• pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    “On oil and gas companies who have spent decades burning fossil fuels - ramping up the world’s carbon emissions - Mehta said the law couldn’t go back in time and punish past activities."

    Are they fucking serious? Why have any legal system at all then? People would just be allowed to rape and pillage as they please under that auspice.

      • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        It needs to change then, at least for stuff like this. It’s too serious to let off on a technicality.

        Letting criminals off on technicalities is one of the things that put us down this dark road in the first place. Justice is far more important and letting them off is not justice, I don’t care how the original U.S. system was set up.

        It needs to go.

        • Spedwell@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Well the general principle is that you can’t be punished for behavior that was legal when you did it. Otherwise you open the door to “doing X is illegal now” and then locking everyone who was documented doing X in the last several years.

          Which maybe sounds nice when it’s destroying the climate… but it’s less nice when it’s gay marriage, alcohol consumption, owning X book, etc.

          • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Which maybe sounds nice when it’s destroying the climate… but it’s less nice when it’s gay marriage, alcohol consumption, owning X book, etc.

            Funny how quickly people forget that they’re supporting authoritarianism just because it happens to line up with their belief system in one instance.