More sudden respect for religion in the New York Times, at least the left-wing variety, on Friday’s front page, where the true-believing environmental reporter David Gelles’ profile of lawyer-activist Missy Sims appeared: “She’s on a Mission From God: Suing Big Oil for Climate Damages.”
Sims is a liberal lawyer-activist using RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) originally designed for organized crime cases, against corporate environmental villains. Sims was allowed to showcase the sort of religious intensity the paper’s liberal reporters would be mocking in any other context:
Missy Sims carefully picked her way through a field of ruined tombs in central Puerto Rico, in a cemetery where walls of water from Hurricane Maria had smashed open some coffins and sent others careering into a nearby stream.
Six years later, the burial place in Lares, where more than 1,700 graves were damaged, is still shattered.
“This is apocalyptic, end of the world, end of times stuff,” said Ms. Sims, an attorney who is representing 16 Puerto Rican municipalities that are seeking to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for the damage caused by a series of storms, including Maria.
Ms. Sims wiped away a tear as she surveyed the broken graves and absorbed the pain of the grieving families. But she also vowed to hold those responsible to account.
Ms. Sims, 54, may be the most surprising legal figure to emerge as the world grapples with the devastating impacts of a warming planet. An Armani-and-Rolex wearing observant Catholic from a small Midwest town who talks to God as she mulls her complex legal cases, Ms. Sims is also a constant TikTok poster whose dog has more followers than some celebrities.
….
Determined to come up with a way to help, Ms. Sims went for an evening jog. It is on these long, meditative runs that she says she talks with God.
“I get along with the Holy Spirit and I’m just like, ‘Help me. Help me help these people,’” she said. “And he said, ‘Fine them.’”
Gelles, certain that “Hurricanes are becoming more destructive as the atmosphere and water temperatures rise because of global warming,” readily excused Sims’ un-environmental vanity:
….With a recording of the Bible playing on her iPhone, she applied her makeup and donned a pink corduroy suit and a silk Gucci scarf, then marched out the door carrying a large Fendi handbag.
“It’s a show of respect and confidence,” she said about the meticulous care she takes with her appearance. “I’m meeting people all the time, and you want them to know that you’re taking them seriously. That’s the way I was raised.”
After forwarding smug rhetoric about “the increasingly conclusive science of climate change,” Gelles indulged in more personality profiling of his heroine:
Afterward, Ms. Sims indulged in a ritual that keeps her grounded in between emotional meetings. She stopped for ice cream. Eating a Nutella-flavored Frosty from Wendy’s, Ms. Sims checked TikTok and showed off a new viral video of her dog, GeorgyGirl, who had amassed 2.2 million followers.
The story closed with Sims the “observant Catholic” seeing various municipal lawsuits as divine validation.
“I believe the Holy Spirit is my co-counsel,” she said. “He’s never steered me wrong.”
Can one imagine a staunch pro-life Catholic getting this same unquestioning handling on the front page of the Times?
(Gelles recently devoted an issue of his climate newsletter to a reverent interview with former vice president and environmental extremist Al Gore: “Al Gore on Extreme Heat and the Fight Against Fossil Fuels.”)