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
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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)
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.