Guest cross examination by David Middleton
THE PEOPLE V. CLIMATE CHANGE
‘Biggest case on the planet’ pits kids vs. climate change
A pioneering lawsuit against the U.S. government won the right to a trial. But the Trump administration is still asking the courts to cancel it.
BY LAURA PARKER
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 19, 2018
LEVI DRAHEIM IS a nine-year-old science geek. He founded an environmental club as a fourth grader and gives talks about climate change to audiences of grown-ups. His home is on a slender barrier island on Florida’s Atlantic coast, 21 miles south of Cape Canaveral and a five-minute walk from the beach. By mid-century, his sandy childhood playground could be submerged by rising seas. He will be just 42.
Nathan Baring is 17 and a high school junior in Fairbanks, Alaska—120 miles south of the Arctic Circle. He loves cold weather and skis. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Now winter snows that Baring once celebrated as early as August in Fairbanks can hold off until November.
By 2050, Arctic sea ice will have virtually disappeared, and temperatures in the interior, surrounding Fairbanks, will have risen by an additional 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit, altering the boreal forest ecosystem. Nathan will be 50.
“I can deal with a few days of rain in February when it’s supposed to be 40 below,” he says. “But I can’t deal with the idea that what my parents experienced and what I have experienced will not exist for my children. I am a winter person. I won’t sit idly by and watch winter vanish.”
Baring and Draheim so lack confidence that they will inherit a healthy planet that they are suing the United States government for failing to adequately protect the Earth from the effects of climate change.
[…]
The kids’ lawsuit was joined by acclaimed NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who began studying climate change in the 1970s and whose granddaughter, Sophie, is among the 21 young plaintiffs.
[…]
Last fall, U.S. District Court Judge Anne Aiken agreed with the youths’ claim.
[…]
“I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society,” Aiken wrote. “Just as marriage is the foundation of the family, a stable climate system is quite literally the foundation of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress.”
[…]
“I can deal with a few days of rain in February when it’s supposed to be 40 below”
–Nathan Baring, 17
That’s refreshing… A teenager who can handle a few days of rain in February.
“I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.”
–U.S. District Court Judge Anne Aiken
How in the HELL can anyone have a “right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life”? What’s next? The right to friendly plate tectonics? The right to non-lethal bolides?
Somebody better sue Milankovitch to prevent this from happening again…
Why not sue the Federal government for failing to protect us from That 70’s Climate Science Show…
Maybe Jimbo Hansen can sue the climate for defying his model…
Same goes for the folks at Remote Sensing Systems…
They should have very solid cases against the climate.
While they’re at it, the climate kiddies sue everyone who benefited from consuming all of these fossil fuels instead of freezing and starving in the dark…
Then we can counter-sue them for trying to deprive us of our right to not freeze and starve in the dark.
Better yet, sue these people for failed predictions…
- In 1865, Stanley Jevons (one of the most recognized 19th century economists) predicted that England would run out of coal by 1900, and that England’s factories would grind to a standstill.
- In 1885, the US Geological Survey announced that there was “little or no chance” of oil being discovered in California.
- In 1891, it said the same thing about Kansas and Texas. (See Osterfeld, David. Prosperity Versus Planning : How Government Stifles Economic Growth. New York : Oxford University Press, 1992.)
- In 1939 the US Department of the Interior said that American oil supplies would last only another 13 years.
- 1944 federal government review predicted that by now the US would have exhausted its reserves of 21 of 41 commodities it examined. Among them were tin, nickel, zinc, lead and manganese.
- In 1949 the Secretary of the Interior announced that the end of US oil was in sight.
If we’d run out of fossil fuels back then, the climate kiddies and Judge Aiken wouldn’t be worried about being deprived of their right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life.
Supreme court just granted Trump administration writ of mandamus on this issue… maga!
Right now, that’s just temporary…
https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/state/washington/article220330125.html
Interestingly that report also notes that the Obama administation also tried to shut down similar cases
It was OK when it was Obama… /SARC
As far as I can tell, SCOTUS has not granted a writ of mandamus. It has ordered a stay of discovery.
Some folks have referred to a writ of mandamus as rarely used. That doesn’t mean it’s obscure or in any way unconventional.
In the various cases against the oil companies, the rulings have been that climate policy belongs in the halls of congress, not the courts. In light of that, demanding that the plaintiffs in the children’s case respond to the governments application for a writ of mandamus may be a formality. I’m guessing that the writ will be issued … but don’t bet the farm on that. 🙂
Please read my blog at https://rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com/2018/10/22/mainstream-news-on-global-warming-theory-and-its-validity-not-by-mark-levin-and-patrick-j-michaels-american-association-of-state-climatologists-former-president/ where Mark Levin and Patrick Michaels discuss the “scientific” turpitude of government paid scientists.
He hits it right on the nail and this is the best interview criticizing AGW that I have seen on main stream media.
This video is worth sending to every AGW site on the internet!
Cheers
Roger
Can I sue Judge Anne Aiken for allowing this to proceed in the face of previous rulings given by other courts?
Well it keeps the lawyers in the money.
Won’t somebody please think of the lawyers?
or at least the lawyer’s children
Exactly what constitutes the “standing” of these little eco-warriors?
Exactly what damages have they suffered?
Two years ago citizens and vote-security groups were barred from suing to stop registration fraud and vote fraud based on “lack of standing”
Federal judges have way too much discretion in imposing nationwide class-actions and stays of enforcement, especially in environmental cases
A bill from Congress created everything in the federal court system under SCOTUS, as per its constitutional authority. Another bill from Congress can reorganize or disband it entirely. If the seats are with him post-midterms, Trump should hint at that possibility, if not outright call for it. Just the threat of such a nuclear option could make many of these advocacy judges behave themselves.
GeologyJim,
I have wondered the same thing. As minors, they cannot exercise many rights, and are instead offered protections by society and their parents are legally responsible for them. I could imagine that their parents might be able to sue on their behalf, for their assumed future losses, but I just don’t understand why they have been granted standing when they are minors.
Didn’t you read the sad sad story of the nine-year old climate science “expert” who “talks about global warming to adults”, His favorite playground will (actually won’t but he thinks it will) be underwater by then time he’s “only 42”. The tragedy! He won’t be able to play on the swings in that playground (and I guess won’t be able to go to any other playground) when he’s 42!
If that doesn’t bring tears to your eyes and prove he has standing .. well then there’s no hope for you.
This is all impossible, anyway, as if Paul Ehrlich was right, we mostly all died of a famine sometime in the 1980’s.
Well, what didn’t kill us from famine in the 80s killed us with AIDS in the 80s…and if you are American, you have the added bonus of being killed again in this century due to the end of Net Neutrality and the death of Obamacare…
The looney left has resorted to listening to the real experts in science, kids. They just need to learn mathematics, physics, and chemistry first.
See: a nine-year old’s project on straws…
The reason they keep using tobacco has an example is because those law suits led to MASSIVE payouts to law firms concerned as their cut . Not because these are good examples of the law at work or relented .
And some are looking for the same this time , hence on reason there will be an never ended series of these , that and the fanatical political outlook of deep greens and states need to be fill some series wholes in their budgets.
One day they will one , and then it will go up the ladder and a few more years go by.
Right now, Monsanto is in the cross hairs for Roundup. Parasite (lawyer) adds are popping up on TV all the time now.
Anne Aiken was in my brother’s class in high school. I liked her a lot. Then.
She also sentenced the Hammonds, Oregon ranchers railroaded by the BLM, back to prison. Trump pardoned them, bypassing the usual procedure.
John Tillman
“I liked her a lot” ~ahem~
A little expansion on that might be interesting…….. 🙂
I never went out on a date with her. But I liked her.
If you’re ever nominated to the Supreme Court, you just might find out how much her hypnotist says she liked you. 😎
Nathan Baring is fine with the weather occasionally being at least 72 degrees F above normal (raining when it “should be” -40), but the prospect of the weather being 2 to 4 degrees F higher on average in his hometown of Fairbanks drives him to court? Since when did a bump of even 4 degrees F make “winter vanish” in Alaska?
According to Google, these are Fairbanks average high/low in F for October – March
October 35/19
November 10/-5
December 3/-11
January 0/-15
February 13/-9
March 25/-4
Adding 4 degrees to those isn’t going to make “winter vanish”. You’ll also notice that it’s never actually the case that it’s raining when it *should* be -40.
Of course, the idea that arctic sea ice will have “virtually disappeared” by 2050 is a huge stretch even if you were talking about minimum extent. In the *winter* sea ice is certainly not going to disappear from the arctic this interglacial.
Let’s see the new billboard meter of the legal fees on this alongside the national debt billboard.
By 2050, Arctic sea ice will have virtually disappeared
Wait, 2050? wasn’t the artic supposed to be ice free by the summer of 2015 (IE three years ago)?
2013 actually, according to that great scientist Al Gore.
It’s worse than we thought! 😉
yes
What’s the error bar on “virtually”?
Mostly imaginary.
“MarkW October 23, 2018 at 12:29 pm
Mostly imaginary.”
Sounds expensive.
As long as the so called climate scientist, politicians and the lying media keep blaming every extreme weather event on climate change, it becomes climate change is the issue. If we could perform the same tests the elites performed, on the witches in the run up to and the Little Ice age, torture on a rack, one would have to wonder if they would change their mind. Seems 50,000 to 70,000 witches were burned at the stake for their messing of the climate. Put me on a torture rack and I’d admit I’m my late mother’s father, if that was what they are looking for. Hail storms in the middle of the summer, out of season floods, snow falling earlier and staying around later, all those things no living human has experienced, just like today. The heavy snows in Canada, snow on the mountains of Hawaii in October, the snowstorm Saturday on national television out of Wisconsin, and many more examples across this planet.
The reality is even if you do there prescribed fix nothing happens for over 50 years, you won’t see any difference in your lifetime and that assumes other countries actually do something.
When I was about Nathan Baring’s age, I wrote an essay for a Civics Class titled “We Must Control Our Population.” Over a life-long carrier in the environmental field, the population has roughly doubled, food production has roughly tripled, and the percentage of the population in poverty has deceased. As such, my essay was largely off base. I suspect when Nathan Baring looks back in time, he will find his views of climate change missed the mark as well.
Farmer Ch E retired
Indeed.
It’s all very well demonstrating to children the objectivity of considered thought, but at a young age, who understands political, social and economic reality?
As much as I love my own children (now young adults) they simply haven’t a clue about real life, and one has a Masters degree in Zoology. She thinks the eco loons are cranks so she’s right about one thing.
Encyclopedia entry:-
“Barrier islands are dynamic systems, constantly on the move, migrating under the influence of changing sea levels, storms, waves, tides, and long-shore currents.”
Perhaps this child ‘science’ prodigy needs a little more education on the realities of nature, instead of expecting the world to be preserved in aspic.
That is absolutely true about real barrier islands, like the ones off the New Jersey shore, the Outer Banks, and others along the Gulf coast. HOWEVER, the things they call barrier islands along the east coast of Florida are not barrier islands. They are mainland beaches that were separated from the mainland by the Intracoastal Waterway which was ditched along the coast back in the ’20s. An island “created” by man, artificially separated from its mainland does not magically become a barrier island. Anyone who has spent any time on any of these “islands” in Florida knows that they are anything but dynamic. Between the sea walls, jetties, and bulkheads along with periodic beach renourishment to replace the sand washed away because of the aforementioned sea walls, jetties, and bulkheads, the potential for dynamism is about zero.
If carbon boogeymen don’t work out, there are always baby powder, Roundup, beef, sugar, and salt.
Someone should tell Levi Draheim that the reason his current home may be underwater in a few decades is because the land is sinking at about 3 mm/yr which accounts for all of the apparent sea level rise. See PSMSL.org for the data. This could be due to too much ground water pumping or a geological realignment of some kind. It will certainly not be due to global warming, based on available evidence.
Children should be seen and not heard.
At least until they have moved out and lived on their own for a bit. It’s amazing how smart the parent suddenly becomes after they do that.
Nature is either a denier or in denial of the anthropogenic consensus.
No winter would suck. Does anyone know where the Alaska kid can buy an electric snowmobile so he can do his part in “saving the planet”?
The activist game plan is to turn the Oregon Federal District Courtroom into a 50-day platform for IPCC science to be presented. Analogous to a courtroom being assigned over to a group of doomsday cult members so they can persuade the world of their beliefs.
Once again judicial empathy threatens justice. One judge in Hawaii managed to block lawful immigration policies. Judge Aiken intends to pass judgment upon the decisions and actions of most of the Executive Branch of the US government. The scope is breathtaking and she refuses to rein it in.
The petition by US for relief from the District Court rulings shows how far this has gone. My synopsis is
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2018/10/22/judicial-empathy-is-not-justice/
All the more reason to push a revised Judicial Act through Congress to flush the system and give advocacy judges like her the big boot.
(Only SCOTUS has a constitutional right to exist apart from the other branches. All lower federal courts exist solely at the pleasure of Congress and can be reorganized or disbanded outright by an act of the same.)
The suit argues that the government has put these children in danger:
“…with policies that have caused a dangerous climate.” Note the past tense of the charge (my bold).
They did not say “policies that WILL cause a dangerous climate (in the future)”.
If it does go to court it should be easy to show there has not been an increase in severe flooding, hurricanes, wild fires etc, and that the SLR is moving at the same pace it has for centuries.
It’s probably hotels pushing land down and sucking water up.
Am I thick ? Never knew that Climate Change could be sued. It neither trades, has any assets or even has a policy. All it does is what it has always done – change, irrespective of legalities.
Whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad.
Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon
Appointed by Bill Clinton
(I guess the Russians made him do it.)
Her late husband was a poli sci prof at the U of O and “chair” of the Oregon Democratic Party.
Middleton ==> Is there some news about this case?
The status is plaintiffs are responding to Chief Justice Roberts by Oct. 24 to persuade him to lift his stay for the discovery and trial to proceed on Oct. 29.
“…a climate system capable of sustaining human life.”
Hmm. such as a climate ‘system’ ranging from desert to tropical to temperate to continental to oceanic to polar etc. with temperatures ranging from + 50C to – 50C? And, a climate system with features such as Hurricanes, Tornados, Droughts, Floods.
Human life seems to have figured out how to live and survive anywhere on earth with our crazy climate system and in addition to that, we have survived Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Plagues, Famines, World Wars.
The things that threaten the sustainability of human life are giant asteroids, super-volcanoes and nuclear war and above all ideology.
The reality is that climate change has been going on for eons and will continue to go on whether mankind is here or not. Based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change that we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. The party to litigate is Mother Nature. Lots of luck collecting on a judgement against Mother Nature.
An Obama oooops moment!
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/barack-obama-left-australia-swinging-in-the-breeze-over-air-strikes-kevin-rudd-20181022-p50b9d.html
I’m just wondering how you are supposed to survive in -40 degrees without fossil fuels.
If it’s their right to have a hospitable to human life planet.. wouldn’t it help their cause to have less -40 degree days? And more rain days?
“I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.” (and a providing for a free and ordered society is the job of the Feds ….)
–U.S. District Court Judge Anne Aiken
Let’s go with this. So, all we need to do, is show by preponderance of evidence, that given the existing regulations that are in place, there will (or will not) continue to be a climate system capable of sustaining human life. And the Judge thinks trial evidence is necessary for this assessment?
And the spin-off. If I am stuck in Fairbanks and I can’t afford the heating oil necessary to sustain human life, isn’t it then the responsibility of the Federal Government to to either give me winter’s supply of oil, or a plane ticket to Florida, or provide me with a “climate system capable of sustaining human life”?
It strikes me as ironic, in a world in which the Federal Registry weighs in the multiple tons, that anyone can speak of a “free society”.
“free and ordered society”
One of these things is not like the other…
So far as I can tell, their climate will be no different than ours – but….if it’s not sustainable where they live, they can always MOVE.
Forget suing these brats. SHUT OFF ALL FOSSIL FUELS TO THEIR SCHOOLS AND HOMES. Give them exactly what they want.
Exactly. If the plaintiffs, their families and their lawyers cannot demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt that they do not use fossil fuels for anything, including travelling to court, the case should be dismissed forthwith.
It’s like this on a continental scale kiddies-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/from-snow-to-43c-australia-set-for-24-hours-of-wild-weather/ar-BBOL7oG
but they tell me some grownups are trying to fix the weather for the whole globe for you but at your age I’d strongly advise sticking with Father Xmas, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.
How can you fix the weather when it is naturally occurring?
David,
In future graphs showing Hansen’s 1988 predictions, you should consider correcting the Scenarios B and C to reflect the fact that the hypothetical volcanic eruption did not take place in 2015 as assumed by Hansen.
How could he have possibly botched a volcanic eruption prediction?
/SARC
An activist judge with an agenda.
Looks to me like we’re making the arctic more habitable, not less. Can I not sue these people for my costs incurred in supposedly making that happen?
We would save tremendous quantities of fuel by halving the value of earth gravity.
And collect considerably more solar energy by doubling the Planck constant.
Time to act Your Honor, Humanity has the right to be governed by greener laws of physics!
Abolish old reactionary corrupt by big oil physics !
Really rather sad using children to push a scam .
The climate models used to justify the biggest farce in history
have been proven to grossly overstate actual warming . Pushing a false narrative that is scientifically preposterous is fraud . Tens of thousands die every year from a lack of heat stemming from government imposed policies . Fuel poverty is planned mass genocide, which after all is the real objective of the virtue signalers .
The charlatans that have perpetrated this mass extermination knew exactly what they were doing and need to be held accountable .
“Maybe Jimbo Hansen can sue the climate for defying his model…”
and
“Scenario A is “business as usual.” Scenario C is where humans basically undiscover fire in 1999.”
No
It was the other way around – his scenarios did not fit his “model”.
The RCP we followed fell between C and B
Hansen was using GISS Ts (no SST’s … were not available in ’88)
That plot is also of GISTEMP (includes SSTs) and as land is warming quicker, it is a cooler index.
NS quote from here….
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/30/analysis-of-james-hansens-1988-prediction-of-global-temperatures-for-the-last-30-years/
“Hansen’s atmospheric model covered the whole ocean, whereas GISS Ts doesn’t, quite. So it could be argued that the right measure lies somewhere between. I think that was Hansen’s view. But at the time, Hansen used GISS Ts in his comparison. There were no indices at the time using SST.”
And from Nick’s website …
https://moyhu.blogspot.com/2018/06/hansens-1988-predictions-30-year.html
“What the showing of combined temperature records shows is that Hansen’s 1988 prediction is about as good as it could be, because it sits within the scatter of modern records. The difference between GISS Ts and GISS land/ocean is comparable to the difference between GISSlo and scenario B.
As a check on my active plot above, here is RealClimate’s rendition of the case for GISS land/ocean with the same scenarios:
This is the correct graph using GISTEMP, and not the one shown above.
Also you ignore other forcings that Hansen included (other GHGs).
They fell below what his scenarios projected.
Methane fell well below in particular.