Arnold Schwarzenegger announced at a SXSW interview with Politico yesterday evening that he is planning to sue the world's largest oil companies for "knowingly killing people all over the world."
The former Governor of California explained that, to him, the practices of the major oil companies "is no different from the smoking issue."
"The oil companies knew from 1959 on, they did their own study that there would be global warming happening because of fossil fuels, and on top of it that it would be risky for people’s lives, that it would kill," said Schwarzenegger. "It’s absolutely irresponsible to know that your product is killing people and not have a warning label on it, like tobacco. Every gas station on it, every car should have a warning label on it, every product that has fossil fuels should have a warning label on it."
The four major tobacco companies in the US - Philip Morris Inc., R. J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard - were sued by the attorneys general of 46 states in the US, with these four agreeing to pay a total of $206 billion over a period of 25 years, with payments based on the amount of cigarettes sold in each state.
Schwarzenegger said that he's currently talking to private law firms, with the hope that the lawsuit will spread awareness about the harmful nature of fossil fuels.
Via TheHill.com
