I say BRING IT ON. Finally we’ll get to put this absurdity about the connection between global warming and hurricanes to rest, because, it doesn’t exist. I hope the defense will bring in the findings of Ryan Maue at FSU COAPS as shown below.
From the Wall Street Journal Law Blog
For years, leading plaintiffs’ lawyers have promised a legal assault on industrial America for contributing to global warming.
So far, the trial bar has had limited success. The hurdles to such suits are pretty obvious: How do you apportion fault and link particular plaintiffs’ injuries to the pollution emitted by a particular group of defendants?
Today, though, plaintiffs’ lawyers may be a gloating a bit, after a favorable ruling Friday from the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which is regarded as one of the more conservative circuit courts in the country. Here’s a link to the ruling.
The suit was brought by landowners in Mississippi, who claim that oil and coal companies emitted greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming that, in turn, caused a rise in sea levels, adding to Hurricane Katrina’s ferocity. (See photo of Bay St. Louis, Miss., after the storm.)
For a nice overview of the ruling, and its significance in the climate change battle, check out this blog post by J. Russell Jackson, a Skadden Arps partner who specializes in mass tort litigation. The post likens the Katrina plaintiffs’ claims, which set out a chain of causation, to the litigation equivalent of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
The central question before the Fifth Circuit was whether the plaintiffs had standing, or whether they could demonstrate that their injuries were “fairly traceable” to the defendant’s actions. The defendants predictably assert that the link is “too attenuated.”
Read the entire article here
h/t Ron De Haan
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May he who is without carbon footprint throw the first stone.
Bring it on!
How was any hypothetical “global warming” responsible for shoddy construction of the dykes around the city of New Orleans?
The State of Mississippi was where hurricane Katrina actually made it’s landfall. New Orleans was a victim of political graft and corruptions, and eventually it caught up with them.
It is very interesting how weak this storm season has been.
The Philippines got hit with two very bad storms but overall, it is one the lowest seasons in quite some time.
It will be nearly impossible for the global warming equals more hurricanes set to spin this year’s numbers into “dangerous global warming will … “.
It will, of course, still be blamed on global warming somehow.
This means that the issue will be subject to rules of evidence. That could backfire on the AGW movement.
REPLY: That’s why I say “bring it”. -A
One might wonder if the 5th Circuit issued its ruling with a certain mischievous intent that had little to to do with the merits. Risky. Will Al Gore be allowed to testify as an expert witness? Hmmmm…. not a bad idea…. finally, a member of that administration sent to prison for perjury…. still risky. It will be more like a beauty contest than a dispassionate evaluation of fact and science. It will get argued before a jury carefully selected to have no knowledge of the issue and will get to decide whether they believe some egg-headed guy named Ryan Maue who is probably in the pay of big oil anyway, or the former vice-president of the United States, who danced with Tipper to “You Can Call Me Al”.
This month Japan was hit by a typhoon without tremendous damage. The last hit was in September 2007. No noticeable change these years.
I am not sure how “causation” — CO2=AGW — could be argued in a court of law, but wouldn’t it be swell if the single tree serving as THE treemometer and the fraudulent hockey stick had to stand up in court. What if the plaintiffs had to prove that there was no Roman or Medieval warming! Yeah, I agree, bring it on.
tokyoboy, I lived through Typhoon Melor and it came at Japan as a category 5. Only the wind sheer (and perhaps slightly cooler anomaly ocean temp on the Pacific side) cut it down to a 3 before landfall. I have been reading over and over again for both Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans about the wind sheer decapitating hurricanes/typhoons. Are the oceans warm enough for significant destructiveness but other processes are at work? Anyone want to comment on this phenomenon?
“Will Al Gore be allowed to testify as an expert witness? Hmmmm…. not a bad idea…. finally, a member of that administration sent to prison for perjury…. still risky.”
I’d be absolutely shocked to see that happen, as if he testifies, he’s open to cross-examination, which he has NEVER allowed during this freak show that he at the very least, helped orchestrate.
JimB
I just want them to try to prove global warming when it isn’t global. The best thermometers show no such warming. I would not want to be the “expert witness” but I will happily turn over the code that I’ve developed to anyone wanting to use it to do defense. I’d even be available at a reasonable hourly rate to do any added development they wanted.
The comments at the WSJ suggest it will not get any further,if it does,what if the companies being sued settle out of court?
My understanding, the formula to estimate hurricane surface winds from the package dropped by hurricane hunters has been changed a number of times.
Does anyone know if these formula changes have been accounted for?
Thanks.
BTW I live near Bay St Louis. The only one I want to sue works for NASA.
Curious.
I am no expert on US law but I understood that the law in that part of the world differed from the law in the rest of the USA in that it was based on Code Napoleon.
And as such lawyers needed different qualifications and there were consequently various limitations vis a vis laws, judgements etc. reached in the other states of the union.
Any legal eagles around here?
Kindest Regards
ah, a Bay Rat! I lived in Pass Christian.
[REPLY – Ever read Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters? ~ Evan]
pyromancer76 (19:17:46) :
>Are the oceans warm enough for significant destructiveness but other processes are at work?
Sorry but as a chemist I am unable to figure out meteorological events, though several TV personalities ascribed the landfall to sea surface temperature rise due to “Global Warming” which I don’t believe at all.
I give this issue over to people with expertise in this field.
Justice in the legal system happens by a carefully contrived but not infallible accident. Especially when uninformed juries and complex data are involved.
pyromancer76 –
The oceans are just as warm, maybe warmer this year, as previous years, thus whatever it brings to the table wrt hurricanes should be about the same.
I do cannot address Pacific storms, but I do follow the Atlantic ones. There have been three forces that have caused them to be pretty much still-born. First is, as you mentioned, the wind shear. Strong storms need verticality, and the upper-level winds made that almost impossible. The second was that the general circulation patterns took tropical storms north and east much sooner than in other years. This drove them out of the warm, tropical waters sooner. Third was that the low pressure systems coming off the coast of Africa, which gives birth to the Atlantic storms, was dryer and more dust-laden than usual. The dry air and dust simply kills storm formation. Whether any of those things are inter-related I do not know. The climate, though, is quit obviously more complicated than more CO2 = warmer temps = warmer oceans = more and stronger storms.
My fear is that a sympathetic jury might let the suffering plaintiffs have some money from deep-pocket defendants. If so, the judge will likely find a reason to throw the case out, but it will leave the AGWers something to crow about.
Send algore a summons Take his phoney claims into interrogatories and discovery.
In these liability claims, it takes a lot of testimony. Newspaper clippings are hearsay.
Since we have always had storms, how do we isolate this one? That is a town built below sealevel? And why this storm and not Rita?
That would be sweet. Get Al Gore in court and have the debate he has avoided having under oath. Pipe dream…but wow…wouldn’t that be fun.
a jones-
Louisiana law is based on the Napoleonic Code unlike the English Common Law of the other states. It’s a moot point, though. The Fifth Circuit Court is a US Court, and federal law applies, not state.
My mother’s house was (note the ‘was’) in Bay St. Louis. From all the reports I got, the eye passed directly over it. Absolutely nothing was left except for the concrete slab. Complete devastation.
This is pretty high-stakes, though. If the plaintiffs prevail, it would open the floodgates to sue anyone that emits CO2. I think that people even exhale CO2, so I guess we’re all responsible. Also, remember in a civil case, the burden is not beyond a reasonable doubt but rather the preponderance of evidence.
Steve Huntwork (18:58:51) :
“…..The State of Mississippi was where hurricane Katrina actually made it’s landfall. New Orleans was a victim of political graft and corruptions, and eventually it caught up with them……….”
Steve, please see Katrina’s actual Louisiana landfall at the National Hurricane center link:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/KATRINA_graphics.shtml
Not that it will matter much, but I did notice a few hundred Louisiana houses blown down or damaged, not caused by corruption. Thousands of trees were broken in two or blown down, not caused by corruption. A significant part of Slidell, Louisiana (NE of New Orleans), was flooded, not caused by corruption.
The greatest damage in New Orleans was due to the collapse of floodwalls built by the Corp of Engineers. Maybe corruption did cause the design flaws in the floodwalls, but I doubt it. See the following report from Delft University in The Netherlands:
http://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=62d6f4f8-0e4a-4e52-9cf7-044ee0185816&lang=en
My point: Inaccuracy in news reporting (regarding landfall) and lack of precision with insults (regarding corruption causing the main damage in New Orleans), will reduce our credibility when we insult our common enemy, the AGWers.
I remember talking to a former legal assistant in Denver (back when I was doing courses at the CSM) and she mentioned a couple cases she had heard about.
In one a guy had used G-clamps to affix his hard shell to the truck (ute), which naturally worked loose as he drove down the highway. The shell flew off into the oncoming traffic on the other side of the motorway tragically causing great injury to a woman & child (I think it was).
Although the truck driver was found to be mostly responsible, there was a very slight culpability (not sure of the exact legalese, but you get my drift) on the part of the shell company for not explicitly posting a disclaimer with respect to using the incorrect mechnism to affix the shell to trucks.
The truck driver had no money, so the shell-manufacturing company ended up paying out.
It could well end up this way in the AGW court action… 99% of the blame might be attributed logically to things such as inadequate levees etc, but if even 1% is apportioned to fossil fuel companies the AGW mob will take it as a win. Therein lies the real danger of the crazy US law system. Sorry, but it is crazy… judges with $60million pants? pulease… that would have been laughed out of court over here in Oz, and the judge stood down for fear of embarrassing the entire judicial system.
PS> It was my understanding that the litigation in Denver was particularly bad in the 1980s-1990s because of all the corporate lawyers looking for work after thr reosurces industry went into the post energy crisis slow down.
While Maue’s Accumulated Cyclone Energy bares no resemblance to atmospheric CO2, it does look a fair bit like the global temperature anomaly shown next to it on your new world climate widget. Is there a recognized weather predictive relationship?
What is the unit on the ordinate of the top figure? Petajoule or much more? As a presbyope I was unable to find the unit in the Ryan Maue page……..