A new legal theory suggests that oil companies could be taken to court for every kind of homicide in the United States, short of first-degree murder.
The idea of “climate homicide” is getting attention in law schools and district attorney’s offices around the country. A paper published in Harvard Environmental Law Review last week argues that fossil fuel companies have been “killing members of the public at an accelerating rate.” It says that oil giants’ awareness that their pollution could have lethal consequences solidly fits within the definition of homicide, which, in its basic form, is causing death with a “culpable mental state.” In other words, the case can be made that oil companies knew what they were doing.
“It’s sparking a lot of conversation,” said Aaron Regunberg, senior policy counsel at the advocacy group Public Citizen. After discussing the idea with elected officials and prosecutors, Regunberg said, many of them have moved from “‘Oh, that’s crazy’ to ‘Oh, that makes sense.’”
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