Chicago Spreads Climate Misinformation In New Lawsuit
“Chicago sues five giant oil companies, accusing them of climate change destruction, fraud,” reads a recent Chicago Sun Times headline. The piece describes how Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration filed a lawsuit with BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Shell for their part in “lying about their products and the dangers of climate change that contributes to flooding, extreme heat and other destructive forces that hurt the city and its residents.”
However, according to data from the National Weather Service, Chicago has only experienced a handful of extreme weather events from 2012, including three record hot days in 2012 and two record precipitation days in 2011 and 2010. Further, WBEZ Chicago explains flooding is innate to the city’s natural environment, rather than catalyzed by any oil company intervention. “Chicago was built along a maze of rivers and marshy wetlands, and flooding has been an issue since day one,” explains the local radio station. “The sewer system gets overwhelmed after just two-thirds of an inch of rainfall in an hour, according to modeling by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD).”
While it may be true that Chicago has experienced extreme weather events, Johnson’s administration cites deaths in 1995 as grounds for their lawsuit. Mike Hulme, Cambridge environmental scientist, warns that weather attribution science is a young field, and can be prone to error especially when litigation is concerned. Ultimately, Johnson’s administration has yet to provide concrete evidence that the rare extreme weather events experienced in Chicago are attributable to disinformation spread by fossil-fuel companies.
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