NYT features climate activist essay claiming: ‘The Science That Has Oil Companies Running Scared’ – Allegedly afraid of climate models saying they are guilty of ‘damaging the climate’

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/opinion/oil-companies-supreme-court.html

By Jeff Goodell

Mr. Goodell is the author of “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.” He is working on a book about climate attribution science and its impact.By Jeff Goodell

Excerpt: On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Suncor Energy, Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a case that could give fossil fuel companies a get-out-of-jail-free card for the harms caused by climate change. … The Supreme Court’s decision in Suncor v. Boulder, depending on how broadly it is written, could kill many, if not all, of these cases. If it does, it could save fossil fuel companies hundreds of billions of dollars in damages and punitive awards and help them avoid high-profile courtroom showdowns in which they are cast as greedy, deceptive planet wreckers.

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The British climate scientist Myles Allen asked himself those questions as he watched the Thames River rise outside his house after an epic rainstorm in 2003. In an article he later wrote for the journal Nature, Mr. Allen asked: “Will it ever be possible to sue anyone for damaging the climate?” His answer: Given the rapid advances of science, maybe soon.

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One recent study found that heat waves between 2010 and 2019 were about 200 times as likely with global warming. And using data compiled on fossil fuel industry emissions, scientists have been able to connect climate harms to individual companies. Last year, a study by scientists at Dartmouth College found that carbon dioxide emissions from the top 111 fossil fuel companies from the burning of coal, oil and gas between 1991 and 2020 accounted for up to $28 trillion in global economic damages from heat waves alone. …

But attribution science is not a fringe theory. A 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the gold standard of climate science, devotes many pages to it. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has issued two reports specifically about the attribution of extreme weather events. And as climate models improve, attribution science will only get stronger. Will it ever be able to say that a heat wave amplified by the carbon dioxide emissions of X company was responsible for Y person’s death? Maybe not. There are too many confounding local factors. But what attribution science does, writes Prof. Aisha Saad of Georgetown University’s law school, is “bring about an epistemic shift, rendering climate change not only legible but litigable.”

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Reality Check: 

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. : ‘What is climate attribution about? Politics first, science second’