From The Washington Times and the “your friendly local California thought police” comes this travesty.
A landmark California bill gaining steam would make it illegal to engage in climate-change dissent, clearing the way for lawsuits against fossil-fuel companies, think-tanks and others that have “deceived or misled the public on the risks of climate change.”
The first-of-its-kind legislation — Senate Bill 1161, or the California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act of 2016 — is scheduled for floor action Thursday after clearing Senate committees in April and May.
The measure would allow state and local prosecutors to pursue claims against climate-change skepticism as a violation of the state’s Unfair Competition Law [UCL], as well as extend the four-year statute of limitations for such claims retroactively to Jan. 1, 2021.
“This bill explicitly authorizes district attorneys and the Attorney General to pursue UCL claims alleging that a business or organization has directly or indirectly engaged in unfair competition with respect to scientific evidence regarding the existence, extent, or current or future impacts of anthropogenic induced climate change,” says the state Senate Rules Committee’s floor analysis.
While the measure enjoys broad support by a bevy of environmental groups, the bill has also been described as an effort to ban free speech on climate change as well as chill donations to free-market groups.
Stephen Frank, editor of the conservative California Political Review, called the bill a
“totalitarian statement by Democrats that the First Amendment is now dead.”
“Did you donate to the Pacific Legal Foundation? Do you support Americans for Prosperity? Are you a member of the California Republican Party, which has a platform approving of all forms of energy, including fossil fuel (oil)? Do you work for a gas station, an oil company, have your written a letter to the editor in favor of oil drilling?” asked Mr. Frank in a May 31 post.
“If so, you could find yourself with being charged in a court of law, thanks to SB 1161,” Mr. Frank said.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris belongs to a coalition of 17 state attorneys general that joined forces in March to pursue climate-change skeptics, starting with ExxonMobil.
The floor analysis cites as a rationale for the bill articles published last year by InsideClimate News and the Columbia Journalism School’s Energy and Environmental Reporting Project accusing ExxonMobil of hiding its research on climate change, which the company has denied.
“By extending the statute of limitations, California has the opportunity to hold these companies fully accountable for their actions,” said the analysis.
The bill declares that there is no legitimate disagreement on the causes and extent of climate change, stating that, “There is broad scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and changing the world’s climate patterns, and that the primary cause is the emission of greenhouse gases from the production and combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas.”
Walter Olson of the website Overlawyered called the bill “extraordinary,” adding that “the target is clearly public-issue advocacy.”
“Combined with the plans laid by California Attorney General Kamala Harris — part of the alliance of AGs that has sought to investigate not only oil, gas, and coal companies, but private advocacy groups and university scientists who have played a role in what is characterized as ‘climate denial’— the bill would begin laying the legal groundwork for an astonishingly broad campaign of inquisition and, potentially, expropriation,” Mr. Olson said in a May 31 post.
====================================
This is mind blowing, they are suspending the statute of limitations with this language:
342.5.
(a) (1) Notwithstanding Section 17208 of the Business and Professions Code, an action pursuant to Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 17200) of Part 2 of Division 7 of the Business and Professions Code against a corporation, firm, partnership, joint stock company, association, or other organization of persons that has directly or indirectly engaged in unfair competition, as defined in Section 17200 of the Business and Professions Code, with respect to scientific evidence regarding the existence, extent, or current or future impacts of anthropogenic-induced climate change that would otherwise be barred as of January 1, 2017, solely because the statute of limitation has or had expired, is revived and, in that case, the action may be commenced within four years of January 1, 2017. Nothing in this subdivision shall be construed to alter the applicable limitation period of an action that is not time barred as of January 1, 2017.
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I’d like to see an itemized list of the claims made by the consensus, particularly as it relates to the current impacts of anthropogenic climate change on the globe.
If they don’t have a list of claims, then how is anyone supposed to know if they are breaking the law by contradicting the consensus?
We played with mercury at our third grade desks. Dunked pigtails into the ink bottles. Got whacked by teachers before our parents whacked us. Learned respect for elders, and the value of saving. Fought 2 wars, and built the strongest economy the world has ever known. Scientists published, presented data, facts, at Electra Chem, IEEE and myriad other professional conferences, and thousands shared in their discoveries for all to digest and accelerating scientific discovery and innovation. In only 50+ years, it is now all upside down. “Scientists” now sue others to stymie innovation, and protect their “precious” data from discovery. What the hell happened?????
The Progressive movement returned and took over the UN with the socialists and communists.
Read the Communist Manifesto. We can now check off more than half in the USA. Not sure the exact number as I haven’t looked recently again… It starts with government control of schools. Now seasoned with “3rd Way” Socialism control of nominally private companies via massive regulation systems. (Pioneered by Mussolini who was a Progressive Socialist. Fascism is not “right wing”. He started his career translating Socialist documents working with his parents, and professed his Socialism at his final capture. Read your history… He coined the phrase “3rd way “.)
The Club Of Rome launched the movement to turn ecology into political control in the 70s via the book “The Limits To Growth” by Meadows et. al. that used computer models to predict, oh, pardon project doom in our time… starting the whole model of using only models… Later The Club hit on the idea of Global Warming and now pushes it in the same way.
You are up against a global Socialist movement that sees bringing down the west, and the USA in particular, as the only way to bring about “the worker’s revolution” and save the planet (for them).
There’s much more detail available, but that’s the short form. We thought we won W.W.II and went to sleep. They went underground and set to work…
+1
Communism is patient.
I disagree, however, that socialists “took over” the UN. No, they founded it.
Bill 1161 seems designed to go after the misinformation campaign run by the oil companies. My initial impression is the ordinary “Joe Blow” should not be too concerned as to any personal risk.
May be worth noting, that on the legal front, kids have won big victories recently in Washington State and Massachusetts:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/washingtonk-kids-climate-lawsuit_us_5723f60ae4b01a5ebde5be52?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/massachusetts-teens-climate-change_us_573f1bf5e4b045cc9a70b23c?
JohnMacdonell wrote: “Bill 1161 seems designed to go after the misinformation campaign run by the oil companies.”
Misinformation? What misinformation?
From the alarmists. They should have heeded the old saying “be careful of what you wish for”.
Look at Exxon, for a start:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/nov/25/two-faced-exxon-the-misinformation-campaign-against-its-own-scientists
I am very glad to be a MacDougal and not a Macdonell if John is an exemplar of the clan. Using the Guardian as a source of scientific information is a fools errand. On par with using the Huffington Post. They are great sources of seeing what world wide communism sees as its next goal or great project, but cr@p for finding the truth.
The Exxon story is replete with innuendo. It is a typical hatchet job by an activist with an ax to grind. It is mostly based around one memo where a scientist noted a paper in a scientific journal that didn’t seem right to him. He quoted the salient points but thought the analysis was weak. Because he quoted the points of the paper, to the true believer that is “proof of a cover-up” and “just like the tobacco companies”. It is nothing of the sort.
So, what is the difference?
1. The tobacco companies created research where they were shown to have faked the data or cherry-picked the analysis to give a knowingly false impression in order to further a marketing scheme to hook more smokers.
The oil companies noted a paper that thought that burning carbon-based fuels would lead to temperature increases and didn’t think the analysis was up to par.
2. The tobacco companies started an explicit PR campaign to openly attack the work of the scientists linking smoking to disease. This included hiring men in white coats to present a false narrative concerning the product.
The oil companies overwhelmingly funded the research centers that were trying to prove global warming and gave large sums of money to their green critics. (They may have had the nefarious plan to put their coal competitors out of business, but that is another topic.)
That is enough of a difference for now, but the Attorneys General are going to have a steep hill to climb to try to extort moneys from the oil industry. For one the big oil concerns have more money at their disposal to litigate this than the 17 or 19 states and territories combined. This is not an easy lawfare case. For another, the oil industry has not engaged in the same level (or any) of knowing misrepresentation that the tobacco industry did. There simply is no smoke to indicate a fire like there was with tobacco.
Owen in GA:
Look at some of the denial groups Exxon supports(eg CFACT) Glad to see WUWT not apparently a recipient of Exxon grants:
http://www.climateinvestigations.org/exxon-did-cohen
CFACT is not a “denial group” it is a conservative group that happens to not believe the political science of CAGW. Now look VERY closely at the decimal place in the various grants. You will note that the number of places to the left of the decimal point is CONSIDERABLY larger to places like the University of East Anglia, Greenpeace, and the climate science departments of universities around the world then it is to conservative think tanks who happen to disagree with the political science of CAGW and whose grants had more to do with market and political analysis for the product they sell. One of the problems with grants to conservative and libertarian leaning think tanks is that the grant can be for any of the various lines of analysis that the think tank specializes in. So the grants may have nothing to do with CAGW and may instead be about the market environment and demand for various energy products in the future. They also get advice from such think tanks on what is the best political posture to take to maximize long-term return on their investors’ money.
This brings up another point. You seem to think it would be wrong for Exxon to defend themselves against what appears to be spurious attacks by the Green Gestapo. The BEST way to do so would be to fund people who are seen as honest outside brokers to get to the ground truth on the issues. Oil and gas companies (indeed all mining industry companies) are based on scientific evidence in all they do. Geologists do almost all of their real work for companies looking for natural resources. They gather more information about the Earth than the rest of the scientific world combined (maybe except biologists, but it would be close). The process starts with Geology, then proceeds through several engineering disciplines to get to the resource. Once the resource is acquired, the chemists/chemical engineers take over to make it into a consumer product. Up to this point EVERYTHING is about science and hard data (and a few educated guesses consistent with the data), but from there it is in the hands of the liberal arts and business guys – getting the product to the consumer and creating a demand. Most of the companies and their corporate cultures are based around the science part and they take data very seriously – the science data and its analysis and educated guesses are the difference between the company being fantastically successful and going bankrupt. Most of the folks in these companies can read scientific papers (maybe not the roughnecks that do the actual drilling/digging) and can look at data and smell a rat. Natural data has a feel to it that once you have looked at enough of it, outliers become obvious. Most published climate data in the last 25 years or so has lost that natural feel, this causes people to dig and check the adjustments and the errors in judgment (as we hope it is – no one hopes it is nefarious, but that is looking more likely by the minute) become obvious. I certainly would not trust a government-paid scientist to collect and analyze the data when the “solution” to the “problem” is ever greater GOVERNMENT CONTROL over all aspects of daily life. It seems to me there is a (glaringly huge) little conflict of interest problem there.
This has got to be the most naive comment yet, and you’re competing against Nick Stokes in that category.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
“Unfair competition” is a clear admission that climate alarmist scientists couldn’t contradict skeptics by using the Scientific Method. The claim that human CO2 emissions are the primary cause of global warming has been demolished by almost twenty years of no global warming — while CO2 has steadily increased.
And there’s no good long term correlation either, between rising CO2 and global warming. Despite the steady rise in CO2, close to half the decades of the preceding century have seen global cooling. So their conjecture that “carbon” is the primary cause of global warming was simply wrong. If CO2 has any effect, it’s been too small to measure.
Since they’ve lost the scientific argument, now they’re trying to legislate science:
(1) There is broad scientific consensus that…
…the Earth is flat, and witches cause disease, and heavier than air flight is impossible, and the Sun revolves around the earth, and epicycles explain planetary motion… &etc.
This is also a direct legal threat against science sites like WUWT. All that most of us are doing is challenging them to prove their conjecture. Or at least, produce credible evidence to support their belief that a rise in CO2 and other GHGs will cause harmful global warming.
But there is no empirical evidence or observations to support their claims, while all real world observations contradict their “dangerous AGW” climate alarmism. Failing to make a convincing scientific case, they’re now passing a law intended to prosecute anyone publicly skeptical of their ideology. Lysenko, anyone?
Finally, where is the usual handful of alarmist commenters? Do they agree with this legal end run? Because this law certainly wouldn’t be necessary if they had any good arguments or supporting evidence.
Be Advised the court does not examine the evidence. It examines the “expert witnesses”… who will only be chosen from the approved list, not the unwashed…
California’s 4th Reich Bill starts off with two utter Lies:
“There is broad scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and changing the world’s climate patterns”
0.3 percent of scientists is not broad scientific consensus.
There is no evidence that AGW is “the” cause of world’s climate patterns.
Further, there is no evidence that world’s climate patterns are changing any differently than in the distant past.
I am just a Simple Red Neck, so I need a little help here. Why shouldn’t we call these people NAZIs??
Because leftists hate it when you tell the truth about them.
Good question. The difference is in the name.
National Socialist German Worker’s Party.
That first word, National. Communism believes in INTERnational Socialism (thus the USSR anthem The Internationale ) Since National Socialism was slightly less severe than Stalinist Communism, Stalin labled it Right Wing. In reality, from any POV outside Salinist Russia, it was rabidly Socialist. Don’t let revisionists of history fool you.
Since the Facists and NATIONAL Socialists gave Socialism such a bad name in W.W.II, the Socialist movement decided it must have been nationalism whot dun it (since they could not accept that it was a failure of Socialism). This has led to the global effort to redefine National Pride or any Nationalism as “right wing” and therefore evil. Yes, we are back to being pushed, one “union of countries” and one “trade treaty” at a time slow walking to International Socialism.
Since it avoids rabidly any Nationalism, you must use a differnt term. Properly, it would be Stalinist or, if folks actually understood economic history, Fascist (though they, too, had a nationalist urge, so maybe Stalinist is more accurate. ..)
With that bit of pedantic economic history out of the way, we can return to discussing The People’s Socialist Republic of Kalifornia
Well…It seems to me that their economic plan is in keeping with National Socialists: The Dear Leader and his friends own everything and the government controls everything. As for being strictly national for the German NAZIs, that included all of Europe and the Soviet Union. Still, I only quibble. You are right.
today is gonna be ‘pay respects to my favorite commenters day’
Respect, EM
“some fossil fuel companies were aware by the late 1970s of scientific studies showing that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion pose significant risk of harmful global warming”
Would California’s Ministry of Propaganda care to back that up with solid evidence, not just some hearsay, or political accusations?
No.
It is based on a leaked internal memo (which the press always redacts to a single paragraph) where the scientist was noting the existence of a paper whose analysis he considered extremely weak. They always quote the part where he is quoting the paper and leave out the point by point take down of the analysis. As with all things of the left, it is what they won’t talk about that is the problem.
Owen, a “Thumbs Up” for explaining that to those who were likely misled by press’s overt pro-AGW editing of what really went down.
Breathtaking. And terrifying.
Hi from Oz. I’m re-reading ‘Atlas Shrugged’ at the moment and this nonsense looks eerily like the scenarios portrayed in the book, written in the 1950s. Ayn Rand surely was prescient! I can’t wait to see how this turns out vs the book. Where is ‘Hank Reardon’ when you need him?
Yep. The book was published in 1955. I bought a 50th Anniversary edition. I heard that the movie wasn’t all bad.
Let us remember that she fled Russia. I forget whether that was before or after the Russian revolutions. Yes, there were two that I am aware of.
her birth name was alyssa rosenbaum. she unilaterally emigrated (escaped) from st. petersburg.
her most brilliant effort was the definition of an objective morality (see Galt’s speech, @ur momisugly p 960).
for this achievement i put her in my pantheon along with darwin and shannon.
she then proceeded to surround herself with people who would not contradict her and went crazy cuz there was nobody to keep her honest. i call this ‘guru syndrome’. lesson: if everybody agrees with you, you need to find somebody smarter than you to hang out with.
more trivia? alan greenspan was a ‘disciple’ who was excommunicated for some heresy i have not discovered.
barbara branden was obliged to share her husband with ayn but was able to capitalize on it. it became her claim to fame and fortune.
Left is using “Atlas Shrugged” as their Playbook.
Sorry, Boyfrom Tottenham, but you lost your chance a long time ago, when your gummit took away your rights. Keep in mind the great philosophers who wrote the song, “Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money”
They have found the ultimative hole in the constitution. The constitution grants the rights of free speech to the people. Corporations are not people so there is nothing to stop them to apply legislation to force corporations to do what they want! Just like the current rant on e-cigarettes in the EU, they don’t ban it, they just restrict the companies by requiring them to certify or restrict the products.
“Corporations are not people so”
Some Legal experts have chimed in (see Exxon vs. AGW – AGs) and said that Constitution protects Corporations, Businesses, and Organizations the same as people. At least outside of California…
May be, but why is it that certain companies (in the EU) are not allowed to advertise their products not even at the windows of their shops?
EU != US
Corporations are people, too. Think of the sole proprietor subchapter S professional corporations that many professions used to practice in business. Beyond that, all a corporation is happens to be an organization comprised of people, from a set size of 1 to millions. Where I live, towns and cities are corporations, organized for municipal government functions.
Yes, that’s right not all corporations are organized for commercial reasons.
The word means “embodiment”!
Indeed, that would be the literal translation from Lain. A thing that has a body/corpus.
Corporations are indeed “people,” but not so they can be afforded Constitutional protections. No, the reverse is true: it was so they could be charged with crimes as people.
I’d also say to limit the personal liability of the persons so organized for acts done by persons in the corporate (an organization given a body for legal personhood) form.
forgive my quibble, but if you think rights are received by grant- you may not be clear on the concept of rights.
One small correction: the constitution does not ‘grant’ the right of free speech, it affirms and protects the pre-existing right from the actions of the government. It is a constraint on government.
And the climate inquisition begins.
It is astonishing that this was even proposed in committee let alone got out of committee. I’d love to see some in depth legal analysis of this by a competent attorney but I am not sure you can find one any more.
Last rational person in California, please turn out the lights.
The bill is very likely Un-constitutional as written and, even if signed into law, subject to challenge on various Constitutional grounds.
+1
What a dumb Idea, I guess they will have to also prosecute any climate scientist who dares to publish any data that disagrees with the climate models,…. and also the creators of the climate models that disagree with any of the other climate models……….
This is the sort of thing which causes men to stand up
and throw down.
Just a quick observation here.
We often buy products which, on the back, in fine print, state:
“Known to the state of California to cause cancer”
Mandated by California law, no doubt.
It seems California has long established the legal precedent that the CA legislature can dictate scientific fact, and possibly truth as well.
This CAGW legislation seems to be a continuation of what has gone before.
And yet profit from these sales!
yeah- i had a box of 7d nails with that warning on them
when i used them i immediately grew a tumor on my head the size of a grapefruit which stole my identity and started posting on blogs.
Well you now have the embodiment of the true meaning of the phrase: “If you underline everything, you underline nothing”. No one today pays a bit of attention to these “mandated” California proclamations because we know through this warning flag today that “everything” causes cancer, similar to “documented” Global Warming.
“publicity casting doubt on scientific understanding of climate change, have led to confusion, disagreement, and unnecessary controversy over the causes of climate change and the effects of emissions of greenhouse gases”
When 99.7% of Scientists have doubt about AGW…
When AGWers models are wrong
When GW Climatologists have to Trash Satellite temperature data to keep their GW golden fleece going
When primary GHGs (at 99.72%) are Mother Nature’s – not human’s
When GW Climatologists can’t come up with explanation for 18-year Pause
When AGWers don’t know CO2’s effects are Logarithmic
When Mann’s own disagree with him, dismiss him, and fail to back him in his bogus lawsuit
There is obviously a lack of scientific understanding and there is scientific disagreement!
The unnecessary controversy has been foisted on World by those who claim AGW.
The enemy is truly within. No external enemy has come as close to taking away my basic rights as California Democrats are today.
Section 2. states
a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following: 1. There is broad scientific consensus that AGW is occurring and that the primary cause is the production and combustion of fossil fuels ……followed by a long list of catastrophic effects
AND
b) It is the intent of the Legislature to …seek redress for unfair.. practices committed by entities that have deceived, confused or misled the public on the risks of climate change or financially supported activities….
As they have defined the AGW in this law any entity who misleads, confuses etc the public is liable for prosecution.
will they sing the same song when it becomes obvious to all that they are the deceivers and this law is fraud perpetrated on the public for their financial gain?
California must be taking a lead from North Korea.
North Korea has a 100% consensus on all topics.
That is, if you exclude the views of “criminals”.
Of course, there never was a consensus regarding the response of the climate to CO2 emissions or how to best respond to what may or may not be occurring.
But, the belief that there IS a consensus among scientists, may in fact be significantly aiding the mission to construct one.
For anyone who didn’t join with the mass deception this is possible going to be facepalms all the way down.
I went to a museum today, here in Somerset, UK.
One exhibit was marked “Until 9000 years ago, Somerset was a land of snow and ice”.
Yep – and then we all bought 4 wheel drives and installed gas central heating!!!
And look where we are now.
What a shame that neolithic man had so long to wait before electric cars and wind turbines.
All of this awful warming and glacial retreat could have so easily been prevented.
I guess that that exhibit should really be removed for throwing doubt on the consensus view that any current change in the climate is all down to us.
1984
This 1984 began in 1988!!
“Until now, scientists have been cautious about attributing rising global temperatures of recent years to the predicted global warming caused by pollutants in the atmosphere, known as the ”greenhouse effect.” But today Dr. James E. Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration told a Congressional committee that it was 99 percent certain that the warming trend was not a natural variation but was caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide and other artificial gases in the atmosphere. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html?pagewanted=all
It is always tyranny when the truth is no defense.
Vote Progressive for a Utopian Future
This is the acme of “political correctness”. It is “truth” by the coercion of the State.
“There is broad scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and changing the world’s climate patterns, and that the primary cause is the emission of greenhouse gases from the production and combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas.”
Notice that even if one admits that this statement is true, it still cannot be used to prosecute
any of those dissenters who claim the climate changes are not significantly large nor likely to continue
as the planet decarbonizes, which is clearly happening. Note also that a California law only can be enforced in California. And what’s to stop a journalist in California from publishing what someone in Indiana said about climate change? Let’s try to convince California to secede from the union. That would solve a lot of problems,especially if we built a fence around California.
One can only hope that Mama (nature) will soon tire of the left coast BS and trip the “big one” –that would solve a lot of problems also.
The third reading of the bill was scheduled for reading in the California Senate today. No sure what this means. Do they vote after the third reading? if so, it’s about 3 p.m. in California. Does anyone know what the vote was?
In parliamentary procedure, a ‘reading’ is just that, a review,of the text of a bill or motion. Most ordered bodies (legislatures, boards of directors, courts, etc.,) have bylaws which govern how a ‘motion’ is to be handled. In the case of something complex, like legislation, this allows persons not present at 100% of meetings to understand the motion, in preparation for debate. Bylaws also provide for how debate will proceed.
Too much political correctness! Orwell and 1984 here we come.
But, mind the “trigger warnings”!
Gillard passed a similar bill in Australia. $1,100,000 fine if you speak out against the scam.