Slashdot Mirror
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."
True, but bear in mind that lawsuits like this seem mostly intended not as an actual reparation of damages but to make a large public statement.
Attention whoring, in a way.
So they've already won what they wanted: to get attention for the difficulties that they and their neighbors have been having.
IANAL myself, so take this comment cum grano salis.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
They're looking to cash in on the "environmental windfall lottery",
Just follow the money.
A million bucks each and they'll go away happy. It doesn't cost a million bucks a head to relocate people, unless you're relocating them to the ISS.
Kevin Smith on Prince
I'm not a lawyer either, but I had some law lectures during engineering school and one particular comment by the lecturer stuck with me and is quite apposite to your remark.
He said "always follow the money". If someone doesn't have money, or at least insurance, don't waste your time and lawyers' fees suing them. Instead look for the richest parties who can be held responsible for the damage and sue them.
I cannot comment myself on how valid my teacher's comments were, but he at least was a lawyer.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Exxon is presently trying to get the SCOTUS to overturn $2.5B punitive damages awarded to fishermen and other interests affected adversely by the Valdez spill (interesting story... drunk driver, I mean captain). Anyhow, it is related because punitive damages are weird.. they got $2.5B earlier, the court may reduce it, to what $1.25B? And Exxon wants to pay $0. How much is appropriate?
At least in the oil spill, one defendant is involved, Exxon. In global warming, who is culpable, and to what extent? Who suffered, and what dollar amounts? And what is an appropriate punitive damages number? Adn think of the endless appeals.
The big push for at least a decade was that we were being threatened by global warming. The ice caps were going to melt, the seas were going to rise and who knows what else was going to come with that. All we hear about is some impending doom initiated by humanity. Except that it never actually arrives; it's always going to happen some day soon.
On now that evidence is arising that discredits the notion of global warming the terms get switched around on us. So now it's climate change. The nice thing about this term is that it's so all-encompassing. Any time we get weather a bit out of the ordinary it's chalked up to be due to climate change, specifically man-made climate change.
Last month is snowed lightly in Baghdad for the first time anyone can recall. You'd think so impressive an event would be covered more than it was. I eventually found a brief Agence France-Presse story about it. Predictably they stick a bit in there about how this was due to climate change. Like there's a set temperature for any spot on Earth.
I guess the implication is that the Earth's climate has always been static. I can't help but think that Creationists should be the most ardent believers of man-made climate change given that they're convinced the Earth is only 6000 years old.
Forecasters can barely predict the weather into next week and I'm supposed to accept has fact incomplete computer models that predict the weather in the next 50 or 100 years. More importantly, I'm supposed to subscribe to the belief that a global temperature increase is inherently a bad thing.
A while ago I was reading about the history of Japan, specifically the Jomon period. It turns out that between 4000BC and 2000BC temperatures tended to be several degrees Celsius higher then they are today and the seas are believed to have been 5m higher. The fascinating part was that the people living in Japan at the time thrived during this era, having developed rice-paddy farming and government control. When the climate cooled the population of these people declined dramatically. This trend is reflected around the world. Europe endured famines in the 1300s during periods of cooling and glacial expansion.
Unfortunately, it seems to be taboo to argue against man-made climate change. Any evidence critics put forward is dismissed off-hand. The double-standards are laughable. A believer will use a localized event as evidence of climate change. A critic does the same and their argument is discredited for being based on local weather.
So now we have these eskimo pulling what is essentially a publicity stunt. Well, it's worse than that. Behind them are a pack of scumbag lawyers looking to line their pockets.
Ok, so, a 15 kW fan will cost about $30,000. This includes the tower. If you place it properly, you'll get full-power for ~10 hours per day, so 150 kW/h. It will do so for the next twenty years with little if any maintenance. That's 1,095,000 kW/h for $30,000. That's $0.0274 per kW/h. Less than three cents.
All this, and NO TOXIC WASTE.
Go, propaganda.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
assum getting energy from the wind comes at no cost?
TYhere are uisually put where there are strong winds; which are often migratory paths for birds. The Wind farm in califormia kill 1000's of birds a year.
The wind slows down, so what efect does taking energy from the wind have? does it change rain fall patterns? certianly, does it change bird migration? wetlands? inland rainfall?
I'm not saying we should try it, just thet we should remember that we don't get something for nothing. Also,'renewable energy' is a marketing phrase.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on