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High School Students Sue Federal Gov't Over Global Warming
Hugh Pickens writes "Katherine Ellison reports in the Atlantic that a group of high school students is suing the federal government in U.S. District Court claiming the risks of climate change — dangerous storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, and food-supply disruptions — will threaten their generation absent a major turnabout in global energy policy. 'I think a lot of young people realize that this is an urgent time, and that we're not going to solve this problem just by riding our bikes more,' says 18-year-old Alec Loorz, one of the plaintiffs represented, pro bono, by the Burlingame, California, law firm of former U.S. Republican congressman Paul 'Pete' McCloskey. While skeptics may view the case as little more than a publicity stunt, its implications have been serious enough to attract the time and resources of major industry leaders." (Read more, below.)
Pickens continues: "Last month, Judge Wilkins granted a motion to intervene in the case by the National Association of Manufacturers who says the plaintiffs lack standing because their injuries are too speculative and not likely to be reduced by the relief sought. 'At issue is whether a small group of individuals and environmental organizations can dictate through private tort litigation the economic, energy, and environmental policies of the entire nation,' wrote NAM spokesman Jeff Ostermeyer. The plaintiffs contend that they have standing to sue under the 'public trust doctrine,' a legal theory that in past years has helped protect waterways and wildlife. While the adults continue their argument, Loorz says kids his age are much more worried about climate change than many of their parents might imagine. "
Case dismissed.
You cannot sue for something that has not yet happened. Period.
I don't get people, I get there MAY be a problem.
But assuming there is a problem, then what is the solution, you can't just say "we are mad, you should be doing something".
There is not easy fix, there isn't really even a hard fix..... nothing that is viable with out destroying the world economy.
They remind me of south park "they took our jobs"....
Sue the government that is. Maybe then we can get laws forbidding people from suing everyone over everything.
Gee, that's shocking. My uncle in the mid 1960s was worried about The Bomb, and kids in my era fretted over ecological disaster.
Neither happened.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
DOD, and the US Navy in particular, have considered climate change to be a major national security issue for several years. There is no question that "climate change" is occurring. As usual, what is in question is:
— Precisely what part human activity plays in concert with natural global climate cycles, and
— Exactly how much the US and other First World nations should dramatically alter their economies and energy strategies while developing economies and other major economies (such as China and India) do comparatively nothing, absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means
Instead of peace signs, they now have law degrees.
That's a bigger threat to their future well-being.
Ask the Greeks how well out-of-control spending works when you run out of other people's money to spend.
Censorship is nice when it's used on ideas you despise. It's not so great once a new administration flies in and turns the censor ray on you. It's best not to set a precedent.
On the bright side, they're still young and naive. You can't buy off idealists.
At issue is whether a small group of individuals and corporations can dictate through political and military influence the economic, energy, and environmental policies of the entire planet.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Well no, the Greeks and everybody else can tell creditors to stick it up their collective asses. Ultimately, the economy of the whole world may fail, but it won't endanger our biotope. Screwing up the weather however can't be undone.
Remember, debt is an artificial human construct. Global warning (if/when it happens) is reality. You can't dismiss reality.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
So.. all the energy of the youth go into ..
pointless lawsuits,I am sure, would be tot he tune of a few million $$.
earlier they used to steal for beer money, now they sue.
and just kids. just getting into the sue habit early.
Listen, kids, let me quote some Gandhi to you: 'if everyone cleans up their own backyard, the would would be much cleaner'.
So why not start with using some bikes, and wasting less stuff? less cola, more water?
educate yourselves and your friends while at it instead of being knwo at alls.
In the meantime, if you want to sue, sue Govt of china too, while at it. Guess you dont have the stomach for that fight.
If you truly believe in this fairytale why are you still using electricity? I bet you still drive an evil car too? I don't get the green fairy tale people, they talk a good game but won't go the extra mile, why? This is why they can't be taken seriously, when they go back to living in caves or get all their electricity from so called clean energy, then maybe anyone can believe they are serious. Why all the name calling too, seems to go with the people who believe in this scam for money.
Seems anyone I know who believes in the garbage science all have cell phones and use way more electricity than I do. But hey do as I force you too, what garbage this controller group of idiots.
How can you claim the moral high ground yelling from the gutter like that? These kids are being used as political tools in an election year.
It is not censorship when you insist that only scientific conclusions be heard during debates about scientific issues.
Palm trees and 8
Attempted [something] is illegal in many cases. And Guantanamo is full of people who were only planning something. Finally, neglect can definitely be a reason for a lawsuit.
This is a case where those in power neglect to act, and are therefore guilty of attempted climate change. Case accepted.
Makes legal sense? Don't know enough to comment BUT I support the principle that political leaders must be accountable for their actions... and ignoring / downplaying global warming is a serious action in my book.
"Have you or a loved one been injured or even killed by the receding ozone? If so, call for a free consultation....we don't charge a dime unless you win your case."
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Is that the "It's the end of the world! We're all going to die!" script or the "Oh, sorry, our predictions were wrong..." one?
Liberty in your lifetime
The sad thing is, the right-wing extremists denying the existence of global warming will go after these kids in the nastiest, most vile ways they can think of.
All the while, they hide behind the presumption that "both sides of politics are entitled to their opinions", "freedom of speech", "First Amendment", or whatever other piffle the extreme Right use to legitimise their dickhead, uninformed opinions.
everyone has a right to to make an ass out of themselves, including the above poster.
None of them is going to major in math and science in college but go for soft degrees and later attempt to govern us.
Given the fact that most of the world's currency is based on the faith it's users have in it's value, I wouldn't be too sure that other people's money is going to be worth anything once society rolls over and refuses to play their game, and forcing austerity measures on a class of people that had little to do with the shit in the first place is one of the best ways you can make that happen.
Atlas may be shrugging, but Atlas ain't "job creators" and capitalists, Atlas is the mob, and at the end of the day, the mob rules.
Well, I suppose that rights are not really relevant anymore, but in theory we have the right to sue the government.
Palm trees and 8
Now we can make our government raise taxes even more to pay someone else who doesn't want to work. I think we should all paddle a bit harder to ride this one.
Bravo!
People looking to the government to lead on acting to protect the environment are going to wait a long time. To call members of Congress and the executive branch "leaders" mis-uses the term in this case.
If we want to change, we are going to have to lead our government. Yeah, they should act in our interests, but they aren't. We can do something about it. If this lawsuit doesn't succeed, the next one will go farther. And the next one farther. Until the kids who are thinking about their lives eventually get their interests protected over those of government officials who only have a few years left anyway.
On the bright side, they're still young and naive. You can't buy off idealists.
No, you just have to wait until they grow out of their naivete and realize how the world really works. Posting AC so as do not undo earlier modding.
Loorz says kids his age are much more worried about climate change than many of their parents might imagine.
Sounds like Loorz has been well indoctrinated by his teachers. Because his assertion is demonstrably false. Unless my "many" he means "a few of us brainwashed cloistered kids".
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
You cannot sue for something that has not yet happened. Period.
I've heard of somthing called "injunctive relief." I've also heard of courts issuing "protective orders."
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
It's so nice to have integrity,
I'll tell you why.
'Cause if you really have integrity,
It means your price is very high!
-Tom Lehrer "Selling Out"
In other words, sure you can, you just have to raise the amount you're willing to pay. It's sort of like the classic joke of an old fart to a pretty young woman saying "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" "Well, ok." "Would you sleep with me for five dollars?" "What kind of girl do you take me for?" "We've already established that, we're just haggling over the price."
I am officially gone from
Wow. How do you go into court and waste government funds (for both the judicial portion of the court and the defense against this case) when:
1) the extent of any damages are unclear
2) the thing you're suing over is not 100% accepted as being something that's real (global warming caused by humanity)
and
3) THE ENTITY THAT YOU'RE SUING HAS NO PROVABLE DIRECT IMPACT ON THE THING YOU'RE SUING ABOUT
This is why activism in the US is typically cast in such a negative light. Because there's so many stupid publicity stunts that ultimately don't do anything but cost the average person money in taxes.
The social controls required for the US to reduce its emissions meaningfully must result in an eco-police state with massive Federal micromanagement.
Other countries can and will take every advantage of this. So would I.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If they are below eighteen, they don't have a right to sue. If they are older than that, they are just as responsible as the rest of humanity.
The inconvenient truth is that hypocrites like Al Gore use more electricity and drive thirstier cars than 10 ordinary working people living in a two-bedroom apartment. There are lots of similar hypocrites here on /. unfortunately.
[Citation needed]
Seriously, if you believe that China and India are trying to get the US to "come to the table" on this, you're swallowing a ridiculous narrative, again put forth typically by AGW proponents who see the US as the villain here, instead of seeing things as they really are — namely, things like the fact that China is set to emit 50% more greenhouse gases than the US by 2015.
Note: It doesn't matter that China has more people in the context of the climate change argument! If you identify some level x of greenhouse emissions as being a "bad" thing, then China emitting far more than the US is an extremely bad thing in terms of the effects that it would cause. You can argue that the US may be in a position to make the most impact, but with China set to significantly outpace the US in emissions and oil consumption, I think you need to take a look at what value the US taking a disproportionate hit in emissions control — and the dramatic impact that would have on our economy — would actually do for climate change that would be positive.
Put it another way: do you think that the evidence supports that China (or India, or any other developing economies) would be a better steward of this responsibility?
Somebody needs to educate these kids on how political change is really achieved in our system of government.
It is not censorship when you insist that only scientific conclusions be heard during debates about scientific issues.
Yea, it is, when you get to decide how "scientific conclusions" is defined.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
So whats the penalty of presenting Ideas that have no scientific merit? Take global warming as an example should the scientist that came up with poor predictions based on bad assumptions, malicious or not, that influenced policy be held accountable for it? Should their research grants be taken away? The problem with Global warming/ Climate Change is that the uncertainty is too high right now to draw conclusions as to the true relation between emissions and impacts on the environment. If you are calling for a purely logical approach then that is what must happen, any and all speculation would have to be removed for you plan to work and as brilliant as our scientist are it is an impossible task. Once you let speculation in it degrades from a scientific debate to a debate.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
This is what happens when the folks wanting to use up all of our resources in the next 30 years while they are still alive find out that there are actually younger people who have to deal with the fallout from their irresponsible actions.
Yes, lower gas prices are good, but if they had to pay for the pollution damage that is subsidized by society, it would be a lot more expensive than it is now.
Go kids!. Hopefully they get some regulation on emissions out of it.
LOL
"I watched An Inconvenient Truth 2x in one night, that made me an environmental activist at 12."
Aside from a host of Constitutional issues (I'm pretty certain that the court can't order the Executive branch to sign, nor the Legislative branch to approve, treaties), at a certain point isn't it parents' job to protect their kids from being used like this?
We all know this will chew its way through the courts. A liberal judge will agree, an appellate court will overturn, the 9th Circuit (of course) will support, and it will go to the Supremes. These kids will become famous as "the face of activism of their generation".
Do you think they're serious? Well they sure do:
LOL, wow, I'm convinced. He's even given up video games to pursue this. Well, ok; not "given up", just refocused.
You know why this is a publicity stunt?
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
$15 trillion.
$50k per citizen
$140k per taxpayer.
These kids (and the gray eminences using them for publicity) are taking something that - even if it's happening, the human input is not nearly as well-proved as the Faithful would like us to believe - as a critical and *immediate* threat, while ignoring the real critical and immediate threat (but the approach of which would threaten the freedom of action of their own political sponsors).
This is the equivalent of complaining to your neighbor about his dog crapping in your yard, while your house is burning down. It's either a publicity stunt or simply screwed-up priorities...either way it's a gross waste of time and resources. But hey, it's all about filling up the news cycle, not really about constructive actions anyway.
This bit is chilling:
Leni Riefenstahl is absolutely laughing her ass off. Well played, Herr Gore. Well played.
-Styopa
This is what happens when liberal teachers teach only liberal idealisms, and exclude fact from their lessons.
Scientists can't determine whether animal flatulence or humans create more damaging effects to the ozone. And the scientists can't even determine whether it's global warming, or when it cools down, global climate change.
These kids should be in school learning, rather than wasting taxpayers time & money, which they don't even contribute to at this point.
You can't dismiss reality.
You don't watch Fox News, do you.
First, the use of government resources would shift from making and enforcing policy to defending policy in court. This would mean that the government would become ineffective, while still costing the same or more in both money and lost liberty to maintain it.
Second, the opportunities for malicious mischief abound. I don't like the administration, so I will sue over every policy they try to implement. Even long-standing policy would be subject to suit. Fundraising will be good and easy.
Legislatures and executive departments would become subordinate to courts, and judges could impose policy at whim, to a greater degree than they did at the height of judicial activism.
For these reasons, it strikes me as a terrible idea to even attempt this. The suit should certainly be dismissed, and I wouldn't object to fining the adults involved for wasting the court's time. This is abuse of the system as it is, and would be utterly destructive of the courts and the law if allowed to proceed.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Something about your post, its confusing.
Puppets of the leftist indoctrination. Guess which of the two will be causing the most pain to the next generation.
I'm sure their proposed solution is to spend MORE, right?
lol
I would imagine the more existential threat to their generation (and their children) is the wild amount of debt accrued over the last several decades.
Is there a better indictment of the current state of public education and California schools in particular than this load of politically correct, cart before the horse nonsense! This is what happens when learning is trumped by esteem building and political correctness ...
Sounds to me like some nut job teacher pushing their political agenda on their students.
Seems to me that 1) they would be better served to sue the government for something that is definitely going to cause them to suffer loss in the future, such as the massive annual deficits and the currently humongous federal debt, and 2) they probably don't have much of a case, since they can't prove that the losses will actually materialize. Seems likely you can only sue if you've actually BEEN harmed, not because you think you're GOING TO BE harmed. Of course, they're stupid teenagers, being put up to it by their teachers/parents, I'm sure, and as such they don't understand that. Great publicity for their (incredibly stupid?) lawyers, though.
The legal system can't solve issues of science. They can tell us a fruit is actually a vegetable but that doesn't change the facts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden
It all starts at 0
When it comes to a presumption that IN THE FUTURE there will be a pension crisis, there is work done NOW to "solve" it for the current to-be-retired generation, decreasing benefit and increasing charges for the next generation. No proof, no standing, nothing at all needed, just the fearful statement "pension crisis looms". Yet when it comes to the pension of the next generation, which WILL be removed by the collapse of a society that can have retired old people drawing down a wage, where the costs of paying for avoiding that catastrophe will fall on the shoulders of the current-to-be-retired group, suddenly it's all "prove it! prove you have standing!".
Guess what: they are alive now, these kids. Unless you deliberately kill them off, they will inherit the country you leave behind.
THAT is their standing.
Murder, arson and genocide happened millennia ago. But we still do people for setting light to woods (despite forest fires in the Cretaceous) and despite many animals made extinct before man, we still killed off the Dodo.
And, even though the Sabre Tooth tiger ate themselves into extinction (along with their prey), we still can cause our own genocides.
arguing their future is doomed because the government borrows 43 cents of every dollar it spends, and sticks these kids with the debt. Someday that'll be a crime with its own name, like holocaust or genocide. Hollowcost? noun. 1)The fraction of the cost of a government service shifted from the current generation onto future ones. 2) the crime of sticking your kids with debt for your non-asset-creating expenses (i.e., medicare, medicaid, social security, interest on the debt).
I think the neat thing here is this - usually adults tend to spout the argument that we're making the world a crappy place for our children. Maybe it's because they don't have our agendas or vices, but it just -feels- completely different when our children step onto adult sized soapboxes and raise their voices.
There are two types of people in the world; those who believe there are two types of people, and those who don't.
Can't Superman just ask that alien dude to re-adjust his war horn thingamajig to absorb carbon dioxide instead of nitrogen?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Perhaps they need to read Michael Crichton's State of Fear. He talks about the same exact thing.
The sad thing is, the right-wing extremists denying the existence of global warming will go after these kids in the nastiest, most vile ways they can think of.
All the while, they hide behind the presumption that "both sides of politics are entitled to their opinions", "freedom of speech", "First Amendment", or whatever other piffle the extreme Right use to legitimise their dickhead, uninformed opinions.
Like they did to Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, the Koch brothers or any number of conservatives.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
It is not censorship when you insist that only scientific conclusions be heard during debates about scientific issues.
Well, that's the problem. When someone disagrees with the "consensus", their ideas are no longer scientific. No credible scientist disagrees with the idea of man made global warming because when they disagree, they are no longer deemed credible.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Screwing up the weather however can't be undone.
Exactly. So how about we actually determine at what levels humanity is affecting the weather, and get some realistic predictions on what the results could be if we attempt to "fix" the weather. Because we can screw it up just as bad by trying to fix it than we can by leaving it alone.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
You're right. It is censorship. Appropriate, measured, reasonable censorship.
- Social Security; being bankrtupted by government inaction AND actions.
- Failure to enforce immigration law, with measurable damages done to citizens and legal immigrants alike.
And shall we go on?
Or, we could take a more lengthy but direct approach. Vote them all out until they get it.
Pah! Crazy talk!
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Breed less. It's not a coincidence that this is happening when world human population doubles every, what, 30 years now? But I guess inventing magical technology and penning endless ineffectual laws are probably more apt to work than convincing the human animal to not overpopulate and foul its own nest.
That's because 10 ordinary working people living in a two bedroom apartment can't afford electricity when all the money is sent back to Mexico.
Why don't today's kids sue the government for saddling them with a crushing national debt? Isn't that a more immediate threat to their future?
1) is a good point. You have to show damages, although sometimes you can get away with hypothetical damages.
2) is not a good point. Nothing is 100% accepted. Nothing. Try to name something, anything, which is 100% accepted. Go ahead, try. AGW is 96% accepted among climate scientists, which is pretty good all things considered.
3) could be a good point sometimes, but not in this case, in which the entity being sued does have a provable direct impact on the thing you are suing about.
... Appropriate, measured, reasonable censorship.
I'm sorry, I must be on the wrong forum, I thought this was slashdot.
China alone is going to commission more than 700 new coal power plants by 2020. Sure, in the meantime they are gonna decommission other plants but the overall tendency is obvious. And there is NOTHING you can do about it.
Most likely, the AGW is bullshit. I notice that recently the alarmist changed they mantras from "global warming" to "climate change" -- since there is always some climate change, it gives the alarmists a much safer option for permanent occupation. However, assuming AGW is not bullshit, still you can do NOTHING because a huge part of the world is 1) out of your reach 2) interested predominantly in its own growth. :)
Does anyone really believe that these lawyers or any scientist willing to support their cause is really working for free? This has all of the legal ethics that you expect from a class action shake-down, the government will pay the lawyer fees plus expenses. This is just a political scam.
You're right. It is censorship. Appropriate, measured, reasonable censorship.
You sound like Leon Pennetta. Any means is justified when the cause is just, huh? "Sure, it's droning, carpet bombing and indefinite detention. Appropriate, measured, reasonable droning, carpet bombing and indefinite detention."
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
can tell creditors to stick it up their collective asses
A lot of people are really looking forward to that. The fastest way to stop deficit spending is to chase off the creditors. Please, do exactly that. Stop the slow motion train wreck and do it. Soon.
Look at the parent's username.
I am John Hurt.
And why shouldnt they? These children are attempting to wield political force. If they want to play the game, they better learn the rules fast.
Good-bye
The great depression and then WW2 caused a massive debt -- I suggest you look up the Debt to GDP ratio in the USA just after WW2. The debt was "fixed" before the generation that created it stopped paying income tax.
Things can change quickly if you are measuring in human lifespans or employed lifespan. Environmental damage can take centuries to turn around; even with an effort to repair the damage - extinction would be an example of something that can never be restored.
If you never allow long term debt you cripple yourself from ever being able to do big important things. The vast majority could not buy a house if they were not allowed to go into debt to buy one. Land lords can't rent places they do not own either... Most modern MBA thinking is to run business on the edge of bankruptcy with as much debt as possible; it is a "waste" to invest in security, expansion is far more important; but I digress, the point is that long term debt is a HUGE part of everything else and today is at the extremes; beyond sanity: it is one of the causes of our economic depression. So here we are in the midst of extreme debt at all levels and still we have people preaching the extreme opposite position for government only?? Government can turn around its current debt within a lifetime; it could go into more debt and still pay it back.
I will say that people concerned about the lack of responsibility of the baby boomers to think ahead, think of their children, should be quite vocal and upset but not go so far as to take ridiculous extremes such as no-debt policies.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
However, haven't we had successful lawsuits claiming future damages? I can't think of one that didn't largely involve existing victims- the damage was done already but they were given money for future losses or forced to change to avoid future damages.
All I can think of is where people sue over property value; which is a future prediction and nowhere near a science. Some environmental cases maybe... but I can't seem to think of anything where existing damage isn't the basis of the case with the projected continued damage being a consideration.
This is not a future crime, it is a strongly predictable cause and result from worse-than-criminal acts (which are legal.) So I think they have little chance.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Hmmm, let me think about that for a second. Hmmm, no I'd have to say no. Not "any" means is justified. Is that your question? Is "any" means justified? If you think no, then I agree, not "any" means is justified.
I'm not sure how that relates to the discussion, but I think we're on the same side of the question you pose.
Yes, curse cold hard science, tool of the despot! Soft, warm batshit insanity shall set the people free!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
has always been one.
How much climate change will cost American children down the road is an open question (according to the IPCC reports, not too much). Maybe Europe will suffer more, maybe Pacific island nations will disappear, but those are not primarily costs to the US.
But how much our health care, retirement, and other benefits will cost our children down the road is much easier to quantify. If you're talking about robbing from future generations, talk about that first.
I believe in science when it gives me cell phones and computer processors. When it discovers superconductivity. When it saves my life from cancer. When Hubble delivers pictures of the universe.
But climate change? No sir bob. That's just a bridge too far. You may be able to walk on the moon, splice genes to create whole new organisms, perform surgery with micro-robots over the world-wide communication network that uses LASERs to transmit over tiny glass fibers miles long - all while being told exactly where on the surface of the earth you are by a vast array of satellites in orbit, keeping time by measuring the vibrations of atoms - but frankly I just need to see more evidence for climate change.
(and for the record I'm in favor of an environmental and working conditions tax on imports from countries that do not have similar systems to the first world. If china wants to let people dump toxins and work people to death, they should have to pay an import tax to account for that).
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Environmentalist lawyer wants to make a name for herself in pushing her cause, so she recruits some gullible kids to abuse the court system. This will be thrown out quickly, as four already have been. The only question is whether the lawyer will be sanctioned for her frivolous suits.
This country has a built-in method for achieving what they want. It's called electing representatives, senators and a president who will do it. If that doesn't work, then the majority doesn't agree with you -- too damn bad. Despite the modern liberal desire, it is NOT the job of the judiciary to make new laws and regulations.
Yes: after the rest of the world exploded and burned down, the US had decades of fast growth and near monopolies in foreign markets. Now we're in a world where we're competing with countries full of young, healthy people willing to work for much less than we are and with the infrastructure to allow them to succeed.
Yes, all those cases have two things in common: (1) they have a collateral, and (2) they have an expected return on the asset you buy that's larger than what you pay for it. But we are mostly borrowing to fight wars we don't need to fight and to give people gold-plated retirement, disability, and medical plans. That kind of debt leads to no returns and has no collateral.
Where government investment and borrowing makes sense is in areas where there is positive return that can't be captured by private companies, and that means areas like research, STEM education, health care for the young, and some forms of infrastructure. But those areas need so little money compared to the others that we wouldn't need to borrow for them if we didn't waste so much money for those other things.
Consider the source and the location - the far left.... Balderdash indeed!
Well no, the Greeks and everybody else can tell creditors to stick it up their collective asses. Ultimately, the economy of the whole world may fail
It actually won't. That sort of thing happens all the time, for example, Russia did exactly that in the late 90s. The US did it in the 30s (and in the 70s, really). In the end, people will still want to produce things, and other people will still want to buy things, and bankers and governments will still over-estimate their role in the world economy.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yes, curse cold hard science, tool of the despot! Soft, warm batshit insanity shall set the people free!
Oh, yes, I see... the prevailing scientific "consensus" should be the only thing that is allowed in a discussion of public policy. Is that your contention? Think carefully about your answer - that has been tried in the past.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
No, it won't be remembered long after, just like no one remembers Executive Order 6102.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"These kids (and the gray eminences using them for publicity) are taking something that - even if it's happening, the human input is not nearly as well-proved as the Faithful would like us to believe - as a critical and *immediate* threat, while ignoring the real critical and immediate threat (but the approach of which would threaten the freedom of action of their own political sponsors)."
Painting the adversary as having a "belief" rather than fact. Nice rethorical tactic.
First, there are two.
The one you're probably thinking about is in the preamble, and confers no power onto the federal government. It only describes a general purpose of the constitution as a whole, with its mix of federal, state and personal powers.
The second comes in the power to tax, saying that taxation must be done to promote the general welfare. This is a restriction of power, not a grant. Under the existing powers given to the government, it can only tax to use those powers to promote the general welfare.
At least this was the opinion of James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, when he was trying to convince states fearful of a powerful federal government to ratify the new Constitution. Remember, the powers delegated to the federal government were supposed to be "few and defined" by design, so such a general grant of power as you interpret is absurd in context.
This new broad view, like so much other destruction of our Constitution, came out during the Great Depression as FDR voraciously grabbed as much power in the country as he could for the federal government.
Here's where "necessary and proper" helps. Congress also has the power to issue bills of credit. Issuance of bank notes can be logically considered necessary and proper in order to implement its power issuing bills of credit and to in general control the money supply. This is also contrasted with the states being restricted to only using coins with intrinsic value (gold and silver). Obviously, the federal government has no obligation to issue money that has intrinsic value, but only backed by the credit of the federal government.
To quote Lenin,
"Useful idiots."
Oh, yes, I see... the prevailing scientific "consensus" should be the only thing that is allowed in a discussion of public policy. Is that your contention? Think carefully about your answer - that has been tried in the past.
Eugenics is actually a great example to support science. Science is quite willing to admit itself to be wrong, and eugenics quickly fell from prominence. Don't see much talk of eugenics today.
Contrast that to forming public policy based on religion or other ideologies (like communism, which kicked off around the same time as eugenics), and... well, religion is still around today brainwashing people, and we're sill reeling from some of the effects of communism
If you think that the Greek historical fiscal trend is similar to the USA historical fiscal trend, then you haven't looked at the numbers. Greece is an example of what can happen, not example of what the USA is trending toward.
So what do you do when you live in a nanny state and things don't work out the way you want? You sue the nanny. Maybe these young peolpe should be taught to rely more on themselves than turning to and pointing fingers at the Federal government. Just saying.
But when I was a kid, the scientific community was in consensus that global cooling was our biggest threat, from pollution. Now it's global warming, and in another generation it'll probably be global cooling again. This isn't a science issue so much as it is a social one. Scientists are just as susceptible or perhaps more so than anyone in being swept away by the inertia of positive bias. It's very difficult to dissent in a community as tightly woven as the science community has become.
Everyone pats one another on the ass to get published and to cite publications while publishing. That trends heavily towards publishing things which are guaranteed to not rock the boat, go against the current trends and to be widely difficult to disprove such as issues as nebulous as global warming. Without any 'causes', what we have are weather patters which are roughly linear going back to the ice ages and which have occurred on uninhabited planets as well.
Despite the obvious explanation that perhaps weather is cyclic, and taking into account man's minority contribution to the organic discharge of carbon on the planet, we have a frantic persuasive group demanding that this be the issue which guides our judgement, not because this issue itself has validity or provability but rather because the tertiary effects of abiding by policies guided by this doctrine will achieve the other desirable outcomes; in this case a moral support of secondary 'green' initiatives.
In that way, and I won't go too far with this parallel, the global warming debate has become a religious issue. Without proof, those who believe in it are fervent and zealous. They see proof in everything, and that reaffirms their faith. They know that if others would convert to their faith, the other problems which plague them such as conservatism of wetlands and undeveloped lands and control of pollution and emissions would also be resolved.
This is not an issue in itself, as it is a banner under which other issues are being brought. That is why the argument itself doesn't appear to make sense to outsiders to the faith, because it isn't and never has been a simple, explicable and provable thing. It's a nebulous accusation that carries the hope of people who have genuine and valid concerns, and are driven to have a cause to unite them.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
You don't like it, fuck you.
While above I did mention too damn bad if the majority doesn't agree with you, that doesn't extend to constitutional rights such as free speech. However, there is no constitutional right to the reduction of carbon emissions, so you're left with the will of the majority.
Change it through the proper channels. If you can't, don't be a whiny brat and try to circumvent the system to impose your minority will on the majority by getting five guys in robes to agree with you. Yes, whiny brat. The majority says "no you can't" you say "but..." And it goes, over and over, "but ... but ... but ... waaaaaaaaaaa I want my way...." At least brats just hold their breath until they pass out, and then they're silent for a while.
While they can be annoying, I don't mind environmentalists peacefully protesting and truthfully advertising, because that's the system at work, trying to convince the people, change their opinion, put the will of the people on their side. I do mind when they clog up the court system with efforts to circumvent the will of the people.
It's George bush's fault, of course.
... to then sue these idiots if they win and cause economic collapse, bringing all the things they feared to fruition because there will no longer be a profit in making anything and we can't get food to market because electric trucks run solely on wind and solar and hydro won't be around for decades?? Or that the taxes needed to make these things happen sooner will also ruin the economy because I won't be able to buy anything. Which means we won't need all of those power stations any longer since we will be living in adobe huts without air conditioning and walking because factories won't even be able to make bicycles. And we won't be able to even use horses because of the methane produced.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
While it may be happening that way in your office and a few other places where grand standing and lip service is all that happens. There are plenty of places that actually recycle and reduce the environmental foot print in a substantial way (I have worked and still continue to work in such places, where special recycling companies are called in, and they show up with their trucks exclusively to collect recyclable trash). But let that not stop you from trolling around, and some stupid mods on slashdot think that you bring an "interesting" perspective. Sad.
Does the US federal government have the power to implement "public trust doctrine"? Remember, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
It seems to me that all the important public trust doctrine decisions have been common law findings of state courts on state behavior (such as Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois, National Audubon Society v. Superior Court), and that this is not something that could be extended to federal government (unless you make the Commerce Clause argument, gack).
The problem with Global warming/ Climate Change is that the uncertainty is too high right now to draw conclusions as to the true relation between emissions and impacts on the environment.
Risk management theory says the greater the uncertainty about a risk the more value there is in mitigating the risks. If you're not at all sure how bad the risk is but there's a relatively small possibility it could be really bad then best to avoid even that small possibility.
The public debt and sociopathic power structure have already destroyed your financial future, so you won't own anything that can be damaged by the scary weather!
Happy I could help!
The US isn't responsible for climate change; all humans are. This includes China, India, Europe and Japan.
Or a dictatorship maybe.
You of course know better for everybody else what is best for them. And you only need five people to agree with you in order to make your minority will imposed over the majority. Why not eliminate Congress altogether? They are apparently useless in your worldview. The judiciary is properly used as a check against Congressional and Executive government power, not to be used as a source of that power in itself.
As I say, liberal environmentalists are about the most authoritarian people out there, and I keep getting more and more proof of that with every post one makes.
It's everybody else who's a lackey voting as they're told. And I bet most of them think they're the ones voting their conscience.
That's judicial activism. The representatives are there to change laws, not the judiciary. The judiciary is only supposed to have the power to interpret them. Admittedly, interpretation can itself be a change, but proper judicial restraint says to remain within the intent and meaning of the law, applying it to circumstances possibly not envisioned by the legislators, not to try to actually change it beyond that. Declaring a law unconstitutional is simply the act of interpreting the Constitution, which should also remain in the text and intent. An actual CHANGE to the Constitution requires an amendment. Any other method of change, including judicial fiat, is by definition unconstitutional.
Taking a moment to put down the "my-opinion-is-right" goggles, the issue at hand is vague and a bit devoid of accurate debate. I can't claim to know what the motivation for the lawsuit is, or whether or not humans are playing a role in global warming. We ARE polluting the planet, as other posters have referenced the trash floating in the ocean, industrial waste etc., and still others have pointed out the negative impact of green initiatives such as turning corn into ethanol. But is that really the point? The only fact is that the world is getting dirtier, third world countries are cutting down forests, the oceans are getting poisoned, and the planet is getting warmer. What our role in that is still to be defined, I think. Can we take efforts to curb that? Yes, I think clean air and water are lovely. How should we do that? I don't know. The only opinion that I'm willing to hang onto in the middle of the "go green" vs "not my problem" fight is that a proactive approach beats a reactive one. Disarming a bomb is easier than trying to limit damage from one. Vaccinating a population against a disease is better than treating every patient that contracts it. Patching a system is more efficient than repairing every malfunction that could have been prevented. Analogies, none of them perfectly describing the issue yet I hope they illustrate the point that I'm trying to make that as the saying goes, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Old, possibly archaic even, but it does ring true. Preventative measures just make more sense than waiting until things are bad enough to force people to action. Again, I can't even suggest if that could happen. Maybe this is as bad as it gets. But I don't want to find out. Hopefully this case causes more studies from INDEPENDENT researchers, none that are funded by people with political or economic gains to be made from the results, that can tell us exactly what's going on, and what can be done about it.
You don't think much of scientists, do you?
We live in a federal constitutional republic. The structure is designed to prevent both the tyranny of the majority and the tyranny of the minority.
You have to stick to principles. You cannot usurp the system just because THIS TIME things didn't go the way you think they should be. You're willing to abide by decisions you like, but ones you don't like are judicial activism. This bit from A Man for All Seasons sums it up quite well. I'm on More's side.
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
Think of the poor Democrats recently trying to get their president's judicial nominations confirmed in the Senate, but facing filibuster by the Republicans. That's their own fault, having started the precedent under Bush when their minority didn't want his judges to be on the bench. They screwed up the process for their ideology, and it came back to bite them.
. . . . . circa 1000AD. As I mentioned a month or so back, I was involved in cataloging samples from an expedition to the edges of the Greenland Ice Cap. Amongst those samples were wood and tree branch sections that carbon-dated to ~990-1020 AD. Not saying it was ALL green, but at least a section was....
Herp Derp, Energy Bad, Derp. Got me a humanties degree, Herp Derp Derp, Professor told me that, Derp, Can't get a job, Derp Derp Derp
Because we can screw it up just as bad by trying to fix it than we can by leaving it alone.
But "fixing it" does not mean massive geoengineering projects, it means reducing pollution and energy use.
.: Semper Absurda
Don't try to be so clever. It's you right-wing sacks of crap that push judicial activism as the solution to disempower and disenfranchise a nation, including:
* Citizens United
* Deciding an undecided (and mathematically undecidable) election in favor of their guy (Bush)
* The Texas congressional redistricting mess
"liberal" - what bullshit. what information-free right-wing talking-point bullshit. You people are just awful people.
That's the stupidest idea I ever heard. If anything they should sue the previous/current generation for all the dept that is being passed to them. Not only is the existence of the dept 100% verifiable unlike the questionable global warming theory. But making mad dashes instead of steady progress in environmental science just heaps on tons more dept, at which point we can't sustain being more environmentally friendly. If you fix the dept first you have some money to blow to raise environmental awareness.
There are so many opinions, "facts", arguments, outright wrong statements, and general lol humor he would never need to write another line again. /. goes bananas. I LOVE IT!
A couple of high school kids think they can save the world (wow, that's new), and
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Oh, yes, I see... the prevailing scientific "consensus" should be the only thing that is allowed in a discussion of public policy. Is that your contention? Think carefully about your answer - that has been tried in the past.
Sigh.
It's not easy to overturn a consensus. It never was, nor would it be reasonable to expect it to be so in the future. The best way tends to be to assemble evidence that the consensus is demonstrably wrong and that your proposed alternative is less wrong. Scientists are usually (but not universally) happy to change their minds about things if you provide good evidence. The trick is that you really do need to provide good evidence.
What are you up against? Well, the basic physics of CO2, CH4 and H2O vapor in the atmosphere has been pretty well established for over a century; the higher the levels of those gases, the more the atmosphere retains the sun's heat. I wouldn't recommend attacking that, as you can check it pretty easily. It's also the case that levels of CO2 have been measured as increasing at multiple geographically distributed sites pointing in the other direction; something is increasing it (and hence increasing the amount of energy retained, which in turn increases the temperature somewhere). The real questions are what are the consequences and what are the causes?
The consequences are difficult to predict, as the atmosphere and oceans are a furiously complex non-linear system, but increased average global storminess is at least likely, and more worryingly, shifts in where the local climate zones for the most productive crop-lands are located is a distinct possibility (which could be really bad; history says that that sort of thing triggers huge wars). Nobody knows where the trigger levels for such changes are, but given what's at stake you can understand people being rather worried.
On the causes side, it doesn't look like it is volcanoes that are spewing all that CO2 out (vulcanologists keep fairly close tabs on that sort of thing) so the big candidates are discharging clathrates, melting permafrost, or human activity (there's a lot of people burning fossil fuels). We hope it's not the clathrates, because there's precisely nothing we can do about those. There does seem to be quite a bit of gas emission from permafrost, but that's probably a feedback triggered by something else. The simplest reasonable option for the rise in levels of atmospheric CO2 is due to human activity, as we know for sure that there's been a lot of that. (I've heard it argued that global temperature rises could be due to changes in solar activity, but the argument runs into the problem that temperatures have been rising through a whole solar cycle; if that was a major cause/trigger, you'd expect temperate patterns to correlate with solar activity patterns much more strongly.)
In short, if you want to argue against the AGW hypothesis, feel free but realize that there's a great deal of unrelated lines of evidence that point to it being highly believable; the bar to disproving it is set very high.
Which brings us to the other question: why are you so keen on trying to disprove something with so much evidence in its favor? That's a genuinely difficult task you've picked for yourself there. Is it because you like to challenge every consensus? Or that you don't like the moral consequences of AGW if is true? Or is it just because someone you trust (or who is paying you) told you to think that? Only the second of those gets any respect from me (the first would just mark you out as a social leper, and the third would make you a patsy or shill) and then only minimally much: it's morally consistent but still would make you an asshole.
Before you go jumping up and down in indignation, remember this: the majority of climate scientists would very much like for this problem to go away. They're worried about possible outcomes, some of which are quite dire (historical and archeological evidence says that climate change is not good for civilization) and changes to the nature of the economy now are favored tools because they're believed to be the cheapest way of avoiding the worst.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Rush Limbaugh lives in their heads RENT FREE - LOL!!!
But not me. I'm not right wing. I disagree with the conservatives on many fronts, and even denigrated them for inconsistent, ideology-driven views a few posts up. Yeah, right-wingers usually bring up Scalia to bash over his Supreme Court votes.
But to your poor choice of examples:
Citizens United - First, overall it's not a right-wing decision. The main issue was whether First Amendment protections extend to corporations, which includes for-profit corporations (big bad oil companies), non-profit corporations (such as Greenpeace and the ACLU), and unions. A big question you should ask yourself is, when several First Amendment protected individual citizens gather into a group, why should they as a group lose First Amendment protections?
Deciding an undecided (and mathematically undecidable) election in favor of their guy (Bush) -- First, media did recounts later and determined that Bush would have won anyway under the standards of the recount that Gore had requested (although Gore would have won under other standards, that's irrelevant since they weren't being used). Second, it was 7-2 on the issue of Equal Protection, so some Bush opponents voted for it, which means it can't be ideological judicial activism overall. Basically, Gore was trying to use the old Democrat tactic of "Recount until we win" (or, rather, until the proper number of ballots are found in car trunks), and the Supreme Court stopped it because time had run out.
The Texas congressional redistricting mess -- I understand you don't like it when your Democrat gerrymandering is broken up to reflect the fact that Texas is a majority Republican state. Yes, Texas went 59% Republican in the 2000 election, yet only 43% of the representatives were Republican due to Democrat gerrymandering. After the redistricting, Republicans went to a more closely matching 63% of representatives. The overall claim that the redistricting was an invalid gerrymander, and the idiotic claim that a state can't redistrict more than once every ten years, were thrown out 7-2. This means liberal justices agreed, so it also can't be overall a case of ideological judicial activism.
You are a classic example. You don't like the decision, so you think it must be activism.
Useful Idiots
Somehow I am not surprised that the education system is leading children to beliefs that are not accurate.
We also have a great deal of knowledge of ways to head off that danger -- primarily by reducing carbon emissions.
That is the best strategy we can come up with? Punching CTRL-Z on the whole fossil fuel thing and hoping for the best?
Carbon emissions are integral to our whole way of life. If cutting carbon (especially cutting carbon faster than we already are through market forces like nuclear reactors, electric cars, etc) is the best strategy we have, then we need to find a better strategy!. I thought a lot of the predictions for future temperatures were being made by supercomputers that could run simulations of the entire Earth and produce actionable data. As far as I can tell, the scientists running these nearly-omniscient models have never bothered to adjust a variable other than CO2 concentration (what about sulfate aerosols, for instance?). Perhaps the scientists/UN/policymaker crowd could come up with something a little more practical, something that wouldn't impoverish millions/billions of people. And maybe something that doesn't require global shadow government (Goldman Sachs supports cap-and-trade since it would effectively function as a tax levied/collected by banks) and something that won't put the US/Europe at much more of a disadvantage compared to China/India and other countries that don't/won't give a fuck.
You've used a rather long-winded (and sophomoric) route to say "You're stupid or a shill if you don't agree with me." And in addition to your side-tracking of the entire issue, you have made a number of leaps of faith.
Note too that your argument is mostly a straw man, building a case claiming that I am "keen on trying to disprove something", which of course I'm not. There are questions of the proportion of contribution that we have control over, and some very serious unknowns regarding the effects of radiative forcing, and those questions should be answered as best we can, not censored by those with a political agenda.
But of course your most egregious leap was this:
the majority of climate scientists ... [are] ... worried about possible outcomes, some of which are quite dire (historical and archeological evidence says that climate change is not good for civilization) and changes to the nature of the economy now are favored tools.
It's no wonder you favor any opposing ideas to be censored, because there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about implementing a globally-controlled command economy upon the peoples of the world. Your premise for justifying this radical course is that the worst-case probabilities predicted by the IPCC and others should be accepted as inevitable, and that there is enough known and controllable about the climate that there is a reliable way to avoid these dire outcomes. That's a terribly flawed premise. It also ignores what we already know from history about the implementations of these "changes to the nature of the economy" which your ideology favors, and that's the truly dire amount of suffering and death that always results, always suffered by the most vulnerable populations.
What is very clearly known is that climate change happens on earth, and regardless of humankind's contributions to the current warming trends, there are changes to the climate, often rapid, that are entirely out of our control at anything close to our level of technology. The only truly moral course of action in these circumstances is not a global oligarchy in control of earth's resources, but rather reasonable steps to ensure that everyone is prepared and able to adapt to the changes.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I apologize if this has already been addressed, but there is a big difference between pollution (such as acid rain and waterway contamination), and climate change. Our environment is vastly cleaner than it was a few decades ago; and in some areas cleaner than it would be if there were no humans at all around. But the entire area of climate change (aka, global warming) is not so clear, and has nothing to do with clean water to drink. It is well documented, but the bottom line is the data and the analyses on the magnitude of global warming is suspect at best and politicaly contrived at worst. We are left with mostly speculation as to if there even is global warming, especially in light of such things as warmer climes in historical times. It warming is valid, what if anything is causing it, and should we even do anything about it if real? Is our climate today perfect? Anyway, stopping acid rain is NOT the same thing as reducing human impact on the climate. Stop acid rain - yes. Stop emitting CO2 - no.
Synchronizing stop lights across the US = one less nuclear power plant