What I am trying to get my head around is how the consequences of state governments taking these companies to court will eventually be for these companies, their customers and their shareholders.

I see a fundamental difference between O&G and tobacco.

When people buy tobacco, they do it for the pleasure or diversion it brings them. What else?

I don't know anyone who buys O&G for pleasure. They do so because they need the results of the energy and raw materials it brings them - basically in all end uses. Transportation, heat, A/C, food (via energy and fertilizer) , shelter (via steel, cement, brick, logging), clothing,medicines, on and on. They buy it because it permits them to live in a modern civilization in a better manner than before the industrial revolution.

States sue focused only on the negative impacts from emissions. They make no attempt to balance that with the benefits. Doesn't seem logical to me. l know why though. If they did, the benefits would far outweigh the negative impacts. And they couldn't maybe find a new source of money.

Such lawsuits seem idiotic to me.