Bishop Hill SCOTUS to hear climate case
Dec 7, 2010 Climate: WG3 Energy Via the blog of the Supreme Court of the United States comes the news that the court will hear the appeal by five businesses that have been sued under the law of common nuisance for emitting carbon.
five entities that were claimed to be the largest sources of greenhouse gases — four electric power companies and the Tennessee Valley Authority — were sued by eight states, New York City, and three land conservation groups. Their lawsuits were filed under the federal common law of nuisance, a judge-made theory. The Second Circuit agreed that the lawsuit could proceed on that theory. The case, however, has not yet gone to trial.
When the electric generating companies appealed to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, speaking for TVA, urged the Supreme Court to send the case back to the Circuit Court for another look instead of ruling on it now. The Department argued that the EPA was now moving on several fronts to regulate greenhouses gases under the Clean Air Act, so this activity might displace any claims made under common-law theories. The Court, however, chose on Monday to take on the case itself at this point, presumably with the aim of deciding whether such a nuisance lawsuit may now go forward as a way of attacking global warming.
Nature's take on the story here.
Reader Comments (41)
Has the Judge peer reviewed his judgement, or did he just "think it a good idea"
I just love the comment from Jeff Holmstead: "This is one of those cases that could be a nothing burger or really important," Yes, indeed, can't really argue with that one.....:o)
If the Americans want to cut CO2, they could stop killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan and stop occupying virtually the entire planet with their vast array of fossil fueled weaponry. They could stop the war against Iran before it starts.
This could be interesting if they have to prove in court that CO2 is a public nuisance. Are Michael Mann and Phil Jones standing by their phones ?
Your headline had me thinking that at last a philosopher and theologian of high repute and impeccable integrity was going to look deeply into the arcane and mystifying thought pattterns of the greenies;
plato.stanford.edu/entries/duns-scotus/
Alas, it's just their honours in the US Courts!
The Supreme Court's role is to rule on conformance to the Constitution. Sometimes (controversially) they effectively make new law due to how they rule. As all Supreme Court cases are, this will be a "tricky" one as it may be argued that the validity of regulating carbon dioxide and other so-called "green house gases" is irrelevant to the case. From what I read, they are only going to consider the constitutionality of allowing the suit to go forward (or whatever it is that they and they alone decide that they are going to ponder).
There are certain types of noise, smell, toxins, fly ash etc that could be described as constituting a public nuisance, but emission of a colourless, odourless, non-toxic gas that is essential to the biosphere, fertilizing the flora and part of the food chain of all fauna on the planet can't be a public nuisance by any stretch of the imagination. Within months and years the very carbon atoms that are emitted become the constituents of the carbohydrates, fats and proteins on the plates of these eco-fanatics, and then part of the very fibre of their being. Maybe it's a public nuisance that these carbon emissions are contributing to the survival of eco-fanatics, and sustaining their deranged minds.
Cumbrian Lad, well, he did manage "proof of the existence of God" so why not CAGW as well? too early in the morning for me though :o)
e smith,
Mate...you might want to cut back on sucking on what ever gas it is you are sucking on.
Mailman
I wonder how Connecticut residents would view this if the power companies said, "Okay, no more CO2"
and shut the power stations down. It would be fun to see a judge giving his thoughts by candlelight!
Sorry to my friends in the U.S. but....only in America! Totally insane!
There I was thinking that this was not law but simply EPA regulations.....Oh blimey, the Republicans are so going to go after the nutter in charge of the EPA very very soon!
Oops, hit the create button before finishing....
As someone in the article says, it is for Congress to make laws not some numpty civil servant.
Clearly the legal profession have spotted a spare seat on the AGW gravy train.
They will be playing legal tennis with this for years, I'd wager the legal eagles are all drinking at the same club patting themselves on the back in the bar, what a jolly good wheeze!
The judge can't even give the judgement by candlelight: the candle is burning and SHOCK HORROR emitting CO2 as it does....
Mailman
Is that commie gas ? The following uses truly vast amounts of CO2.
The military of the United States is deployed in more than 150 countries around the world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments
If CO2 is dangerous, what does that make depleted Uranium..?
Can't wait for exhaling to become illegal.
But I'm not holding my breath.
If Swift was observing this amazing hubris- that in effect the world climate can be controlled the Courts ruling on CO2 emissions- he would have added another land for Gulliver to visit.
Frankly I will not be surprised if this turns out truly and horribly badly, and we find floodgates opened up for alleged victims to sue over non-existent damages, destroying real companies lives and fortunes.
The scam of catastrophic climate change is reaching the level of self-parody. But the social madness that enables it is reaching dangerous levels.
e smith
As a Norwegian citizen who has been embarassed on many occasions by our Nobel comittee, I can honestly say that if there is any single organisation in the world that deserves the Nobel prize for Peace it is the US Marine Corps. The trouble is that it is not possible to quantify conflicts that have been prevented, although I'm sure that many millions of Rwandans would have preferred US intervention as opposed to French. In addition, whenever you hear someone suggest that the EU is responsible for peace in Europe since WWII you might like to ask whether in fact it was the hundreds of thousands of US troops on European soil since the war that actually did the job.
Sorry for the off-topic Bish, feel free to moderate this out along with smithy's drivel.
OT had to guffaw at this one...
"#
A working life: The climate change consultant | Money | The Guardian
7 Dec 2010 ... Whether she's advising troops in Iraq or policy makers in Whitehall, Kirsty
Lewis's job has always been a matter of life and death."
They've pulled the article before I could even read it, but it's still showing up in the web search
http://www.guardian.co.uk/websearch?q=A%20working%20life%3A%20climate%20change%20consultant
"They've pulled the article"
Certainly have, and before Google has had a chance to cache it, apparently. Is there anywhere else it might be viewable?
'If CO2 is dangerous, what does that make depleted Uranium..?'
I dunno, depleted I guess?
deplete transitive verb 'to empty of a principal substance' 'to lessen markedly in quantity, content, power or value' Merriam Webster Dic.
Wildly OT, but another instance of an article that appears to have vanished over the course of today. I briefly looked at an item in the online Express this morning entitled "Forecasters missed white hell: Scotland not warned about blizzard chaos" (still comes up on a Google search but the article itself is not in the cache.) Now it has vanished, but it had quotes from a Met Office spokesman trying to explain what had gone wrong. There are still some bits and pieces on Google and in the replacement article:
"The Met's Office's online weather map suggested only that Scotland should "be prepared" rather than the more serious warnings for bad weather."
"A Met Office spokesman struggled to explain why not a single section ... the highest level of warning despite hours of blizzard conditions..."
"He admitted: "I honestly don't know the answer to that"
Now I wish I'd saved it at the time. Can anyone find the whole of this somewhere?
Cattle to be banned next, for the obvious reason
Then humans for the same reason as cattle.
Then anything else which exudes anything these idiots want to nominate as pollutants.
Last person to flee from the USA, please turn off the lights
PW
Pete
Give the Americans a chance ;-) I see no signs of a collective surrender to climate alarmism there, and I wouldn't care to predict how the SC will rule. Perhaps it will decide that this case should not go forward.
Frosty, James P
It is there....on google, that is....
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A//www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/dec/07/working-life-climate-change-consultant
'A host of other climate related lawsuits are pending in the courts. In one case, the native Inupiat village of Kivalina in Alaska is suing a variety of energy companies over their role in global warming. Whereas the current lawsuit is pushing for climate regulations, Kivalina is asking for damages to the tune of $400 million.'
It appears the total population of the village is 400. Perhaps the electric company should just throw the switch on them. Make them happy.
I've repeated this link on a previous topic but for those who might wonder how the occasional sceptical view manages to crawl onto the comments page here's the link.
http://www.campaigncc.org/node/384
Paul, I started subscribing to the CACC daily e-mails from the start just to see what they were up to.
Initially it was just Booker and Dellers that were linked to (regardless of whether the articles were climate change related or not) but recently (just over a month ago) they started linking to here and Climate Skeptic as well.
Looks like the 'army' of online volunteers that they were hoping for is a single pacifist!
Fran brilliant sleuthery...
I almost had a beverage moment ...
""I was always interested in atmospheric physics. It was there outside the window – you could see it happening," she recalls.
She stole my "OPEN THE WINDOW" line!
The case will or it will not force congressional action.
It is well withing the purview of the legislative branch to define 'nuisance'.
I.E. Almost every municipality defines lawn height about 6" as a nuisance.
As long as you keep the lawn mowed to 5.99" or less no one can claim a nuisance suit.
If the Supreme Court says the nuisance suit can go forward then Congress would have no choice but to define a standard as the utilities would be faced with immediate closure absent a standard.
This is just some nonsense cooked up to 'force' congress to act. Of course the idiots that cooked up this nonsense didn't anticipate a republican controlled congress.
I just listened to a BBC R4 programme called "The Empire of Climate". On it, Professor Mike Hume of UEA said: "Too much of the public debate about Climate Change has been rather sterile arguments about decimal points on trends of warming or the precise magnitude of future projections. And those are very sterile arguments it seems to me, so I think it’s very important that we continue this exercise of reframing Climate Change in a much more explicit cultural and ethical and even spiritual sense."
I think he is saying that in Climatology the laws of physics are secondary; the science's main purpose is to change people's ideas. Is this paraphrasing fair?
The verb "to reframe" is popular amongst academic Warmistas. I think that is is defined as: "To exploit arcane and esoteric knowledge in pursuit of a political objective."
harrywrt2 observes:
Agreed.
Regarding SCOTUS, with Sotomayor recused, that leaves a 4 - 4 impasse if Kennedy votes for it and a 5-3 majority if he votes against it.
Sooo -- it will either get shot down, or be left unresolved.
harrywr2
If the Supreme Court says the nuisance suit can go forward then Congress would have no choice but to define a standard as the utilities would be faced with immediate closure absent a standard.
Really? I don't think so at all. First of all, what is treaty law covering this? There is no Federal law, so to do that, you need a treaty, such as Kyoto, which the US did not sign, and by Dec 11, the whole COP 16 mess could be worse than last year. And the Justices are not about to freeze in the dark.
This will go away quietly in the night. They may well find that the case was not brought correctly, or some such BS "decision".
The link to the Supreme Court website:
blog of the Supreme Court of the United States
just deadends (404 message)
ianl8888: "The link .. just deadends"
Try this.
to Pharos,
I bet if the native Inupiat people received one million dollars each, they would build themselves big houses filled with heaters and lights and electric everything.
Brent Hargreaves, your definition is not far off number 2.
World English Dictionary
reframe (riːˈfreɪm)
— vb
1. to support or enclose (a picture, photograph, etc) in a new or different frame
2. to change the plans or basic details of (a policy, idea, etc): reframe policy issues and problems
3. to look at, present, or think of (beliefs, ideas, relationships, etc) in a new or different way: reframe masculinity from this new perspective
4. to change the focus or perspective of (a view) through a lens
5. to say (something) in a different way: reframe the question
For those interested in the nuts and bolts of this case, check out Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy:
http://volokh.com/2010/12/06/global-warming-goes-back-to-court/
Just remember that Truth and the Law are merely distant cousins. Courtrooms and legislatures are not places where scientific understanding is either found or used. They decide things according to their own logic. Judges and representatives may quote scientific literature in justifying their decisions, but for the most part, they select the scientific reasoning that supports their wider view of the world. In other words, this case will be decided in the context of Constitutional law. Please read Adler's post and his linked previous posts on the case to get a good feel about the issues before the court.
In reading the post, SG stands for Solicitor General: the Executive Branch's lawyer (appointed by the President).
@Jane Coles
Thanks for that
Alex Cull,
There is now a google cache of the article available here.
@Commenterhunter at 2:23 PM: "The scam of catastrophic climate change is reaching the level of self-parody. But the social madness that enables it is reaching dangerous levels."
Yes, and this is the same sort of social madness that has cultivated totalitarian phenomena such as Pol Pot, Stalin, Ceauşescu, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and other lunatic sociopaths in just the last 100 years, not to mention the entirety of human history.
So to be just a little bit pessimistic, I won't be surprised if the CAGW climate movement evolves in the direction of yet another sad moment for world history.
Certainly there are plenty of viable candidates to create "a new carbon-free world order" with mandatory re-education or even the death penalty for heretic deniers.