1 report to the UN at the end of 1990.” The video concludes with a stark admonition: “Global 2 warming is not yet certain, but many think that the wait for final proof would be irresponsible. 3 Action now is seen as the only safe insurance.”91 109. 4 The fossil fuel industry, including Defendants, was at the forefront of carbon 5 dioxide research for much of the latter half of the 20th century. They developed cutting edge and 6 innovative technology and worked with many of the field’s top researchers to produce 7 exceptionally sophisticated studies and models. For instance, in the mid-nineties Shell began using 8 scenarios to plan how the company could respond to various global forces in the future. In one 9 scenario published in a 1998 internal report, Shell paints an eerily prescient scene: 17 In 2010, a series of violent storms causes extensive damage to the eastern coast of the U.S. Although it is not clear whether the storms are caused by climate change, people are not willing to take further chances. The insurance industry refuses to accept liability, setting off a fierce debate over who is liable: the insurance industry or the government. After all, two successive IPCC reports since 1995 have reinforced the human connection to climate change….Following the storms, a coalition of environmental NGOs brings a class-action suit against the US government and fossil-fuel companies on the grounds of neglecting what scientists (including their own) have been saying for years: that something must be done. A social reaction to the use of fossil fuels grows, and individuals become ‘vigilante environmentalists’ in the same way, a generation earlier, they had become fiercely anti-tobacco. Direct-action campaigns against companies escalate. Young consumers, especially, demand action.92 18 110. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Climate change research conducted by Defendants and their industry associations 19 frequently acknowledged uncertainties in their climate modeling—those uncertainties, however, 20 were merely with respect to the magnitude and timing of climate impacts resulting from fossil fuel 21 consumption, not that significant changes would eventually occur. The Defendants’ researchers 22 and the researchers at their industry associations harbored little doubt that climate change was 23 occurring and that fossil fuel products were, and are, the primary cause. 111. 24 25 Despite the overwhelming information about the threats to people and the planet posed by continued unabated use of their fossil fuel products, Defendants failed to act as they 26 27 28 SHER EDLING LLP 91 Jelmer Mommers, Shell made a film about climate change in 1991 (then neglected to heed its own warning), DE CORRESPONDENT (Feb. 27, 2017), https://thecorrespondent.com/6285/shell-made-a-film-about-climate-change-in1991-then-neglected-to-heed-its-own-warning/692663565-875331f6. 92 Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Group Scenarios 1998–2020, 115 (1998), http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4430277-27-1-Compiled.html. 49 COMPLAINT