Climate change activists urge attorney general to prosecute fossil fuel industry

Jennifer Sebold is a 48-year-old single mother of three in Montpelier, Vermont, and climate change is a very personal issue for her. She lost two businesses — a flower shop and a separate store selling various types of goods — in the Great Vermont Flood of 2023. Like much of the rest of the world, Vermont is experiencing more extreme weather because of climate change, in particular devastating floods that cover entire communities in debris.

Climate change is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels, which emit greenhouse gases that trap heat and trigger numerous unintended weather consequences. The science on the matter is settled, which is why Vermont acted in May to become the first state to demand Big Oil pay for damages.

Yet Sebold has heard from people who deny that climate change is real. From her point-of-view, those people are being stubbornly political.

"I can sit here and say 'The sky is purple or pink or green, and you just can't argue with some of these people, right?" Sebold said. "How does one change a mind when they're so entrenched and it's become so political?" Even though she does not want to feel defeated by those individuals, "I'm also tired of arguing the point. It does matter who is responsible, just like cancer and Big Tobacco, right? Like they had to be held accountable and responsible. They're still doing terrible things, but at least the doctors aren't smoking in waiting rooms anymore."

Sebold is not alone among American climate change disaster survivors demanding accountability. Led by the non-profit progressive consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, over 1,000 fellow survivors sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday demanding a federal investigation of Big Oil for climate crimes.

The activists argue in the letter that the fossil fuel industry "has known since the 1950s about the dangers posed by burning fossil fuels. Instead of acting responsibly on their own scientists’ warnings, they waged a decades-long disinformation campaign to muddy the science and confuse and mislead the public. The burning of fossil fuels has racked up enormous profits for fossil fuel companies while stoking the fire of climate change and driving increasingly lethal extreme weather events that have destroyed lives, property, and livelihoods."

They add, "And the damage is far from over."

The list of survivors foreshadows the scope of that damage. It includes story after story of families being displaced and businesses getting destroyed from wildfires, tropical storms, heat waves and (of course) floods. When Salon spoke with Public Citizen's senior policy counsels on climate, Aaron Regunberg and Clara Vondrich, they expressed disappointment that the Justice Department is not taking the lead in prosecuting Big Oil much as they did with Big Tobacco in the late 20th Century.

"I think there's disappointment that that hasn't happened yet," Regunberg said. "We're hopeful that there will be action. We also think that we're also hopeful that under a new administration there might be leadership that is even more attuned to these concerns that climate survivors are articulating, and ready and willing to take action."

Regunberg emphasized that although Public Citizen is not partisan,"one of the candidates for president [Vice President Kamala Harris] has said that they believe Big Oil should be investigated by the Department of Justice. We find that very heartening."

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Vondrich expressed cautious optimism that the Justice Department may feel compelled to act, given the groundswell of support – proven by their letter's existence and the actions of many local governments — for Big Oil to be held financially and legally accountable for their overwhelming role in causing climate change.

"We have seven states, 35 municipalities plus the District of Columbia, which have either brought charges against Big Oil for their decades of deception or passed really bold laws like the Vermont Super Fund law, which would take a piece of Big Oil's profits and put them towards climate adaptation and mitigation," Vondrich said. "Given the interest of the majority of jurisdictions in pursuing this issue, we think it's only appropriate that the big kahuna, the federal government, take action as well."

If former President Donald Trump is re-elected, Regunberg and Vondrich argue the fight to address climate change will go in the wrong direction. Trump openly denies that global heating is caused by human activity, and the policies promulgated by his administration's alumni through Project 2025 would almost entirely eliminate the already-weak environmental protections. Regunberg pointed to Trump's recent conversation with X, formerly known as Twitter, CEO Elon Musk as evidence of their callous attitude toward the victims of climate change.

"In Trump's conversation with Elon Musk this week, Trump said something about how he's looking forward to having more beachfront property," Regunberg said. "It showed this lack of understanding and empathy for the impacts of climate. Because when you're talking about more beachfront property, you're talking about people like Jenny getting their businesses flooded out, right? You're talking about people like many of the folks who signed the pledge, who have lost their homes, who've lost multiple homes like that. That is what it means for the sea to rise so that 'you have more beachfront property.'"

He added, "It's not even that he is denying climate. He's saying he doesn't care about the real pain and injury, that loss of livelihoods and loss of homes and loss of lives, that this crisis is causing and to people who deserve justice. And I think that's what this letter is about."

Vondrich summed it up as "These aren't natural disasters. They're crimes."

Sebold is among the victims, still trying to put her life back together.

"I'm still rebuilding; I'm still nowhere near recovered and I've been in survival mode now for like a year," Sebold said. "Every other week it's like, I don't know if I can make payroll this week or I don't think I can make my car payment this month. Thank god my mom has helped me, otherwise I would've lost my house. I would like to think that I had a lot of scaffolding in my life to keep me supported, but I wasn't prepared for this and neither was my family. It's taken quite a toll. My youngest is living with their dad right now just because they can't handle the lack of security, like the lack of a really packed fridge. Life has really changed for us. It's humble. In December, I was cashing in cans just so that I could do a delivery so that I could make a little bit more money. It's been tough. It's been really tough. I hope that by this time next year I'm like, 'Remember that?'"