October 26, 2006

Business Week (via Lattman) discerns the onset of

an ambitious legal war on oil, electric power, auto, and other companies whose emissions are linked to global warming. ... the ultimate goal for environmentalists isn't necessarily to win cases but to ratchet up the pressure on business and politicians to impose mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions....

As with tobacco, plaintiffs are trying out a variety of legal theories, some quite speculative. ...Stanford University and others plan symposiums on legal responses to global climate change. And Stephen D. Susman, one of the nation's top trial lawyers, is making the issue a personal crusade.

Law.com/The Recorder covers the growth in global warming as a subject of corporate legal practice (Jonathan Adler comments). The big firms might even want to involve their criminal defense and media law specialists if we're really in for Nuremberg trials for climate change deniers. Earlier coverage here.