From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Hot on the heels of the ECHR judgement, we now face the possibility of a rush of silly legal climate cases:
A homeowner who lost his house to coastal erosion is suing the Government for breaching his human rights, in a landmark case following this week’s controversial European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling on climate change.
Kevin Jordan, 70, a former marine engineer, is one of two Britons who claim their human rights have been violated by the failure of the Government to protect them.
The chances of his groundbreaking case succeeding have been boosted by a ruling by the ECHR on Tuesday that governments have a duty to protect people from climate change.
Mr Jordan’s judicial review is due to be considered this summer by the High Court, where judges will take account of previous legal precedents such as the ECHR ruling. It is likely to intensify the political row after MPs accused the ECHR of usurping the role of elected politicians in determining climate change policies.
Mr Jordan said he had “lost everything” as a result of his chalet bungalow in Hemsby, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, being demolished last December. It was pulled down by the council after global warming saw the land protecting it from the sea erode at seven times the predicted rate in the 14 years that he lived there.
“I am now what you call a climate refugee. I lost my home with no compensation. I am now in local authority accommodation. My lovely sea views are reduced to a ground floor flat looking at cars going past,” said Mr Jordan, who spent his career designing and developing underwater vehicles.
Lawyers for Friends of the Earth, which is backing his case, claim that the Government’s failure to protect Mr Jordan from the sea is a breach of section 6 of the Human Rights Act, which covers “unlawful” policies by a public authority that damage people’s rights.
Mr Jordan said he had decided to take on the Government after being asked by the Save Hemsby Coastline campaign group, of which he is a trustee, and having his court costs underwritten through a “huge” local fundraising effort. “It was a natural thing for me to do. I am a bit of a climate warrior,” he said.
He said the “warrior” tag fitted Hemsby as marking the “front line” in the battle against global warming. Last year, 12 houses were condemned and demolished after the coast was battered by storm after storm.
In any normal world, this idiot would be sent packing by the court.
The whole idea that governments have a legal duty to protect everybody from the weather is patently absurd.
And as we know, there is no evidence at all that coastal erosion in Norfolk is any worse than in the past. Jordan’s claim that “global warming saw the land protecting it from the sea erode at seven times the predicted rate in the 14 years that he lived there” is baseless. Sea levels are not rising any faster than they were a century ago, and the Met Office admit that storms are no worse either.
What we do know is that coastal erosion was almost stopped in the 1950s, following sea defences being built. In recent years, these have fallen into decay, and erosion has simply returned to former levels.
If Jordan wants to sue somebody, it should be whoever advised him it was OK to buy the house.
But even if global warming is a factor, how big is it? And given that UK emissions are only 1% of the world’s, then clearly anything we do is irrelevant.
Which brings us back to the essence of the case. Jordan and his backers at FoE claim that the government has a duty to protect him from rising seas and storms.
Any proper judge would throw the case out immediately, but there are plenty of left wing, activist judges who could nod this through.
If this happens, it would open the door to all sorts of nutty claims from people who have been affected by floods, storms, snow and every other weather event.
There will only be one winner – the lawyers. And only one loser, the taxpayer.
Final word to the DT commenters:
If this happens, it would open the door to all sorts of nutty claims from people who have been affected by floods, storms, snow and every other weather event.
You better believe it with the Gretaheads-
‘Only the beginning’: Greta Thunberg reacts to court ruling on Swiss climate inaction – video | Environment | The Guardian
Greta’s mocking wry smile shows she is quite pleased with herself and her new found millions resulting from her activism.
What’s a DT commenter?
Daily Telegraph newspaper
Some newspapers allow comments on some articles. Some do a bit of censorship, Daily Mail and Guardian for example but I’m not sure about the Telegraph.
You have to ask: when buying the house so close to the edge, and presumably having coastal erosion identified in the surveyor’s report, did he not take out suitable insurance cover?
From The Times today:
When he retired 14 years ago and was planning to buy the home, Jordan said he took advice from hydrological engineers and marine surveyors because he knew the coastline was prone to erosion. They all told him that he had 80 to 100 years.
And he is suing the Government?!!!
The problem for the poor people of Hemsby started with the release of the IPCC’s FAR Climate Report in 1990 predicting a substantial acceleration in sea level rise. The UK government became so concerned about the projected cost of protecting the coast they removed coastal protection from the National Rivers Authority (NRA) who were, at the time, using a government approved Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) of 1.06:1 (I.e., Sea defences would be funded where the capital cost did not exceed 94% of property potentially lost over a 100year period) and replaced it, in 1996, with the Environment Agency with an immediate eightfold increase in BCR to 8:1. The result is that rural areas and lightly populated areas will just fall into the sea.
Until the government are made to face the fact that sea level rise has not changed in 175 years and return the BCR to its 1990 level, rural areas are doomed.
Just as bad, he is a marine engineer who doesn’t seem to know how erosion works? On the surface, that sounds like willful ignorance.
I doubt he could get anyone to insure the property – otherwise he’d be insured and claiming….
Don’t know how that works in the UK, but in the US, a house sitting right on waters edge in an area known to erode would either be uninsurable, or the insurer would require as a condition of writing a policy that the home be armored against erosion (sea walls, revetments, breakwater, etc.), improvements that would also have to be approved by the state or local government entity, which is usually very difficult and time consuming.
Here in Florida we regularly get beach erosion, not due to sea level rise but due to prevailing currents and accelerated by storm events (storms that have not accelerated in frequency or intensity – Florida and the Caribbean has always been known to be susceptible to hurricanes, going back to the first Spanish explorers including Christopher Columbus).
What happens is that in order to protect local property values in areas that have by far the highest property values in any locale, which in turn keeps the local property tax rolls healthy, not to mention keeping influential wealthy land owners happy and contributing to political campaigns, the County or City pays to “renourish” the beaches every 1-3 years. This is done by hauling in sand, and in some cases armoring the shoreline.
Many of the beachfront homes here in Florida have sea walls or revetments to protect their property. It’s just the cost of living on the beach.
“Any proper judge “
Hopeless and, frankly, baseless optimism. The judicial rot set in a long time ago. Take Cherie Booth QC – aka Cherie Blair. Back in 2010 (~5 years before the woke epoch).
“Mr Miah, 25, from Ilford, East London, had gone to a bank last August after attending prayers at a local mosque. He became involved in an argument with another customer, Mohammed Furcan, over who was first in the queue. The row resulted in Mr Miah hitting Mr Furcan in the face before running outside. When Mr Furcan followed him, Mr Miah turned round and struck him again, this time breaking Mr Furcan’s jaw.
In court last week, Mrs Blair, who practises law under her maiden name, Cherie Booth, presided as judge over the case. Although she sentenced Mr Miah to six months’ imprisonment, she suspended the sentence for two years on condition that Mr Miah behaved himself. “I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before. You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour”
https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/europe/cherie-blair-faces-inquiry-for-leniency-to-muslim-1.536157
Look out all us atheists.
This Johnny from Norfolk has, in my opinion, a 97% chance of winning his case, mad as that seems.
This is how democracy is ultimately subverted, by unelected judicial stooges. Members of the elites.
“Tory MP Robert Jenrick, a long-time critic of the ECHR, has described it as ‘profoundly undemocratic’. He’s not wrong. The ruling allows the ECHR, at the behest of activist groups, to further intervene in a nation’s internal affairs. It allows the ECHR to ‘resolve’ what ought to be political questions. Indeed, it means that a democratically elected government could now be hauled before the court if its policies do not accord with the green agenda. No wonder Greta Thunberg joined a gathering of climate activists outside the court to celebrate the ruling.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/04/11/what-has-climate-change-got-to-do-with-the-echr/
I really want to be wrong on this.
strat,
Then you would be dismayed by current powerful attempts by the World Health Organisation to monopolize control of decisions by countries and individuals in the event that the WHO declares an emergency (as defined by WHO).
See the latest video by Dr John Campbell, where the claim is made that an aim of new WHO rules is to channel medical money to big pharma in big countries. Sorry to convey bad news, but further bad news is that national governments like mine are seemingly allowing this to happen while failing to ask people if they want the changes or not. The methodology of the British Post Office in the Alan Bates affair is in progress in many countries. We voters have been turned into mushrooms. Geoff S
They keep coming, don’t they
“current powerful attempts by the World Health Organisation to monopolize control of decisions by countries and individuals in the event that the WHO declares…”
I’d like to be able to say my government would resist such attempts at a power grab; that’s what it is. But I know they will be first in the queue to sign up to it. Virtue must be signalled.
“In their first one-on-one meeting, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Steve Barclay MP spoke at length about their shared commitment to delivering a pandemic instrument – a new international agreement being negotiated by WHO Member States – to strengthen global collaboration to help protect the world from another pandemic.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/12/man-sues-govt-for-not-protecting-him-from-sea-rise/
In this context, the Conservatives represent Parliament. Every other party is 100% aligned.
Wasn’t it China that strongly backed Ghebreyesus for the WHO job? They play a long political game.
He’s their man, alright. He knows how to cover things up
How did she travel to and from the court?
Erosion, flooding and property loss on that stretch of coast are a very longstanding issue. The earliest records of such catastrophic events go back to the storm surge of 1286 and the two Great Storms of 1287.
Yep! That area of the Norfolk and Suffolk coastline has seen over 20 whole villages claimed by the sea over many many years.
Must be more descendants of King Cnut than I realized.
Cnut the Great demonstrated he had no power over the tide.
All those descendants have been silenced by the bearers of the woke mind virus. Patient zero, I’m told, attended US universities.
Spellchecker not working?
Its a great shame that the defending lawyers will be selected and paid by a government department which is responsible for this function. Why? because the UK Civil service AKA Blob or deep state, is known for its love of lefty causes, Greta and friends.
If you employ lawyers who believe the other side is correct then you are an a lose lose situation.
It’s the modern way.
If something bad happens to you, sue everybody.
People have been taught that they are entitled to a happy life, free of all problems, and that it is the government’s job to ensure this.
Mr Jordan has a case if he argues that because of the groupthink in the environment agencies – let nature take its beautiful and benign course – they steadfastly refuse to put in any proper coastal defences. It would look ‘ugly’ would it not. Climate ‘change’ has nothing to do withit. To a Dutchman that is a gross dereliction of duty of care, but the British mind works differently.
He is evidently unfamiliar with the story Jesus told nearly 2000 years ago of the man who built his house on the sand and the consequences of a bad storm. His uneducated hearers understood the illustration. This man was an educated and experienced engineer so the simple illustration would have gone over his head.
Kevin Jordan will have to do what his ancestors did 8 to 18 thousand years ago. Up sticks and move a goodly distance in land. The seas rose 130 metres in that time. Too early even to blame Boudica’s chariots or take Julius Caesar to court. Although he could have walked to France and he would now be Kévin de Jordan.
Oh boy.
’nuff said. On to the next idiocy.
In other news, Hawaii man sues government because his house burned down after he built it next to an active volcanic lava vent.
Why doesn’t he sue the Chinese or Indian governments?
Blood-sucking Ambulance chasing Lawyers are behind these sort of outrageous claims. Governments are too ready to shelve their normal responsibilities and load them onto fabled ‘Climate Change’. This process has now come back to bite government where it hurts.
As I recall, the south east corner of the UK, is slowly sinking into the sea. Shouldn’t he be taking his case to the ultimate highest level of authority?
CofE, stand by.