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State AG sues Exxon for plastic pollution, alleged deception about recycling By Joe Taglieri
VOL. 12,
NO. 190
‘Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of our Climate Crisis’ exhibition at The Huntington captures our attention
joet@beaconmedianews.com
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xxon Mobil Corp. is facing lawsuits from the California Department of Justice and environmental groups for an alleged decadeslong "campaign of deception" that has resulted in the global plastics pollution crisis. California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Sunday announced the state has filed a lawsuit against global oil giant alleging violations of state nuisance, natural resources, water pollution, false advertisement and unfair competition laws. The first-of-its-kind lawsuit seeks accountability for one of the world's largest petrochemical manufacturers for misleading the public about the recyclability of plastic and polluting California’s environment and communities, according to the AG's office. The state's lawsuit was filed Monday in the San Francisco County Superior Court and claims Exxon Mobil has deceived Californians for 50 years via "misleading public statements and slick marketing" purporting that recycling was the solution to the increasing amounts of plastic waste. The suit seeks an end to the allegedly deceptive public platform and also an abatement fund, disgorgement and civil penalties for the harm done by plastics pollution to people and the environment that the attorney general estimated would be multiple billions of dollars. In a separate lawsuit, the locally based Surfrider
May S. Ruiz MayRChu56@gmail.com
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Polymers are a major source of ocean pollution. | Photo courtesy of the California Attorney General's Office
Foundation and Heal the Bay joined the Sierra Club and Baykeeper raised similar complaints against Exxon Mobil for the company's alleged role in concealing the causes of the plastics pollution crisis. “Plastics are everywhere, from the deepest parts of our oceans, the highest peaks on earth, and even in our bodies, causing irreversible damage — in ways known and unknown — to our environment and potentially our health,” Bonta said in a statement. “For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly
knew this wasn’t possible. ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health." Exxon Mobil issued a prepared statement in response to the suit: "For decades, California officials have known their recycling system isn't effective. They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills. The first step would be to acknowledge what their counterparts across the U.S. know: advanced See Exxon Mobil Page 31
recycling works. To date, we've processed more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste into usable raw materials, keeping it out of landfills. We're bringing real solutions, recycling plastic waste that couldn't be recycled by traditional methods." Exxon Mobil produces the largest amount of polymers, which formulate single-use bottles and other plastic products. The company makes polymers from fossil fuels and supplies them to other companies that manufacture single-use plastic. The suit contends that for decades Exxon Mobil
e hear about climate change almost every day – when we experience a heat wave, when we witness a wildfire, when we see on the news an arctic blast on the East Coast, or when we learn about melting icebergs in the Antarctic Ocean. But climate change didn’t just happen in the last 20 years, or even during our lifetime, as the “Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of our Climate Change” exhibition at The Huntington demonstrates. On view through Jan. 6, 2025 at the Marylou and George Boone Gallery, it will be on display concurrently with “Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China.” Its title originates from a series of lectures given by British writer and art critic John Ruskin in 1884. In “The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century,” he conveyed concern over the changing appearance of the English sky caused by the smoke generated by coal-fired factories. Co-curators Melinda McCurdy, The Huntington’s curator of British art, Karla Nielsen, senior curator of literary collections, and Kristen Anthony, assistant curator for special projects, talked about the exhibition by phone three days before the show. Nielsen said, “When we were given the theme ‘Art and See Exhibition Page 02
Science Collide,’ we knew we were going to initially use the drawings from the Huntington collection with only certain key loans. We have materials by John Ruskin both in the museum and in the library and we started thinking about his process of close observation of the natural world. “He gave a lecture in 1884 called ‘Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century’ in which he talks about a decade of looking at the sky, thinking about the categories of clouds, and drawing them. He referred to this new type of cloud ‘storm cloud,’ which today we would call smog – the cloud formation that happens around particulate matter from burning coal.” Asked about the visitor takeaway, Anthony replied, “As far as the history of climate crisis, I think visitors will walk away knowing that we’ve understood humanity’s impact on the planet longer than the average person thought. And these changes – this impact on the planet – can be charted in the cultural productions of the period. You can see the earth changing and how industry is impacting the planet through the works of art and literature and the historical and scientific texts produced in the period.” The exhibition is divided into two sections. The first “A New Relationship