Alaskan Village Sues Over Global Warming

hightower_40 writes to mention that a small Alaskan village has sued two dozen oil, power, and coal companies, blaming them for contributing to global warming. "Sea ice traditionally protected the community, whose economy is based in part on salmon fishing plus subsistence hunting of whale, seal, walrus, and caribou. But sea ice that forms later and melts sooner because of higher temperatures has left the community unprotected from fall and winter storm waves and surges that lash coastal areas."

Comments

Mistargeted law suit?

[DrLang21]

IANAL. It would seem to me that if you are going to sue someone for causing you harm, you would need to sue everyone involved. In this case, that would mean sueing almost everyone in the world. It's not fair to target one small group just because they have money. IANAL.

Re:Mistargeted law suit?

[snarfer]

In fact they're even using some of the same people and organizations that the tobacco compa nies used. "Doubt is our product" is the famous quote from a tobacco memo about their front-groups. They managed to put off a reckoning for decades by making people think that the science about cigarettes causing cancer was not clear.

Re:Mistargeted law suit?

[zippthorne]

The main difference is that smoking tobacco doesn't really benefit anybody wheras burning coal and oil has literally driven the engines of production creating tremendous wealth for the whole world. We still have some distribution problems resulting in a number of people not being able to take full advantage of this wealth, but that number is decreasing all the time.

Even if coal and oil use is causing noticeable and net deleterious effects, there is some argument that they should be forgiven past liability and even protected from some amount of current liability, as long as they are taking reasonable steps to mitigate deleterious effects, now.

The earth can support 6 billion modern people. It already does. It cannot support 6 billion cave-men.

Re:Mistargeted law suit?

[SacredByte]

Offsetting one's "carbon footprint" is just about the stupidest thing I've heard in awhile. Its called riding a bicycle. I do it (durring the summer, anyway). I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia, in a comfortable home (4 bedroom, 2.5 bath). Mr. Gore's home is several times the size of mine, and uses more electricity in a month than my home uses in a year.

My comment was not meant to say "Gore does no good" but was meant to say "Gore says there are things you should do, like using fuel-efficient vehicles, and he doesn't even follow his own advice."

I have absolutely no problem with someone telling me that they think I should so something--Like drive a fuel efficient car (I do BTW: 1994 Corola)--just as long as they follow their own advice. Mr. Gore does not but, as you say: Why let the facts get in the way?

The funny thing...

[Otter]

The funny thing is that villagers like these use enormous amounts of fuel and create tremendous pollution (per-capita, anyway) with their snowmobiles and poorly insulated houses. And how many times do you figure the lawyer pushing them into this suit has flown in from Boston?

I do love the part where they're complaining that global warming is keeping them from hunting "whale, seal, walrus, and caribou". Maybe Leonardo diCaprio should make a movie about that!

More about money grubbing lawyers...

[bagboy]

than anything else. I live in Alaska and can tell you the driving force behind this is actually "The Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment and the Native American Rights Fund -- plus six law firms." The natives in the village use gas-powered vehicles for transportation and (generator) electricity for their homes, suing the people who provide the source for those items.

Shoot, why don't we all climb on board. Oh, wait - I drive a car to work and use natural gas to heat my home, plus electricity to power my net activities...

Re:Yes but...

[bunratty]

Of course. I always value the scientific opinion of the founder of The Weather Channel over the consensus of hundreds of climate scientists.

Re:They'll be happy to know the Earth is Cooling

[Black Parrot]

I'm sure they'll be delighted to know that last year was not only one of the coolest on record, but that the trend was so pronounced as "to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down."[dailytech.com] So, we're supposed to reject the nigh-universal consensus of climate scientists because a blogger tells us to?

Re: Yes but...

[ArcherB]

I asked if you would believe raw data.
You answered:

Not in the absence of competence to interpret it. Then you say:

Meanwhile both poles are melting faster than anyone feared. What TFA I linked says:

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. What the Goddard Space Flight Center shows:

While recent studies have shown that on the whole Arctic sea ice has decreased since the late 1970s, satellite records of sea ice around Antarctica reveal an overall increase in the southern hemisphere ice over the same period. Of course, it wouldn't be fair to bring up the opposing argument (from 2003):

Australian scientists yesterday revealed new evidence of global warming, suggesting that sea ice around Antarctica had shrunk 20% in the past 50 years. So if decreasing sea ice proves global warming, wouldn't increasing sea ice DISprove global warming? I mean, I am not a climatologist and all, but I am a thinker.

I'm not saying that the climate didn't change or isn't changing. It is always changing. I'm saying that it is natural, not man made and that the "hockey stick" predictions of future climate models were dead wrong.

Re:It's not "mis-targetted"

[timeOday]

Oh, you think $1e6 per capita is too much? Wait until you see the claims of people with eroding property in California, Florida, and New York in a few years. I'm not saying the lawsuit is just or winnable, but I'll bet it is the first of many larger ones to come.

Re:They'll be happy to know the Earth is Cooling

[ncc74656]

So, we're supposed to reject the nigh-universal consensus of climate scientists because a blogger tells us to?

Consensus != science...and even if it were, it's hardly as universal as Algore and his Grünsturmabteilung would have you believe.

Re:It's not "mis-targetted"

[trolltalk.com]

they aren't living in igloos. They have rifles, snowmobiles, 4x4s, satellite tv, etc.

Re: Yes but...

[ncc74656]

"Climate change" means that we will see more extreme weather, including more regional snowfall in some places. So yes, more snowfall in North America actually shows that global warming IS occurring.

...and now we get to the core of the Grünsturmabteilung's argument: the unfalsifiable hypothesis. It's the intellectual equivalent of "heads we win, tails you lose." What's next? Are you going to tell us that anthropogenic global warming turned you into a newt, but that you got better?

Re:But they are targeting everyone!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

See also: Brilliant plan by Democrats, announced today, to tax the profits of the evil oil companies.

Quite frankly, if I were an oil company, and had politicians getting elected promising to ram a pitchfork up my ass, all the while they claim they're gonna decimate oil with alternative fuels, I'd be dragging ass too in constructing new oil pipelines, infrastructure, refineries, and the like, when, if said politicians have their way, much of that new stuff'll be useless in a few years as oil use decreases and thus you cannot recoup your billions.

Screw that government and the people that elect it. Raise prices!

Do not mark this flamebait. This is a serious analysis. That it upsets you, well, read my .sig.

Re:They'll be happy to know the Earth is Cooling

[MyNymWasTaken]

A scientific consensus describes, not proscribes, the accumulated data & scientific theories. Read that again; descriptive, not proscriptive. Denying a consensus with nothing more than bluster and ad hominem retorts is a blatant denial of science. Provide relevant & complete evidence or you are no better than the creationists.

Re:It's not "mis-targetted"

[EvilNTUser]

Cultures don't have a right to live. People have a right to live.

If your culture becomes unviable, you move on. It's not the rest of the planet's job to help you to live like a carbon copy of your father. We find this self evident with business models, but cultures evoke silly emotional reactions.