What do judicial codes of ethics have to do with climate hoax? It all comes down to simple math. Every year, many thousands of certificate applications are received by the Supreme Court. To issue a writ of certiorari, four of the nine judges must agree to accept one of the cases. Given this lower threshold, each time a judge recuses due to a conflict of interest, the likelihood that the case will proceed decreases. In this case, several justices have conflicts of interest that should disqualify them from hearing these claims—if such principles matter to the Republican majority on the Supreme Court.
One of these conflicting judges is Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett's father, Michael Coney, spent nearly three decades as one of Shell's leading lawyers, during which time he was also “major participantat the American Petroleum Institute. Coney was working for Shell in 1988 when the company released a “confidential” report predicting that the continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to a “rapid and dramatic” increase in global temperatures, which “could have serious social, economic and political consequences.” A year later, he was working at Shell when the company introduced another “confidential group scheduling.” document predicting that if fossil fuels were not phased out, climate change would cause “more violent weather—more storms, more droughts, more floods” that would create such chaos that “civilization might prove to be a fragile thing.” He was still there when Shell started redesign own infrastructure to prepare for “severe weather” that the company knew was coming. And Coney remained at Shell for the next decade while the company played a leading role in Big Oil's fraudulent campaign to lock us into the nightmare climate scenarios it predicted.
While Shell is not named as a defendant in the Boulder case, most other climate fraud lawsuits (which will inevitably be affected by the Supreme Court's ruling if it decides to take on Boulder) absolutely do. Given Kony's very important role at Shell, it is possible that he could be ousted as a result of these proceedings. Thus, Judge Barrett's decision in Boulder is essentially a choice about whether to expose her own father to potentially significant embarrassment and reputational damage. Clearly she has a conflict of interest on this topic. In fact, she is so clearly conflicted that during her time in the Seventh District, when she was actually bound code of ethics— she regularly refused cases involving Shell. And yet, from the moment of entry into the Supreme Court, which, unlike any other federal court, is not subject to any obligation Code of Ethics – Barrett has regularly participated in certified conferences on climate hoax cases. Why not? Who will stop her?
