economy would collapse faster than a gluten-free soufflé. Yet, the city casts itself as a climate martyr, suing producers while consuming their products like a glutton swallows jelly rolls. Next, maybe these politicians will sue Starbucks for caffeine addiction or their own lungs for emitting CO2.
The hypocrisy is rich. Boulder’s lawsuit alleges ExxonMobil and Suncor misled the public about climate risks, yet the city’s high energy consumption — 1.38-million-megawatt hours’ worth imported annually — contributes disproportionately to the concern they decry.
If Boulder politicians truly cared about carbon emissions, they would forbid using gasoline, natural gas and coal and endure the ensuing poverty. Instead, they cloak financial greed in faux virtue, demanding corporate cash while driving luxury SUVs and coal-powered battery cars.
This lawsuit is more of the left weaponizing our justice system, this time against all those inferiors outside the greenbelt that preserves the city’s isolationist self-image as “25 square miles surrounded by reality.”
Fossil fuels provide 80% of global energy, powering hospitals, food production, housing, clothing production and Boulder’s pot growers and artisanal restaurants and coffee shops. A year without fossil fuels would kill hundreds of millions of humans globally — including thousands of Boulder residents — as food, heat and medicine would vanish.
This legal stunt is typical of Boulder politics. The Bible sums it up in Matthew: “Let me pull the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own,”
