Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Justice John Roberts of the US Supreme Court has stepped in and temporarily halted the Children’s Climate Lawsuit, pending resolution of a Government application to have the case dismissed.
The Supreme Court stepped in to stall a climate lawsuit. That’s really weird.
It’s the second time the high court has paused a climate change-related case.
By Umair Irfan
Oct 23, 2018, 8:30am EDTOne of the biggest legal battles over climate change is now in limbo pending a decision from the Supreme Court’s chief justice, who last week took the odd step of halting the lawsuit to consider a stay.
The suit, Juliana v. US, also known as the children’s climate lawsuit, was first filed in 2015 and now includes 21 plaintiffs between the ages of 11 and 22, including Sophie Kivlehan, 20, who happens to be the granddaughter of the famed climate scientist James Hansen. The case argues that the US government undertook policies that contributed to climate change, thereby causing irreparable harm to young people and denying them a safe climate. As relief, they want the government to pursue policies to keep warming in check.
The trial was supposed to begin at the United States District Court in Oregon on October 29. But on Thursday, the defendant, the US government, asked for a stay of the case, arguing the costs of litigation would put an undue burden on it. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts granted a temporary stay and halted discovery until Wednesday to allow the plaintiffs to respond.
BREAKING: Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily halts discovery and the upcoming trial in the kids’ climate change case, pending a response to DOJ’s stay request, which is due by 3p Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/jFsd5DUmze
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) October 19, 2018
…
I hope this intervention leads to a speedy resolution of the lawsuit.
The participants I feel sorry for in all this are the kids fronting the lawsuit, who in my opinion are being used as political pawns by the unscrupulous adults who put them up to this ridiculous climate court case.
Being a teenager is difficult enough without having the adults in your life exploit your childhood to further their own political schemes.
Update (EW): Fixed a typo (h/t commieBob)
“Being a teenager is difficult enough without having the adults in your life exploit your childhood to further their own political schemes.”
Perfectly stated, Mr. Worrall.
Agreed.
They often say, “But what about the children!?” for this or that cause.
This case shows what they really think about “the children”. Media fodder.
A modern version of an old madness; the childrens’ crusade:
“The Children’s Crusade was a disastrous popular crusade by European Christians to regain the Holy Land from the Muslims, said to have taken place in 1212.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade
Can anyone name the adults behind the Children’s Climate Crusade?
well one is obviously j hansen, pretty obvious a lifetime of indoctrination on the grandkids has an effect.
“..an intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity” -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade
“In Islam, the rejection in part (of any of the pillars, or individual principles of Islam), or discarding the faith as a whole, amounts to apostasy.[1] The punishment for apostasy in the Islamic faith is death.” -WikiIslam.
Hmm.. I think I can see a problem with the peaceful bit of that idea.
The children are at more risk from the socialista than weather.
The SCOTUS seems to recognise that:
What is “weird” is that these BS cases , which are clearly a political game and not a serious legal question, are even getting as far as going to court. If the 9th circuit is going to allow this kind of silliness to go forward, someone is going to have to step in and stop it.
+1 (or the max allowable)
It is even more difficult when you are a teenager who is 22 years old.
“now includes 21 plaintiffs between the ages of 11 and 22”
Quite right, “the children’s climate lawsuit” sounds juvenile.
It sounds like we should have sympathy for their simplicity.
But 22 year olds are adults and should be accountable for their errors.
SJW 22 year-olds might legally be adults, but aren’t fully grown up yet.
…and never will be,
They will never be fully ‘grown up’.
I’m an optimist.
Maybe if real life hands them enough hard knocks, some might grok reality.
It seems that each new generation must be inoculated by experience against the contagion of socialism.
Are any of us fully grown up yet?
John Tillman: SJW 22 year-olds might legally be adults, but aren’t fully grown up yet.
Javert Chip …and never will be,
Some of them will, eventually, when reality slaps them upside their heads. Most, however, probably never will as they are cocooned in their “safe spaces” and protected from harsh reality by their enablers.
Are any of us fully grown up yet?
Most of us are more grown up then we are willing to admit. The old adage about if you’re under 30 and not a liberal means you have no heart and if your over 30 and not a conservative means you have no brain (or some variation there of) speaks to how people do grow up as they grow older. when you are young and naïve, you let your feelings (your heart) guide you. but as you grow older and (hopefully) wiser you learn to be guided by logic and reason (your brain) instead.
100 years ago the average 22-year-old male would have 3-4 children and been working full-time since age 16.
People grow up as fast as they have to. If society (and government) make it possible never to grow up at all, many people won’t.
50 years ago, I was working full time at the age of 15, and I was married and one year away from my first child at the age of 22.
OT “Eustace Cranch” named after the band, or the Cordwainer Smith reference in the story “Scanners Live in Vain” from 1950?
Peter Pan Nation.
https://youtu.be/H5b8wH1heQU
“Eustace Cranch” was my alter ego long before the band existed. From one of the greatest science fiction stories ever written.
James Clark:
At 15, my summer job was in a high explosives plant. I had to lie about my age to get that job. which paid quite well. Many decades later, the government tried to tell me that I was eligible for my old-age pension one year too early.
The pleasant government lady and I debated my birth year, and I was fairly sure it was one year later than she had in her files, even though I was too young at the time to remember the actual event.
Finally she asked “Did you lie about your age to get your first job?” I hesitated for a moment, and then said “Well, actually, yeah, but it was my second summer job.” She said many kids did that then, and since I needed a Social Insurance Number to get that job the lie had stayed in the government files for ~50 years.
I suppose I could have carried on with the lie and got my pension a year early, but I gave up lying for Lent on my 16th birthday – actually I delegated lying to all my leftist friends, and they have done a great job of it ever since. 🙂
You lied about one year of age. Big deal. If you had been part of a scientific study, if wouldn’t have changed the results much.
Now imagine how many people lie about vaccines when vaccines are mandatory and they know they are useless, unsafe, and that doctors who promote them often manage to not be vaccinated themselves (notably the stupid flu vaccine).
Now figure what it means for “science”.
Once again, I have to ask “What exactly is the standing of these little Eco-Warriors?” and “Exactly what damages have they suffered?”
Nada and Nada IMHO
Of course nothing, they are asking for compensation for some supposed damage to happen in some imagined future by some natural forces that they think that politicians should be able to control. Strong case, they have… lol
Still they could win if they find the right SJW as judge…
An account I read indicated that the Judge stated that this trial was not about whether Co2 caused extreme weather damage; that was to be accepted as fact.
Another point of interest was that one of the statements in the suit was for damages for government policies that caused these damaging events; they are asserting that current floods, SLR hurricanes etc were a result of bad US policy. Don’t most “consensus” scientists agree that the catastrophic events are in the future ? Because……….models?
Geology Jim,
Right. As the mantra “it’s all for the sake our kids’ future” has dominated the climate-scare scene for some 20 years now, there must be many tens of millions of young adults whose “future” today is quite OK under the current fossil-fuel-dominated regime.
The real abuse is that the adults have existentially frightened the children with false scare-stories.
The story is fake, but their fear is real.
Jim Hansen & co are truly guilty of child abuse, quite apart from deploying the children as sympathy-getting pawns.
Spot on Pat Frank. As one (of many) who grew up during the Cold War, where we were constantly confronted for decades with the fear of nuclear war, supported by vivid images and stories of imminent instant destruction, or worse as a survivor in a radioactive wasteland, our fear was real. On the other hand, filling countless millions of children’s heads with the unjustified fear of a hypothetical effect that might cause some minor climatic inconvenience in 50 years or more is gross child abuse. I’m surprised that more people my age don’t make this point to put climate alarmism into perspective for the younger generations.
Well perhaps they could teach them to curl up under tables and chairs when they see the climate changer film crews coming.
Scaring children in school never used to be allowed. Why are some school boards allowing this to happen?
Parents don’t send their children to school to be scared by any issue/
issues by school personnel.
oh I dunno bout that, there was the nuke fear and the overpop scam along with iceage when i was at school in the late 60s early 70s
and it affected a lot of us, for a long ,until lifetime growing eventually woke some of us…not all, up.
I made choices believing the world wasnt going to be fit to have kids in, and that further ed etc was also a waste of time cos the world was’nt going to be a place where it would be of value or use.( a tour of Sth Aus unis by our school sure made that look a lousy option as well)
the ones that didnt wake up are the parents and grandparents now screwing with their descendants heads…like hansen is.
Scaring children in school never used to be allowed.
Wasn’t it? “Duck and cover” under your desk when the nuclear bombs drop wasn’t a thing back in the 50s/60s classrooms? Environmental propaganda such as “silent spring” or the coming Ice age scares didn’t ever show up in 70s classrooms? Scaring kids in school has been going on for decades. It’s just that it seams to be more widespread, or perhaps we’re just more aware that it is going on now.
‘Duck and Cover’,And don’t look at the flash or your eyes will melt…
Surely John E. There was a pretty good reason for the ducking under during the cold war and prior to that, WWII when I was a child. Two megolamaniacs killed multimillions of their own populations.
In the first few years of WWII, there was good reason to think Germany’s war machine was invincible and the devastation in Europe would come to our shores (Canada). We were already sub chasing in the Gulf of St Lawrence, along the Atlantic and a Japanese threat was believable on the the W coast.
We found a German weather station and communication apparatus in the 1960s built by the German Navy during the war on a mountain in Labrador, and learned U-boats were refuelling and taking on fish and fresh water at isolated Newfoundland outports (no road connection).
What have we got to worry about now, another 0.5C global average temp increase (maybe) for crysakes. So, instead of bombs dropoing on your head, we might have to use a slightly stronger sun screen! Get a backbone. You may need it for a more likely freezing up, when we will be teaching children how to smash up their desks and build a fire.
Don’t forget: With these people the Ends justify the Means…
or scientific fraud …
Seems a lot like the ‘Children’s Crusade’ of 1212.
Anyone 18 or over is legally an adult. If some participants are 18 or over, they are not children, period. The whole thing is hoohaah to get money and attention, and nothing else. And yes, it smacks of the Children’s Crusade, which was not sanctioned by the Pope/Church and the children recruited by the “leaders” were not welcome anywhere, at all. Some of them were enticed onto boats by mercenary traders who took them to the Middle East and sold them into slavery.
Let’s do let the media make a mockery of everything, including themselves. I stopped counting the nonsensical things a while back. Is anyone keeping track of the Silly Count?
In many respects it is a “childish” lawsuit.
Ninth Circuit yet again slapped down.
Kagan is allotted oversight of the 9th Circuit, which really needs to be split up. At ~61 million, it has almost twice the population of any of the next most populous circuit. The 1st Circuit has only about 13 million people.
Let CA and HI remain the 9th, while creating a 12th in AZ, NV, ID and MT, and an unlucky 13th in OR, WA and AK. Maybe call it the 14th.
Either that name or Oz.
Kagan, of course
Better yet, how’s California’s attempt to secede from the union going?
State supreme court pulled Proposition 10 from the ballot, supposedly to resolve certain issues that may let it be voted on in 2020.
If in a Calexit referendum, the coastal counties vote to secede, interior counties will chose to stay in the Union. Then whence will come SF and LA’s water supplies?
One advantage of splitting up the 9th Circuit is the possibility of adding more USSC justices. The case load alone probably justifies this move. Democrats wanted to add two more seats if they regained control of the Senate (and House, to approve the packing). Their enthusiasm for the plan has surely waned, now that it looks as if the GOP will gain Senate seats, regardless of the outcome in the House.
For each circuit to have its own overseeing USSC justice would require 13 now and 15 with the 9th split in three. DC and the federal courts each have their own circuit. Trump’s adding six new justices would equal the maximum under FDR’s court packing plan.
Moonbeam will build giant desalination plants running on solar and wind.
He could try. The environmental wackos would take any such plans to court in a heartbeat to save the
“to save the” was supposed to be followed by “insert species that they’ll claim will be harmed here” in angle brackets. forum software must have mistook that for an HTML command.
So now we have intergenerational climate science fraud to deal with in addition to distorting all branches of government. Do they also manipulate the thermostats in hospital nurseries to make their points?
Is there no end to the dangerous man-made global warming idiocy? How is it possible that nonsense such as this has been allowed to get so far?
Obama had a great deal to do with this breadth if you look at the influence on courts, agencies, regulations, budgets, and contracting.
The plan was undoubtedly to settle the case, giving the Greens everything they demanded while making the biggest spectacle they could of properly flagellating the “wrecker” denialists that still infested the Federal government.
Then the Administration of President (spit!) Hillary Clinton did not come to pass as scheduled, and the courts move far too slowly to include this bit of Leftist doctrine in the flurry of last-minute national destruction by President (spit!) Barack Obama.
There is a real “tipping point” in climate “science” – one that we narrowly avoided going over.
…for now. The great money hunt will pick up again soon because the budget pressures are still out there to solve and a tobacco settlement agreement type flow of funds is just to tantalizing for them to give science or science process a break. The tax cuts will expire at about the time that a new carbon tax is starting up and the buzzards are circling for the feast.
the all mighty buck , my friend
The threat is Marxism not specifically this one gambit (called climate change).If / when this gambit plays out there will be another.
The assault will not die, it will just shift around
Nailed it m_s. Nailed it.
+10!
+ infinity People are still debating Climate Change and don’t realize it’s not the goal.
indeed CAGW/climate change is just the tool. It’s the means to the end.
@Carbon500, because many of the Ninth Circuit judges are deficient in the common sense that would have summarily dismissed the ridiculous claims of the plaintiffs. Here is their original claim:
“Plaintiffs allege that Petitioners’ systemic affirmative ongoing conduct, persisting over decades, in creating, controlling, and perpetuating a national fossil fuel-based energy system, despite long-standing knowledge of the resulting destruction to our Nation and profound harm to these young Plaintiffs, violates due process rights. Specifically, Plaintiffs allege Petitioners’ conduct violates their substantive due process rights to life, liberty, and property, to dignity, to personal security, to a stable climate system capable of sustaining human lives and liberties, as well as other previously recognized unenumerated liberty interests, and has placed Plaintiffs in a position of danger with deliberate indifference to their safety under a state-created danger theory.”
Where’s Judge Judy when you need her? The ignorance in service to pseudo-science is mind-boggling. Thank heaven they aren’t our overlords.
The defendant should push the discovery weapon hard to get all the plaintiffs to show why they are taking this action. They would back off soon enough if they had to make the sort of effort they want to force on others.
Discovery works both ways.
To a stable climate system? How is that a right and how can you define it anyway? The climate is not “stable” in the way they mean it.
And how does more government control = more liberty?
If the “children” prevail, the floodgates will open.
Someone will use the precedent to have “children” sue the government to prevent deficit spending. The “children” have a right to not be burdened with debt once they grow up, do they not?
And so on and so forth until the country becomes completely dysfunctional.
Mexico will have to build a wall to keep refugees from America out.
Well at least that’s a real problem.
Yup. And since when did children have the right to be listened to more seriously than adults?
The entire rest of the world recognizes the concept of the age of majority, for good reasons.
This one should have been shot down long ago. I recall reading some years ago about a Supreme Court decision on a case where somebody was bellyaching about some TV programs not being suitable for children. The court ruled that what was considered suitable for children does not take precedence over other considerations by adults.
The sister lawsuit by the friends of animals has been filed. Its not for the kids (nor for the animals), but for the plaintiffs to be assured that they can recreate outdoors without fear of rockslides, wildfires, etc..
No joke ….
Maybe Judge Aiken will get to hear this case too … “Being able to be outside without fear is necessary for a free and ordered society to thrive…”, or some such BS.
It’s already dysfunctional with many in Congress acting like children throwing a temper tantrum because they lost an election to Trump nearly 2 years ago.
Although, if the suit were to go forward, would it offer an opportunity to compel James Hansen to defend, under oath, the broken science he taught his granddaughter? The video of a proper cross examination would be very interesting …
It would be most excellent except it would be a government lawyer who probably has bought into the alarmism… or perhaps even by then the government has changed and the new dudes WANT to lose so they can implement their agenda. Either way cross examination might well be tepid.
If someone were to get intervener status though, that might be interesting.
Circuit Courts are relics from the Wild West days, when riding a horse was the fastest means of travel, and a pigeon mail was deemed too unreliable to deliver court documents. Judges traveled around their “circuit” on a horseback, spending some time in each city. Let’s force them to do it exactly as before – and, with a bit of luck, the structure of the judiciary will be modernized soon.
I’m not a real lawyer nor do I play one on television. Wouldn’t you have to prove some amount of harm from claimed climate change? Also, wouldn’t you need to weigh harm versus benefits? It seems obvious that fossil fuels have provided far more benefit than harm by any conceivable metric. Before the proliferation of cheap fossil fuels, life was a brutal struggle and typically short. Cheap fossil fuels have been the primary driver of economic enrichment and radical improvement of standards of living across the entire world. Extreme poverty has decreased by half in the last 20 years around the world. Still, if you talk to younger people and liberals/leftists, they’ll tell you the world is circling the drain. You can’t change their minds even if you try, and I’ve tried.
Keep up the great communication this site provides, Anthony and company. Nice job!
I watched the Four Yorkshiremen again today. Still as relevant now as it was way back when.
Yes, my thoughts exactly! (Including the I’m not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV.) But I think Judge William Alsup provided the template for these things: OK, stipulated there may have been harm, but it was greatly outweighed by the benefits, and furthermore this is up to legislatures to address anyway, not the courts. Did I give it an accurate enough paraphrase?
You have it right Red94ViperRT10.
The democratic process is the proper way to address the matter, NOT the Courts.
These child manipulators should be told to go away and tell the children to put their concerns into the ballot box.
Judge William Alsup was dead right.
Excuse me, but we are reliving the age when merely accusing someone of being a witch meant death.
Rational procedure and process has been dispensed with by our lefty/progressives.
How could we stop Kavanaugh or climate change if we needed to present evidence to support our claims? We know what happened, so it’s totally unfair that our stories are not heard! /sarc
(NOTE: “climate change” is real, and a majority of relevant scientists think it is or might be significantly caused by humans. I do not deny that – on the contrary. Nor I know what allegedly happened some 35 years ago between teens. But i do recognise a political motivation.)
I think the harm they have asserted included sea level rise threatening a village and a change in the flora elsewhere.
Elections have consequences. I’m glad Kavenaugh is seated in case this goes en banc at SCOTUS. The best way for SCOTUS to deal a telling blow to the AGW hoax is to undo the “CO2 Endangerment” decision.
Judge Alsop helped.
And I’m very glad Lord Moncton helped Judge Alsop.
“undo the CO2 Endangerment ” decision. Precisely.
Obama should have had his last choice confirmed. Politics aside, that is the way it is supposed to work.
You can thank Joe Biden that he wasn’t, david, because it was Joe who set the precedent!
We can also thank the likes of Harry Reid for eliminating the filibuster!
Political overreach does have its consequences! It almost always comes back to bite you!
Confirmation by the Senate is the choice of the Senate not some ignorant leftist that chooses to not Follow the Constitution.
The leaders of the Senate chose to follow precident set by Democrat Biden and not forward a nominee in a presidential election year.
Well, Davy-boy, I point out that Chucky-Cheese Schumer was of the opinion that Bush shouldn’t be allowed to make any appointments in his last year if the opportunity arose.
https://www.politico.com/story/2007/07/schumer-to-fight-new-bush-high-court-picks-005146
How do children have standing in the court? What specific damages are they claiming? What is a “safe” climate? Who decides what the parameters are that constitute a “safe” climate? And on, and on. This could be endless. That’s probably the point of this suit. Grandstanding.
Their plan must be:
Step 1: Get lots of press.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Win elections!
With apologies to South Park.
“Safe climate” is the same as their “safe space”. It’s where they can go whenever they feel “threatened” by the climate.
So if they go there and get killed or injured by an act of nature, who pays the damages. There is no such thing as a safe place only less dangerous places.
That just goes to show that long-lived bad public policy (and institutionalized science fraud) and legislating by court activist jurists is always lurking just around the corner. The best example of that is the Janus case that had a 5-4 vote of the court. The little guy won that time and good science might win on occasion but there is no guarantee next time.
We had this WUWT story a day ago. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed in the meantime.
Isn’t there is a legal principle that nobody is expected to do the impossible?
Didn’t King Canute demonstrate the limits to the state’s power?
I’m not surprised that SCOTUS is interested in squashing this case.
Typo alert:
Fixed, thanks
These climate lawsuits are all about to fall apart as now there is going to be enough support from these judges who will not rule in favor of any lawsuits aimed at the government for keeping warming in check… there are judges who know that there is nothing man can do to help what the climate is doing.
Today’s version of the “Children’s Crusade.” May it be just as (un)successful.
That Children’s Crusade in AD 1212 was a disaster… and the few adult
leaders who loosely shepherd the children seem to have evaporated into
the mists of history as the failure unfolded.
It was one of the worst-case scenarios ever in playing follow-the-leader.
I’ve read a lot of history, most specifically Italian history as it relates to the popes, and I’ve never read of the Children’s Crusade before.
Wiki covers it but admits that accounts are unreliable and probably embellished over time. I find it stunningly unlikely that such a thing could take place. I don’t disbelieve it, but I sure wish I could. How could 30,000 children go on a crusade, where were their parents? It seems that many starved before they even got to the boats. And the ones that made it to the boats were sailed away and sold into slavery.
I am stunned, truly.
As I recall, the “crusade” started in France (or Germany, depending on the account) and never had the support of the Holy See.
“Where were their parents?”
Dead, most likely. I expect many of the kids were orphaned street urchins living on some combination of charity and petty theft before latching on. Wouldn’t be surprised if adults in their towns gave them a bit more than a nudge to go on it, to make them somebody else’s problem.
The children will need to define exactly what is a “safe climate”, and when (if ever) did it ever occur, and then prove that the climate was safe. That could keep the courts busy for a few decades before they move to trial.
Agreed, what exactly is a “safe climate” & has it ever occurred?
There is a good argument that our climate today is about as safe as it gets. No major drought like the Dust Bowl and no mile-thick sheets of ice covering the upper tier of states. Living in an inter-glacial period is pretty ideal, especially when compared to the alternatives.
The leftists used the courts to create law, now they’re trying to use it to turn mythology into science.
+10
So these young people want a safe climate. Good luck. There is an increase of Bear sightings in Virginia , A hurricane heading towards Mexico and all those north bound picnickers, and to put cherry on top, a swarm of earthquakes off the Canadian West Coast. So whats next a lawsuit to make the Cascadia Subduction Zone go away?
michael
How will they avoid danger from lightning strikes? Walk around in Faraday cages?
So is the climate in des moines iowa safe? how about Syracuse new York? Or Mexican Beach Florida? Or san Francisco? or Fargo? or where ever? Whats the standard for determining one location or another’s relative climate safety index? When its too hot, to humid, to much snow, to much wind, to much flooding, or to dry or to wet or to?????? Who decides? Oh that’s right, the UN and the IPCC will determine whats good or bad for us and what we should all do to pay for the sins of the climate to get it back to optimum.
silly me
It is another Hansen scheme.
I recall that when H. Clinton first became nationally prominent, she was going on about children’s rights in court.
But we can thank her for a wonderful observation:
“It’s a global pillage”.
The show trial is ending.
Can I counter claim that the action and deeds of the climate change people have done irreparably harm already to the economy despite if a cessation of all carbon releases on the planet would result in a reduction in temperature to small to measure from the year 2000 ?
Can I sue the climate change people for pushing an agenda that openly supports an overthrow of a democratically elected government?
Can I sue the climate change people that is is keeping with ‘friends helping friends’ in the sustainability agenda and demand that any of the increases in electric rates be rebated by them, and not out of any government fund? Can I hold them personally liable if the temperature drops? Can I hold them liable for manslaughter or 2nd degree murder for anyone that can’t afford heat and dies from hypothermia ?
Can I hold them accountable for the misery and suffering that occurred in areas that were beyond the gas mains and propane soared to $5/gal?
Can I sue them for falsely adjusting temperature records? Can I sue them for falsely claiming temperature records where none existed? Can I sue them for current errors that make the assertion that ‘climate change’ as defined by the IPCC is real and that those same errors make the assertion useless?
Can I sue them for lack of tolerance and verbal threats when presenting factual data and information that legitimately contradicted their finding? Among the verbal threats overt and implied, just the use of the term ‘denier’ and more extreme, ‘ should be put on trial for crimes against humanity’ ?
You know who the IPCC and supporters are talking about? ME.
rishrac,
You have several good questions there! I hope one of our resident legal experts will respond…
If you think you have the evidence to prove your case then why not, rishrac?
Same applies to the case being discussed. If the case of the CAGW plaintiffs is so weak, what’s the problem? But if it’s strong then surely it’s no bad thing that it be tested thoroughly in court!? Let them adduce all the evidence they have using their expert witnesses and let the defence do the same, and trust in the incisive minds of the Supreme Court at the end of the day to decide correctly. That’s what the legal system is for.
For all of those on here who believe that it’s all about politics, the Supreme Court (as that’s where it should end up as this is a nationwide issue at least) would be the ideal forum in which to present that case, for surely that would be part of the defence.
But, as I keep on saying on here, to no avail, if the CAGW science is faulty then the most effective approach is to demonstrate exactly that. If the science falls everything based on it falls too . . .
So many hard right slanted and intolerant political comments on here yet again. Maybe keeps the site numbers up but undermines its credibility. Much more of it and I’m going ask the moderators to ban me!
Jim,
I don’t think there’s any harm in asking questions at this point. This appears to be a frivolous lawsuit to me and a waste of the court’s time. That’s my major objection. But if you want to stop coming here because people are critical of what they see as an abuse of the court system, then that’s your choice.
The judge explicitly stated this was not to be a trial of whether human generation of CO2 was the cause of “climate change”. This was accepted by the court as a “given”.
Any litigation of whether CAWG science is valid or faulty was off the table.
Jim, the courts are not the appropriate venue for determining the validity or not of science. Lawyers are not scientists and are not versed enough in science to be able to make scientific determinations. But the courts are the venue of choice of leftists, as that’s where they have their best shot of getting their ideas enshrined in the law despite their failures at the ballot box. It’s why they fought so hard to keep Kavanaugh from becoming a justice of the Supreme Court, because his placement on the court moves the court further away from their leftist ideology and thus makes the chances of their winning in the courts less likely.
But, as I keep on saying on here, to no avail, if the CAGW science is faulty then the most effective approach is to demonstrate exactly that
It is and it has been (reality shows its faulty with every failed CAGW prediction). Unfortunately the journal gatekeepers, the pal reviewers, the politicians and the enablers in the MSM
make it extremely difficult for anything but the CAGW party line to get air time with the masses. And despite all that, the fact that CAGW is faulty still makes it out enough that a majority of the citizens aren’t buying it – as evidence by the polls that show “climate change” consistently ranked the lowest in the list of concerns of the populace (or not at all when the list isn’t pre-selected). Unfortunately, most of those that are in power (which is where it really counts) do buy into CAGW (whether they actually believe it or are just cynically using it as a tool to further their political interests or both is up for debate).
Much more of it and I’m going ask the moderators to ban me!
why ask? you have the power to “ban yourself” any time you want simply by not coming here.
The thing is, jim, CAGW is, at it’s core, political. the science, what little there is of it, is mere window dressing. And It always been that ways since long before Hansen and friends turned off the AC in the capitol to make a show of how hot it was. And yes, that politics tends to fall along the left-right divide (there are a few exceptions) so like it or not, that’s always going to be a large part of the “debate”. Do like it here than you are free to go elsewhere any time you want, no banning required.
last sentence should have started “Don’t like it here…” I really miss the edit function 🙁
One would think. But the science has been shown faulty, over and over and over and [1,347 more times] again, http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html and the IPCC and the warmunists and the crony capitalist trough-feeders just shrug and continue demanding all bow down to their will! and refuse to even admit any one of those papers exist. And resort to their playbook that has worked so well for them for 30 years (actually, longer than that, started on so many other claims that came before, e.g., ozone hole, acid rain, DDT, etc., etc.) of never even discuss the science, go straight for smearing and besmirching the messenger until they’re hounded out of the discussion altogether.
{Mods, what do you think, ban jim hogg, ban me, or ban both? Or neither?}
If this case eventually goes forward, how will the plaintiffs prove they have been harmed? How will they prove any harm would not have occurred if the government would have taken different actions. And how will they put an accurate cost on the harm done, if any? Claiming future harm is like suing your neighbor because he has been known to drive drunk and you think he is going to injure you in a car accident in the future. It doesn’t work that way.
When the hell did we ever have a “safe climate”???
I count tornados, hurricanes, thunder & lightning storms, blizzards, deep freezes, broiling desert heat, floods, and wind gusts! And ALL of these have been happening for millions if not billions of years!
Climate activism is the only phenomena that is both recent and perhaps more destructive to humans than all of the above examples! And it is all based on the cockeyed idea that Nirvana has some sort of a thermostat!
Some people have pushed stupidity past evil!
When did we ever have a “safe climate”???
I count tornados, hurricanes, thunder & lightning storms, blizzards, deep freezes, broiling desert heat, floods, and wind gusts! And ALL of these have been happening for millions if not billions of years!
Climate activism is the only phenomena that is both recent and perhaps more destructive to humans than all of the above examples! And it is all based on the cockeyed idea that Nirvana has some sort of a thermostat!
Some people have pushed stupidity past evil!
This is going the way of all climate related lawsuits. Like Climate Change they don’t pass the truth and logic tests.
This seems to be an attempt to legislate via the judiciary and the hopeful connivance of a politicised sympathetic judge.
That is exactly what it is and the way the left in this country has gotten their way whenever any issue important to them and their agenda cannot be won in the legislature. That is why they pulled out all the stops to try and stop the confirmation of Kavanaugh and why they started talking impeachment of the man before the confirmation hearings even started and some of them are already proposing to pack the SCOTUS when they regain the power to do so. Personally I think they’ve lost and the court will retain a conservative majority for some time to come. Justices Ginsburg and Breyer are both near the end, and even Sotomayor is not in a good state of health due to diabetes though little is written or said about that fact.
You mean like the one who said that human generated CO2 being the cause of climate change was to be presumed as fact?!
It will become even more poignant when Sophie realises that her granddad has been telling porkies, not only to her but to the rest of humanity as well.
The participants I feel sorry for in all this are the kids fronting the lawsuit via OPM.
turbulent adventurous times ahead.
O-oh ! Safe climate denial . Is this more serious than ‘climate denial’ ?
The problem with the suit is that there is nothing much the US can do that any court would rule to be either necessary or sufficient to avert the claimed damage. Its the classic issue faced by the US climate alarmist movement. They are a bit like plaintiffs at the supreme court of Tuvalu, pressing a suit requiring the government to stop the sea rising.
Even if you accept the alarmist theories in their most extreme form, the US is only doing 5 billion tons a year of emissions, and falling, out of a global total of 37 billion, and rising.
Cut the US emissions in half, even in total, and you would not be able to tell the difference in the climate.
This is the fundamental point which we never hear made. The arguments are always about whether the theory linking catastrophic warming with emissions is correct. I do not think there’s any persuasive evidence for it, but that is not the really difficult point.
The really difficult point is that even if it is true, none of the measures proposed by the alarmists are fit for purpose in ameliorating it. And this is the difficulty that the suit will face were it to be accepted.
Its a bit like agreeing that excessive sun exposure causes skin cancer, but doubting that current sun screens are sufficiently protective to permit one to spend much time in the sun in the tropics.
Agree that emissions at present levels will cause catastrophe. Then move on to the real issue, that even if this is true, measures such as Paris, electric cars, wind and solar electricity generation, none of the favorites of the green lobby, will do anything to help.
The unanswerable argument skeptics have is: lets agree you are right about the problem. Now explain how what you want to do solves it. And it does not.
The great thing about the recent IPCC paper was that it did start to inch into what the theory really requires to be done – among other things, abolishing the ICE worldwide. And raising the price of heating oil by several hundred percent.
The logical conclusion of the suit’s success would be an order for the US to stop China and India emitting and growing. Force them to reduce. A bit like a court order from the Tuvalu supreme court, ordering the Tuvalu government to reduce US emissions.
Good luck with that one.
“…thereby causing irreparable harm to young people and denying them a safe climate.”
There is no such thing as a ‘safe climate’. As humans we have adapted for just about every conceivable environment on Earth using clothes, buildings, heating, cooling and applying appropriate strategies based on real world knowledge. Therefore we will always ‘cheat’/ adapt to nature and in recent decades we’ve learnt to carry human life supporting environments with us such as living under the sea or out of the earth’s atmosphere. The irreparable harm to young people would be teaching them that the very skills that have been honed for a couple of million years are bad or don’t exist.
Caveat: This does not mean we can do as we please without limit or understanding of specific consequences.
Nice analysis! +1
Let us not forget that is was Roberts that kept Obamacare alive and “Constitutional”. His actions may not be what we think.
A CLIMATE FAIRY TALE
Once upon a time, back before Man invented evil Machines which pumped out the deadly planet-killing Carbon, climate was like a sleeping bear, and our Climate was Perfect and Good. The Butterflies and Bunnies danced and sang, because they were happy. Rains were gentle, and moistened the earth just enough, but not too much, so that plants were nourished and happy.
But then along came the Industrial Revolution, which was noisy, and spewed Evil Poisons everywhere, and among those Deadly Poisons was Carbon, which was invisible and had no smell, so nobody took notice of it at first except for a few scientists. One brave scientist with the name Svante Arrhenius tried to warn people about it, but people just laughed and went on with their business, polluting the Earth.
Then the Climate Bear started waking up, being disturbed by all the Carbon being spewed into the air, and the Climate Bear was angry. And the more Carbon man spewed, the angrier he got, going on rampages. The Bunnies and Butterflies began to become sad, and even frightened, as the Climate became increasingly wild, and destructive. The plants were getting either too much rain or at the wrong time, or not enough, and many either got washed away, or shriveled up under the increasingly-hotter sun. Because you see, Carbon was making the earth into more and more of an oven, with no place for the heat to go.
The Adults fought and argued about what was happening, so little was getting done. The angry Climate Bear was going and worse and worse rampages, causing more and more damage to the increasingly hotter Earth. Something had to be done. So, the Children decided to do something, since this was going to affect them the most, and the “Adults” were doing little. And they banded together, demanding change, and even threatening lawsuits, since money was something the “Adults” understood. And gradually, the Children prevailed, as the “Adults” began to see the error of their ways, and not wanting to be sued. Because they really did love the Children, but had simply lost their way.
Gradually, then, the Climate Bear became sleepier, and less destructive. The plants started to respond, growing lush and green, as they were getting water more in the right amounts and at the right times. The butterflies and bunnies danced for joy, as the Earth was finally getting back to its old self, and more like a Garden of Eden, or Nirvana, instead of a Very Bad Hot Place.
The End
I wonder if, to rebut the plaintiff’s claims, the government will need to finally rebut CAGW in detail, or sponsor a red-team critique.
How are any of today’s indoctrinated children ever going to grow up to be properly skeptical scientists?
Jon,
I don’t think they ever will. I teach geology at a community college, and you should see their expressions when I explain how looking at the earth’s rock record which shows continual, even chaotic, sea level changes throughout geologic time.
Now, put a stake through the heart of this frivolous lawsuit and end it!
Parents who allow children to be used as political pawns like this should be charged ( and convicted of ) child abuse.
Why not challenge the plaintiff to produce just a single piece of physical evidence that demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that CO2 resulting from human activity has led to “unsafe” global warming (or climate change). Note: physical evidence must be reproducible and independently verifiable. Computer models do not constitute physical evidence.