by Judith Curry
“Europe’s highest human rights court ruled Tuesday that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change , siding with a group of older Swiss women against their government in a landmark ruling that could have implications across the continent.” [link]
“The court — which is unrelated to the European Union — ruled that Switzerland “had failed to comply with its duties” to combat climate change and meet emissions targets.
That, the court said, was a violation of the women’s rights, noting that the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees people “effective protection by the state authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health, well-being and quality of life.”
A group called Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose average age is 74, had argued that they were particularly affected because older women are most vulnerable to the extreme heat that is becoming more frequent.
“The court recognized our fundamental right to a healthy climate and to have our country do what it failed to do until now: that is to say taking ambitious measures to protect our health and protect the future of all,” said Anne Mahrer, a member of the group.”
Well fortunately I have some text prepared to help innoculate us from this fresh new climate hell of litigation.
There is no human right to a safe or stable climate
There is widespread international acceptance of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which enumerates 30 human rights. There is no mention of the word “climate” or the word “environment” in the UDHR. This is true also for the European Convention on Human Rights.
There are efforts in Europe to create a new human right to a safe, stable climate. From a decision by the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) [1]
“… environmental degradation, climate change and unsustainable development constitute some of the most pressing and serious threats to the ability of present and future generations to enjoy the right to life.”
From a 2019 Report written by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights:[2]
“There is now global agreement that human rights norms apply to the full spectrum of environmental issues, including climate change.”
Deductions based on a decision by the UNHRC and a Report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, do not create a new “human right” to be protected against the dangerous impacts of climate change. No attempt has been made by the UN to create international support for a new human right to be protected from climate change. Such a right is neither implicit or explicit in the UNFCCC Paris Agreement.
Even if Net Zero objectives were achieved globally by 2050, the climate would continue to change from natural weather and climate variability: volcanic eruptions, solar effects, large-scale oscillations of ocean circulations, and other geologic processes. Further, given the inertia in the climate system (particularly oceans and ice sheets), it would be many decades before there was any noticeable change in extreme weather/climate events and sea level rise after Net Zero was achieved.
Exaggeration of the risks from human-caused climate change lead to serious contradictions in context of the idea “that human rights offer protection against the impacts of dangerous climate change.”
Specifically with regards to the right to life, global mortality (per 100,000 people) from extreme weather and climate events have declined by 99% since 1920.[5] Between the period 1980 and 2016, global mortality (per 100,000 people) from extreme weather and climate events has dropped by 6.5 times.[6] For the mortality statistics since 1980, there is a clear negative relation between vulnerability and wealth.[7] Thus, an increase in wealth provides much greater and much more certain protection against climate-related risks than emissions reduction.
The trend in mortality statistics does not mean that weather and climate disasters have become less frequent or less intense. The trend implies that the world is now much better at preventing deaths from extreme weather and climate events than in the past. This has been accomplished through increasing wealth (driven by energy derived from fossil fuels), which provides better infrastructure, greater reserves, advance warnings, and greater recovery capacity.
The declining mortality statistics raise several issues and contradictions regarding the allegations that “human rights offer protection against the impacts of dangerous climate change”. What of the “rights” of people that died in the early part of the 20th century (or earlier) from extreme weather and climate events that were caused only by natural weather and climate variability? How were these deaths to be prevented at the time? Do deaths only count if they are alleged to be caused by human caused warming, but not by, for example, restricting access to safe cooking fuels?[8] Do deaths only count if they are alleged to be caused by human caused warming, but not by natural weather and climate variability? How is the cost of preventing deaths associated with extreme weather and climate events (whether natural or human caused) to be balanced with the costs of attempting to prevent the extremely larger number of deaths from a myriad of other causes?
The arguments supporting the putative right to a safe climate are significantly weakened once the adverse effects of the policies to bring about a safe climate on food production are understood. In addition, climate and energy policies have significant environmental impacts and cause environmental degradation. For instance, forest biomass-based fuel causes deforestation, and on-shore and off-shore wind turbines and solar parks may (and, in fact, do) harm the social fabric, real estate prices, nature, biodiversity, the scenery, and human health. The mining and manufacturing required for batteries, and other renewable energy-related goods and infrastructure cause adverse environmental and human health impacts, and renewable energy also causes CO2 emissions. Given that European Human Rights Court has taken the position that the right to life also protects against environmental degradation and health risks, these adverse environmental and health impacts associated with any policies to respond to the Court’s judgment would have to be taken into account.
Summary. There will be a continuing need for fossil fuels. Rapid restrictions to fossil fuels before cleaner energy is available interferes with more highly ranked sustainability goals – no poverty, no hunger, affordable and clean energy, and industry-innovation-infrastructure. There is no human right to a safe or stable climate. Apart from the lack of an international agreement, such a “right” contains too many contradictions to be meaningful.
[1] “CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016 ,” United Nations Official Documents, September 23, 2020, https://www.un.org/en/delegate/page/un-official-documents.
[2] “Safe Climate: A Report of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment,” UNEP, October 1, 2019, https://www.unep.org/resources/report/safe-climate-report-special-rapporteur-human-rights-and-environment.
[[5] Bjorn Lomborg, “Welfare in the 21st Century: Increasing Development, Reducing Inequality, the Impact of Climate Change, and the Cost of Climate Policies,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 156 (July 2020): 119981, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.119981.
[6] Giuseppe Formetta and Luc Feyen, “Empirical Evidence of Declining Global Vulnerability to Climate-Related Hazards,” Global Environmental Change 57 (July 2019): 101920, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.05.004.
[7] Bjørn Lomborg, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2020), 218.
[8] Charles N. Mock et al., eds., “Household Air Pollution from Solid Cookfuels and Its Effects on Health,” Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition: Injury Prevention and Environmental Health 7 (2017): 133–52, https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-0522-6_ch7.
[9] United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, The Right to Adequate Food, Fact Sheet No. 34, Geneva, April 2010, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/FactSheet34en.pdf
[10] United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, The Right to Adequate Food, Fact Sheet No. 34, Geneva, April 2010, p. 5 https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/FactSheet34en.pdf
Very nice Judith.
Her ranking of priorities is spot on.
So this must also mean that if a person is improperly dressed for an out-of-season cold snap and suffers frostbite to a degree that he/she has to have a few fingers or toes amputated, he/she has the right to take the government to court because it somehow didn’t exercise enough control over carbon emissions that caused this climate anomaly in the first place. Or let’s suppose an over-reliance on alternate energies like wind and solar fails to generate enough electricity to power air-conditioning systems which in turn causes people indoors to collapse from excessive heat. Are those people entitled to go after governments because they didn’t keep enough fossil fuels available for such power shortfalls? The reality is that the odds of anyone being able to take elected ruling bodies to court over occurrences beyond human control are highly unlikely in the first place, and even if they do, the cases could drag out so long and be so costly that no one could sustain the efforts. And in the end the only ones to benefit will be the lawyers, while the climate will continue to do as it has always done regardless of human efforts.
“Stable Climate” is a political construct NOT a Scientific one. There never has been and never will be a Stable Climate.
If “Climate” is to be defined as an arbitrary 30 year period, show me any place (other than a Desert like Gobi or Sahara) where the climate variables remain unchanged over contiguous 30 year periods.
Any climate zone where averages haven’t increased or decreased slightly over consecutive 30 year periods. Even when measured over ten years say from 1920 to 1950 then reanalized from 1930 to 1960 the two overlapping periods will have differing climate measurements.
A “Stable Climate” is a myth…it never has and never will exist.
Can anyone demonstrate a contiguous pair of 30 year periods where the climate remained unchanged??? (Doubt it)
Outstanding expression of thruth.
No wonder the good doctor was expelled from the cult of Manniacs and such.
Gums sends…
“Climate” was redefined by the WMO to be only 30 years of weather.
The so-called “climate scientists” are not talking about the real long-term climate that everyone was taught in school to be thousands to millions of years and is stable over those long periods.
They are just talking about the weather for a few decades using confusing terminology, and they haven’t even been correct in forecasting that.
The long-term climate of the Earth is still a 2.56 million-year ice age named the Quaternary Glacialiation.
It consists of very cold glacial periods that last about 90,000 years and alternate with cold interglacial periods like the present that last about 10,000 years.
The ice age the Earth is in won’t end until all the natural ice melts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation
I think we have to start pushing the high level of climate security that the use of fossil fuels offers to civilised society.
To get rid of fossil fuels, destroys both economic and climate security.
30 year average weather has long been a conventional metric for climate. When people talk about the climate in Miami they are not referring to thousands or millions of years.
Who cares. It’s still meaningless.
Micro-climate, 30 years, yes, but to give people an idea of the expected weather in areas they may choose to live. The definition was hijacked by the IPCC for a variety of illogical reasons.
Pretty much all IPCC reasoning is illogical
truer words have not been spoken.
Heck, we currently have possibly the most stable and benign climate that has existed for a couple of centuries.
Certainly better than the LIA, which apparently brought some quite horrible weather extremes.
Nobody is going to notice a degree or so of extra natural warming if it occurs (especially in somewhere like Switzerland).. probably a blessing for most people.
The high level of climate security we currently have is brought to us by fossil fuels and all the off-shoot products that they have to offer. eg heating, air-conditioning, food supply stability etc etc etc.
If it were not for fossil fuels, life expectancy would be far lower, and these silly old biddies would be long gone.
I moved from Cleveland OH in the US to Los Angeles in the autumn when it was about 10C warmer in L.A.and the temperature was the last of my concerns. In Cleveland you needed to wear a jacket or coat, in L.A. you needed an umbrella. Big deal.
About 4.6 million people die each year from cold-related causes compared to about 500,00 from heat-related causes. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext
Can those 4 million people’s families sue the “climate” activists each year for keeping it colder than is best for human life?
No, they can sue the same people the grannies did. It’s all caused by co2.
I wonder what the “older Swiss women” think about the human rights of the Bushmen of the Kalahari and the Inuit (used to be called Eskimos) of northern Alaska? Clueless they are, and probably quite proud of it.
Seems the EU court is also totally clueless.!
Well when you read this quote from them…
you can be pretty sure of that!
Only one thing left to do: Sue God.
Billy Connolly (not the wikipedia one) already did that.
The “older Swiss women” are clearly not yet old enough to have gained a scintilla of wisdom.
Record high in Geneva is 104F, record low is -4F.
I have worked at my farm when it was 104. I would love to see how long any of them last at -4F, barefoot, wearing only a bikini. Any warming of the planet is certainly a huge net benefit in SWITZERLAND!
(I will give them a bikini for modesty, but I am pretty sure every human is born naked, so that is certainly our natural state.)
From Judith’s first link about the ruling:
ECHR stopped short of ordering the Swiss government to take any specific actions.
ECHR president said it is up to European governments to decide what to do—and experts said that is a limit to the ruling. (No kidding.)
Swiss government said it would study the decision to see what steps it might take to comply—NONE is the best answer, since the ruling offers none.
The premise that climate change caused increasing heat waves threaten old Swiss ladies human rights is itself laughable. Three reasons. First, heat waves aren’t increasing. Second, if they don’t threaten uncomplaining old ladies in Spain and southern Italy, they surely cannot threaten them in Alpine Switzerland. Third, nice weather is not and never can be a basic human right, as Judith points out in a more sophisticated way. Weather just is what it is.
Much Ado about Nothing, as the Bard once wrote—about two younger but still very silly ladies and their suitors. The Bard was far too brilliant to have ever imagined this modern ECHR comedy version.
“The court recognized our fundamental right to a healthy climate”
If the court believes this for the Swiss women then the entire Earth has to be controlled to provide the ‘healthy climate’ for everyone.
They should also define what a ‘healthy climate’ is before requiring governments to provide same
Perhaps use this:
A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there’s a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.
To get to Net Zero, the Swiss government needs to eliminate 0.1% of human generated CO2 emissions.
Switzerland must open its borders to Climate Refugees immediately. it’s the only moral way forward….open up and let them in! Switzerland must share its cool climate……and housing….let the squatters in! Free solar panels for everyone! New Switzerland will be cool for everyone.
It is notable that the Alaskan Kids Climate lawsuit (Juliana et al. vs. USA) is based on claiming the right to a “stable climate system, ” orginally filed in 2015 and still active to this day. Like a zombie it has been killed and resuscitated repeatedly. Interestingly, the US government motion to dismiss addressed directly that claim in June 2023, and has not yet been decided due to legal maneuvering, most recently 03/21/2024. The motion to dismiss included:
A. There is no constitutional right to a stable climate system.
B. Plaintiffs fail to allege a cognizable state-created danger claim.
C. No federal public trust doctrine creates a right to a stable climate system.
There’s more detail in my synopsis:
https://rclutz.com/2023/07/08/finally-a-legal-rebuttal-on-the-merits-of-kids-climate-lawsuit/
The motion document is here:
https://climatecasechart.com/wp-content/uploads/case-documents/2023/20230622_docket-615-cv-01517_motion-to-dismiss-1.pdf
Under B., there is an important blow to the nanny state, regarding climate claims, but also more generally.
The First Claim for Relief must also be dismissed because the Constitution does not impose an affirmative duty to protect individuals, and Plaintiffs have failed to allege a cognizable claim under the “state-created danger” exception to that rule.
As a general matter:
[The Due Process Clause] is phrased as a limitation on the State’s power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security. It forbids the State itself to deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property without “due process of law,” but its language cannot fairly be extended to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure that those interests do not come to harm through other means.
Thus, the Due Process Clause imposes no duty on the government to protect persons from harm inflicted by third parties that would violate due process if inflicted by the government.
An interesting case has been brought against the UK Government by a man in Hemsby, on the North Sea coast, whose house was demolished by the local council because shore erosion had made it unsafe.
He cites the Swiss ruling, claims that he has a human right to a safe climate and to be protected against climate change.
Be interesting to see how this goes. I would have thought that a decision in his favor would not lead to an order on the UK Government to reduce UK emissions, since this would have no effect whatever on UK coastal erosion.
The only remedy any court which accepted his right could demand would be coastal defences. But that, of course, is not what the funders (the usual suspects) would want.
These cases all seem completely impossible. If judgment is reached for the plaintiffs they seem to require the Governments to do something impossible for them, namely to reduce global warming. Since it is, as the name implies, global (assuming it exists), it is clearly outside the power of any national government.
Courts usually hesitate before ordering people or institutions to do the impossible. But this is climate, so we shall see.
By the way, in other news in the UK, the Cass Report on gender treatment has been published. There have been three items in the UK where wokeness has taken root: gender, climate and race. We can say, with the publication of the Cass Report, that the mania on gender is now over, and the participants are looking at each other with increasing dismay as they realize how what they have done is going to be judged.
https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/
Race is still going strong. Global warming….? Don’t know. It seems to have reached the blowoff stage, and there are signs the crash is coming into view. But like all blowoffs it may have a ways to run yet.
Like a great speculative mania, they can always go higher than you ever dreamed was possible. Then they fall further than anyone thought possible. But it takes a while. But the crash in the climate mania may now be coming in to view, as it seems to be dawning on the establishment just what Net Zero energy will look like. And as the resistance to electric cars and heat pumps rises.
The book ‘Outrageous Waves’ by Basil Cracknell lists 257 named villages around the coast of England, Scotland and Wales that have been destroyed by the sea over the last two millenia. There are probably many more whose names are unknown.
Hemsby is on the Norfolk coast where more than 20 villages have been washed away over time. Along with the Fens that coastline has been officially recognised by the local water authority as prone to flooding by the sea since at least 1981.
His case will go nowhere
Soooo … If it rains on my parade I do or don’t have the right to sue somebody? 😎
(In Star Trek and other SciFy shows there were planets that could control the weather. But most of us live in the real world. NOBODY controls the weather let alone the “Climate”.)
I think in Hitch Hiker’s Guide series there is a planet where time is stuck at happy hour or some such
You are, of course, referring to the planet known as Frogstar World B, where the widely-acclaimed Milliways, aka the “Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, was built atop its ruins and exists in a more-or-less permanent time bubble near the end of the universe so its patrons can enjoy the view.
It’s got great atmosphere!
I don’t know if I should give that a ” 😎 ” because it’s funny or a ” 8-( ” because it’s happening.
These women should relocate about 500 feet up the nearest mountain – that’ll get them back to normal. I am a suspicious cynic. Either these people are seriously intellectually challenged, or they have been paid to come up with this silly suit.
If they were tired of housework, they could move to Canada and get free maid.
I can’t help but think that rulings such as this (remember the ruling in favor of children a while back in Montana as well) has an assumption about politicians built into it — an assumption that is ludicrous.
The assumption is that politicians have some special power or abilities that elevates them to the status of demi-gods. It assumes that they can somehow control the climate and provide us all with protection from the effects of climatic extremes — extremes which have never been unnatural as far as I know. When people start looking at politicians as demi-gods without bothering to look the history of things they have gotten wrong and screwed up, then the human perception of them and government has gone badly over the top.
This ruling is a consequence of arrogant elitists that are taking advantage of the scientific illiteracy of the masses and the court systems on both sides of the Atlantic. The power given to the politicians to affect our energy systems and economy resulting from the climate alarmist narrative causes me to cringe with fear.
I will say this one more time with no hesitation: To err is human, but to really screw things up requires government.
Let’s Go Brandon!
Hard to believe but that was a hit only a couple of years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETmlD0l4T3Y&ab_channel=AssociatedPress
(Give it 30 or so seconds.)
From the Donkey’s mouth!
Guess he didn’t have a que card.
(No wonder we won’t see a face to face Presidential debate!)
If this is true: “the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees people “effective protection by the state authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health, well-being and quality of life.”” Then the Court has a good, basis for its decision.
Except that absolutely nothing the Swiss government does will make the slightest difference to “climate” or any effects natural climate change might have “on their lives, health, well-being and quality of life.”
It is all just virtue-seeking words.
The best the Swiss government could do is make sure people have 100% reliable access to the things that allow increased climate security…
That would be reliable supply of electricity for mainly heating, but also for air-conditioning for the occasional rare day over 30C, and for reliable pollution-free cooking etc etc.
… in other words….. avoid wind and solar completely.
“A group called Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose average age is 74, …”
There are several solutions to the problem these young women claim. Air-conditioned rooms come to mind. Or they could send a request to the US President and ask for a regular shipment of ice cream cones. Or the Swiss government could just send them all to Balsfjord, Norway each time the heat bothers them.
My suggestion: slap each of these “seniors” on the side of the head with a partially decomposed Burbot.
It is so very much the case that those who do not know history are indeed doomed to repeat it. Lots of ancient cultures also believed that the gods they worshipped would provide them with a stable climate suitable to their crops (and their cultures) to flourish. Of course, they had to make the proper sacrifices and adulations to those gods, and then the high priests would intervene on behalf of the people to hopefully be granted a good and stable climate.
No doubt many did believe that by bringing goods, livestock (and sometimes their children or maybe enemy combatants captured in war) to the priests to be sacrificed that those priests would do their thing and everyone would be blessed.
But sadly these days, in these so-called modern times (where science has mostly supplanted religion with regards to understanding the natural world) so many have the same ignorant notions that people had hundreds and thousands of years ago.
Seems to be that those most wanting expanded human rights are those with least to give and most to take. (The parasitic sector).
If people feel neglected or victimised by society, there remains the useful option of manning up and pulling yourselves up by the boot laces. That has the benefit of tasting the valuable personal attribute of pride through achievement. Geoff S
There is a larger, though more subtle issue here too. What are “Human Rights”? Where to they come from and how do they differ from other rights?
Human Rights are often confused with Natural Rights. But they are very different and their confusion seems to be a deliberate strategy by the proponents of Human Rights (and their consequences). Natural Rights, such as the Right to Life, Liberty (i.e. Property) and the Pursuit of Happiness as many are at least vaguely familiar with are Rights which are intrinsic to human beings. They are innate, natural, bestowed by God or The Creator (if that is how you choose to see them). These Rights are almost always expressed in the negative. That is, a Natural Right is upheld by laws which constrain the government from infringing upon them. They impose no duty or burden upon the individual who enjoys them and can only be taken away under very specific circumstances (e.g. conviction of a felony/indictable offence and sentencing for that to a term of imprisonment). These impositions on Natural Rights are (or at least should be) done with great care and restraint.
Human Rights, on the other hand are generally positive rights that are bestowed upon people by their governments. People have the “Right” to housing, health care, education, etc. These “Rights” involve awarding some material benefit to identified people. However, that material benefit does not miraculously pop out of the aether. Someone must pay for it, this is generally done in the form of taxes, where the productive efforts of people are taken (under threat of force) by the government in order for them to redistribute these resources as they see fit. I would posit that these are not Rights at all. They are privileges of a society or system of government, they are bestowed by the government and can be taken away by the government at their whim. But, most importantly, they are positive Rights, they give someone a right TO something, rather than restraining the government (or the rest of society) from taking something FROM a person.
Human Rights, as I have mentioned above, are often created and used by governments. Though, currently there are several supra-national bodies who are vying to become the arbiters of what Human Rights there are and how they are to be bestowed. This is a key mechanism of control that is being formulated by various bodies, sometimes in concert, sometimes competing. The UN/WHO, the WEF, etc. All these bodies are attempting to control the behavior of people. They are using Human Rights as a tool in this regard.
Very libertarian of you.
I learned a useful term while studying the philosophy of rights many years ago. For something to be considered a true ‘Natural Right’ it must be ‘compossible’ – that is, theoretically, every person on the planet could exercise this right at the same time. So freedom of speech -> every person could theoretically speak at once without infringing on another’s right to do the same (yeah, it would be annoying! 🙂 ). Similarly, we can all be alive without inherent infringement of someone else’s right to live.
But try to say you have a Right to, say, a medically necessary surgery. For that, someone else (doctor and attendant professionals) have to suspend whatever else they are doing and deal with you. They can’t get medical treatment at the same time. So it’s not a Right. A privilege, certainly, or a maybe a Human Right as you defined it above, but not a Natural Right.
Another way I look at it is that alone on a desert island, every right that you have is intact. It takes exactly Nobody to give them to you.
What does a safe and stable climate look like in Switzerland? How much is it allowed to rain? How hot/cold is it allowed to get? Are storms allowed?
Let’s say the Swiss govt. made a few changes and then claimed the climate was safe and stable again. How would anybody prove them wrong?
Let’s imagine for a moment that the Swiss govt. was able to provide a safe and stable climate. Would that make some other country’s climate less safe and stable? How would we know?
What utter nonsense.
It’s interesting that only a handful of western societies have been able to achieve a properly functioning government that allows basic freedoms without imposing unnecessary restrictions. Asked “What are the responsibilities of government to its people?” Chat GPT coughed up this ten point list that looks a lot like a junior high school civics curriculum:
Since our state and local governments tax us for these services and protections, they should darned well provide them and leave the woke, dei and esg messaging to someone else. Governments that tax us for non-existent harms are simply corrupt.
The elderly, well-meaning (and probably forgetful) Swiss ladies are claiming a “right” to protection from climate, which is a non-existent harm. They should concentrate on the actual dangers that they face from nature. They are not entitled to protections from acts of God.
Colorado’s front range just suffered a gale-through-hurricane (50-100 mph) windstorm that lasted for three days. The wind was the worst in my experience not only because of its ferocity, but its persistence. It was unremitting. It may have been national news but I wouldn’t know because… no phone, no lights, no tv., no electricity. Refrigerators warmed, houses grew cold, medical devices shut down, cell phone and computer batteries drained. We learned (from the neighbors) that Xcel Energy had pre-emptively cut power to 150,000 homes along the front range of the Rockies to avoid the kinds of fires reported in the last few years at Lahaina, Boulder, etc. And for many households the power remained off until today (four days after the main outages). Once again, public utilities are taking the heat. There was blame to be shared.
Neighbors love their big trees that overhang the power lines. Is it really personal choice for them to cut them back?
There were no A.M. or F.M. radio stations providing sensible news and information about what became a mild ordeal for us, and for others an outright emergency. Our democratic governor Polis has written a letter to Xcel, first thanking them for their “front line” efforts, but then scolding them for failing on the transparency and communication fronts. Where was Polis in his official role as “governor” when it came to disseminating vital information to thousands in his state who were quite literally in the dark. How about an emergency radio channel that can be used by government to provide dedicated news and streaming updates?
Government can only protect us from a limited number of harms. The more concise and brief we keep the list of services we expect, the better served we’ll be and the less it should cost us. When it comes to the acts of God, I would say it’s everyone for himself. Strike “climate harms” from the lexicon since there is no such thing, though it’s painfully obvious when our leaders elevate this chimerical bogeymen to generate funds and be a straw man for their own failure to lead.
Perhaps there should be an experiment of moving a herd of elephants from central France to Zurich over the alps via Chamonix, to determine whether it’s feasible.
Also, someone should explain why evidence of previous human habitation appears under the glaciers as they retreat.
Perhaps the residents of Naples and its environs or Sicily can take the Italian government to the ECHR for failing to protect them from volcanic eruptions. Perhaps there should be a retrospective action against the authorities in Rome for failing to protect Pompeii and Herculaneum from the ravages of Vesuvius. /sarc
Of all the countries in the world the one least at risk from rising world temperatures apart from Canada is Switzerland.
If the temperature rises by a degree, then the Canadian authorities can move the housing permits a hundred miles further north and thus release the present crush at the US border. In Switzerland’s case, they could just move the chalets another few hundred feet up the mountain,….they have a lot of mountains to choose from in Switzerland. The other option is to ask the old ladies if they would like to go on a day out and organise the bus to take them up the mountain for a picnic on the occasional days when the temperature hits 30C. 🙂
“least at risk from rising world temperatures apart from Canada is Switzerland.”
Mongolia, Scandinavia, Iceland… plenty that could do with a bit of natural warming.
It wasn’t that long ago that they were burning witches in Europe because the advancing glaciers were destroying alpine villages. Looks like they didn’t round up all of them.
This article points us away from anti-human obfuscation of unsound babble about human rights to pro-human flourishing; from the twisted climate bandwagon to sanity.
Well here we go as the old Swiss bags and the lefty lawyering opens up Pandora’s Box-
Man who lost his Norfolk home to North Sea coastal erosion SUES the government for not doing enough on global warming – and says they have made him a ‘climate refugee’ (msn.com)
Anything that goes bump in the night the taxpayers cough up with any tenuous link to the dooming.
So a “marine engineer” who is a climate warrior by his own account bought a house on the “rising” sea shore 12 years ago.
There in NO FOOL LIKE AN OLD FOOL, and he is old and a fool. If he believed in the climate crisis, why would he ever buy a costal home? Seems to me the person who sold it to him 12 years ago got out about at the right time!
So now he sues, but his own claims of knowing about climate change MUST be used against him in court. The loss of a house that MUST eventually wash away if what he believes in is true is just due to his stupidity in buying it in the first place, not any failing of the local council.
See my reply to michel above. That coastline has lost over 20 villages to the sea over many hundreds of years and has been recognised officially as being prone to flooding by the sea since at least 1981.
Can’t see his case succeeding.
“Europe’s highest human rights court ruled Tuesday that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change…”
Okay, so what consequences should they protect them from? They never say that because there are no consequences from climate change. Over the past 40 years, there has been no increase in the severity or frequency of hurricanes, drought, flood, hailstorms, tornados or severe weather of any kind. No island nation has been swept away from rising oceans. The Antarctic ice pack is at or near record levels. There is Arctic Sea ice all year round. Crops yields are at or near record levels. The Great Barrier Reef recently reach is greatest extent in history.
What consequences from climate change is anyone supposed to be protected from?
What about the right not to die in a freezing net zero future
As Dr. Curry well notes in her above article:
“No attempt has been made by the UN to create international support for a new human right to be protected from climate change. Such a right is neither implicit or explicit in the UNFCCC Paris Agreement.”
That is a good thing because no person or organization has yet offered a clear and concise definition of what the phrase “climate change” really means . . . at least not to a degree that is universally accepted. If climate change is NOT everything that changes
in a human lifespanover the course of at least 30 consecutive years, then is it measured by:— change in “average” air temperature?
— change in “average” sea temperature?
— change in the rate of rise in global sea level?
— change in “average” percentage of global cloud coverage?
— change in “average” rainfall?
— change in “average” number of floods?
— change in “average” number of droughts?
— change in “average” number of thunderstorms, windstorms, tornadoes, tropical storms, hurricanes, etc.?
— change in the number of cities creating urban heat islands?
— change in the frequency of El Ninos or La Ninas?
— change in the circulation patterns of deep currents in the world’s oceans?
— change in the amount of sea ice at the North Pole?
— change in the amount of sea ice at the South Pole? Or should land ice there also be included?
— change in “average” humidity of the global atmosphere?
— change in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?
— change in solar insolation at the top of atmosphere as caused by one or more of the Milankovitch orbital forcing parameters?
— change in the diversity of plant species?
— change in the diversity of animal species?
— etc., etc., etc.
“If you can’t define something you have no formal rational way of knowing that it exists. Neither can you really tell anyone else what it is. There is, in fact, no formal difference between inability to define and stupidity.”
— Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
We humans can and must control the climate! Ha! Ha! Ha! No way.
The problem, Judith, is that the European HR Court has a long-established reputation for making it up as it goes along. ‘Justice on the hoof’, you might say.
So, the rights to “effective protection… from the serious adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health, well-being and quality of life” resulting from the catastrophe of Net Zero come into play how?
If Swiss ladies shall be, by law, neutral. The ENSO Meter must drive them nuts