In court, oil companies accept climate science but rewrite its history

Enlarge / Judge Alsup, here shown giving a talk about a judge he clerked with. (credit: US Courts)

Earlier this week, we took a crack at answering a federal judge's questions about climate science for readers who may have asked similar ones. And on Wednesday, Judge William Alsup finally got his answers during a five-hour hearing.

The case was brought by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland against a handful of oil companies that those cities feel should help pay for the effects of sea-level rise. This claim centers on the idea that internal documents show the companies knew climate change was human-caused even as they publicly campaigned otherwise in the 1980s and 1990s.

Before the case gets rolling, Judge Alsup wanted each side to put their climate science cards on the table, establishing any disagreement on how our knowledge has evolved over time. He also wanted a few questions of his own answered about why we are certain humans are responsible for global warming.

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