From the “It’s dead Jim” department comes this ruling from the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA, and Judge Alsup:
Some excerpts of the ruling:
The question is therefore whether or not plaintiffs’ alleged harm — namely, the effects of global warming-induced sea level rise — would have occurred even absent each defendant’s respective California-related activities. It is manifest that global warming would have continued in the absence of all California-related activities of defendants. Plaintiffs have therefore failed to adequately link each defendants’ alleged California activities to plaintiffs’ harm.
As earlier orders have pointed out, plaintiffs’ nuisance claims depend on a global complex of geophysical cause and effect involving all nations of the planet. Ocean rise, as far as plaintiffs contend, would have occurred even without regard to each defendant’s California contacts.
Lacking, however, is a causal chain sufficiently connecting plaintiffs’ harm and defendants’ California activities.
Finally, plaintiffs advocate for a less stringent standard of “but for” causation in light of the liability rules underlying public nuisance claims. Such an argument has been rejected by our court of appeals, which has instructed that “liability is not to be conflated with amenability to suit in a particular forum.”
For the same reasons discussed above, however, plaintiffs do not satisfy this third requirement. Even taking plaintiffs’ allegations as true, they have failed to show that BP or Royal Dutch Shell’s national conduct was a “but for” cause of their harm.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, defendants’ motions to dismiss pursuant to FRCP 12(b)(2) are GRANTED.
You can read the court order here:
SF.Oak_Alsup-Order-Granting-Dismissal-on-PJ-charges
“But Jim, those are our men down there! We can’t just leave ’em!”
“Bones, … we … don’t … have a choice. Don’t you see there’s … nothing … I can do?”
The world sees sense. I guess this tells us that outside the political world there is no support at all for CAGW. Good. It is very limited then.
How much dosh was wasted on this case I wonder?
This is great news.
The green-leftist ploy of using the courts to push through deeply unpopular policies that have been rejected at the ballot box has failed (this time).
Ali Skeptics KO’s Cali Greens. Who’s next?
Meanwhile, here in MD, the city of Baltimore is considering a similar lawsuit. I hadn’t realized that the city had resolved all their other issues as high crime/murder rate, schools in taters, police department corruption, etc, etc. They don’t have the money to take care of these issues, but have money for a frivolous lawsuit. But come election time, city residents will keep voting for democrats, oh the madness!!
City of Baltimore is figuratively and literally a swamp this summer.
Hurry up good people! It’s long past time to take the offensive! Sue the warmists under Civil RICO!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/24/uk-met-fastest-decline-solar-activity-last-ice-age/#comment-1972538
PROPOSAL – SUE THE WARMISTS IN THE USA UNDER CIVIL RICO
I have been considering this approach for several years and I think it is now time to proceed..
Civil RICO provides for TRIPLE DAMAGES. Global losses from the global warming scam are in the trillions, including hundreds of billions on the USA.
We would sue the sources of warmist funding and those who have significantly profited from the global warming scam..
The key to starting a civil RICO action is to raise several million dollars to fund the lawsuit, which will be protracted and expensive.
If serious funders are interested, please contact me through https://energy-experts-international.com/
Regards, Allan MacRae
Calgary
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/21/salmon-climate-and-accountability/#comment-1349527
September 21, 2014 11:28 pm
On Accountability:
I wrote this to a friend in the USA one year ago (in 2013):
I am an engineer, not a lawyer, but to be clear I was thinking of a class action (or similar) lawsuit, rather than an individual lawsuit from yourself or anyone else.
I suggest that there have been many parties that have been damaged by global warming alarmism. Perhaps the most notable are people who have been forced to pay excessive rates for electricity due to CO2-mandated wind and solar power schemes. Would the people of California qualify? Any other states? I suggest the people of Great Britain, Germany and possibly even Ontario would qualify, but the USA is where this lawsuit would do the most good.
There is an interesting field of US law that employs the RICO (anti-racketeering) statutes to provide treble (triple) damages in civil cases. That might be a suitable approach.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Racketeering
[excerpt]
Despite congressional attempts to limit the scope of civil RICO, only one major area of law has been removed from the RICO Act. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (15 U.S.C.A. § 77 et seq.) eliminated liability for RICO claims based on securities Fraud, unless the defendant has already been criminally convicted of securities fraud. The act thus removed the threat of treble (triple) damages in such cases. Congress concluded that federal securities laws generally provide adequate remedies for victims of securities fraud. Therefore, it was unnecessary and unfair to expose defendants in securities cases to the threat of treble damages and other extraordinary remedies provided by the RICO Act.
Critics of the RICO Act applaud this congressional action but argue that the same reasoning can and should be applied to other areas of Civil Law. These critics maintain that the act’s broad scope has given plaintiffs an unfair advantage in civil litigation.
One criticism of civil RICO is that no criminal convictions are necessary to win a civil case under the act. The plaintiff need only show, by a Preponderance of Evidence, that it is more likely than not that the ongoing criminal enterprise occurred. As a result RICO has been used in all types of civil cases to allege wrongdoing. By contrast, a criminal RICO case must be proved Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.
In addition, the judge and jury in a criminal RICO case are prohibited from drawing an adverse inference from a defendant’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment Privilege against Self-Incrimination. No such ban exists, however, in a civil RICO case. Critics contend that it is unfair for a party in a civil RICO case who has concerns about potential criminal liability to be forced to waive his or her Fifth Amendment privilege in order to mount an effective defense in the civil action. Once testimony is given in the civil case, the party has effectively waived the privilege against Self-Incrimination, and the testimony may be used in a subsequent criminal prosecution. Critics contend that the RICO Act should be amended to stay (delay) a civil RICO proceeding until a criminal RICO proceeding has been concluded.
The critics of civil RICO also believe that its use has given plaintiffs an unfair tool that often serves to coerce a party to settle out of fear of a treble damages award. These critics believe that no civil RICO action should be allowed unless the party has been convicted under criminal RICO.
[end of excerpt]
I suggest the Climategate emails could provide the necessary evidence of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the public, through fraudulent misallocation of government-funded research monies, and wind and solar power schemes that were forced upon consumers and which were utterly incapable of providing significant or economic new energy to the electric power grid.
Your thoughts?
Regards, Allan
Also from 2015:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/24/collusion-exposed-between-governors-white-house-and-tom-steyers-climate-advocacy-groups/#comment-1591967
Hi Wayne,
Global cooling will put an end to this CAGW nonsense by about 2020.
You can contact me through my website.
Best, Allan
Here is the link to my latest paper.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/getPart_(6).pdf
It is a retrospective of our debate on the Kyoto Protocol that was published in 2002.
UN IPCC HAS NO CREDIBILITY
by Allan MacRae, Aug. 26, 2015
[excerpts]
One’s predictive track record is perhaps the only objective measure of one’s competence. The IPCC has a negative predictive track record, because ALL of its scary projections have failed to materialize. The IPCC thus has NO credibility; actually it has NEGATIVE credibility.
Probabilistically; based the IPCC’s negative predictive track record, one would more correct if one assumed the opposite of the IPCC’s scary projections.
…
In summary, all our predictions have proven correct in those venues that fully embraced the now-defunct Kyoto Accord, whereas none of the IPCC’s scary projections have materialized.
So what happens next? Will we see catastrophic humanmade global warming? No, our planet will cool.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/13/over-2000-cold-and-snow-records-set-in-the-usa-this-past-week/#comment-1502081
[excerpts]
I (we) predicted the commencement of global cooling by 2020-2030 in an article published in the Calgary Herald in 2002. That prediction is gaining credibility as solar activity [in current SC24] has crashed… It is still early in the prediction game, but SC25 is also projected to be very weak, so we will probably experience two consecutive very-weak Solar Cycles in SC24 and SC25… IF the Sun does indeed drive temperature, as I suspect, then successive governments in Britain and continental Europe have brewed the perfect storm. They have crippled their energy systems with excessive reliance on ineffective grid-connected wind power schemes. I suggest that global cooling probably WILL happen within the next decade or sooner, and Europe [and the world] will get colder, possibly much colder. I suggest that Winter deaths will increase in the Europe as cooling progresses. I suggest that Excess Winter Mortality rates will provide an estimate of this unfolding tragedy.
Timing is difficult to estimate, but I now expect global cooling to be evident by 2020 or sooner.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The problem with law is similar to that with education and the media. Over the years the law has been taken over by the left. And since the preponderance of legislators are also lawyers, the system is rigged to, guess what, make them money.
Amusing error in the judgement – apparently Royal Dutch Shell is registered in a marine mammal. “Royal Dutch Shell is a holding company registered in England and Whales …….”
Show Trial dismissed.
Maybe they need to shift to “ocean rising due to land subsidence due to pumping oil out of the ground?”
Next time go after Pop’s corner store and gas station. They might pay to settle.
In other words, the accused oil company actions have no measurable effects of harm to the plaintiffs. This makes way too much sense, and so I’m pleasantly surprised that any court system considering insane claims actually arrived at this sane conclusion.
On Feb 13, 2018: The judge dismissed all charges in the lawsuit brought against Dr Tim Ball by BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver. It is a great victory for free speech.
‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPzpPXuASY8
Tim’s website is
“Human Caused Global Warming”, ‘The Biggest Deception in History’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPzpPXuASY8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO08Hhjes_0
http://www.drtimball.com
Congrats Tim – were you awarded costs?
Are there any other lawsuits outstanding?
What happened to State Penn?