Climate change litigation analogized to early tobacco cases

See the New York Times story here, "Courts as Battlefields in Climate Fights." It features a discussion of several lawsuits in which homeowners and state and local governments seek damages from oil and other energy companies that have allegedly contributed to global warming. Here's an excerpt:

In recent months, two federal appeals courts reversed decisions by federal district courts to dismiss climate-change lawsuits, allowing the cases to go forward. In Connecticut, environmental lawyers joined forces with attorneys general of eight states and the City of New York seeking a court order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In Mississippi, Gulf Coast property owners claim that industry-produced emissions that contribute to climate change increased the potency of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

While the story quotes experts who acknowledge that the cases rest on tenuous legal precedents, some of the experts suggest future successes are entirely possible. I thought this comparison to tobacco litigation was interesting.

Michael B. Gerrard, a professor at Columbia University law school and director of its Center for Climate Change Law, said the first efforts to sue tobacco companies had appeared to be weak as well.

“They lost the first cases; they kept on trying new theories,” Mr. Gerrard said, “and eventually won big.”