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Young Climate Activists Sue Obama Over Climate Change Inaction (cnn.com)
EmagGeek writes A recent lawsuit against Obama alleges he has a legal duty to act against climate change, and young climate activists, including 15-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh, are taking him to task on it. CNN reports: "Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh became a climate change activist at age 6 when he saw an environmental documentary. He asked his mom to find a way for him to speak at a rally. Now 15, the long-haired, hip-hop-savvy Coloradan is one of 21 young activists joining climate scientist James Hansen in suing the Obama administration for failing to ditch fossil fuels. 'It's basically a bunch of kids saying you're not doing your job,' he told me here at the U.N. COP21 climate change summit in Paris. 'You're failing, you know. F-minus. We're holding you accountable for your lack of action.'"
If he's 15 years old there hasn't been any statistically significant temperature increase in his lifetime. What is he complaining about?
He's hip hop savy. That makes it important.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Hmm... I checked The Constitution and it doesn't say anything about it being the President's job to "ditch fossil fuels". Heck, it doesn't even mention "climate change". Perhaps this kid should take a Civics / Government class and learn that it's Congress that passes these things called "laws"...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Now that the precedent has been set, I'm looking forward to suing all of these students twenty years from now for their terrible career choices which have made them unemployable, thus depriving me of the tax revenue needed to support my Social Security and Medicare.
I guess he hasn't gotten to the class in school yet explaining that the Executive branch can't enact laws . . .
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
In order to prove standing, he will have to prove that he's sustained damages. He will find that hard to do. The kid might as well sue for having his financial future mortgaged to a hilt while he is at it. At least in that case, he could document how he is being royally screwed.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Is this the same James Hanson who warned us in Jan 2009 that there were "only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world"? That if we fail, all will be lost? Because we busted that deadline in Jan 2014. And the world hasn't exactly ended yet.
... Just as soon as he shows us all HIS plan to ditch all fossil fuel use, without a negative energy balance at any time, will all the math shown, and the most pessimistic assumptions you can make about renewable availability and construction/maintenance energy costs baked in. After that, I want him to figure out how to PAY for it. Then I want him to take a good look at what goes into all those 'Green' technologies. A solar panel is energy intensive to make, and requires some toxic materials.
It's clear President Obama had and has the will to act significantly on reducing CO2 emissions.
He is fighting the fossils in an obstructionist, denialist, bought-and-paid-for Republican-controlled senate and congress for every inch of progress on this issue.
The targeting of this lawsuit is misplaced.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
* Young -- because you can't trust anyone over 15
* Hip-hop savvy -- shows your street cred
* Long hair -- because personal grooming is political
* Unpronounceable name -- you have to be ethnic to be taken seriously
* Filed a lawsuit -- This shows you mean business and are willing to take the law into someone else's hands
* Coloradan -- Dude, you can hook people up, ya know.
I'm sure he's a total hero with his brave, hip-hop flavored anti-authority, not to mention probably getting more dewy-eyed hippie chicks than even a 15 year can handle.
I get how as a scientist watching things you want to push people to action. That being said, James Hansen has gone a little overboard IMHO and into the realm of damaging the credibility of scientists in general be politicizing things himself. He's written things like:
Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone within 50 years
This despite the IPCC estimates that gain/loss in glaciers will be regionally dependant on precipitation changes(and this based on admittedly poorly modelled precipitation).
The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.
This isn't precisely a statement backed by peer reviewed evidence either...
When people are angry about the science being politicized, it does NOT help for the scientists to go over board politicizing things themselves in the hope of being a counter-balance. It doesn't work between FOX and MSNBC counter balancing each other from Rep-Dem sides of things, and it doesn't work for educating people on the science either. You just get more and more grandiose hyperbole, half truths and flat out propaganda from both sides.
It's not happening
It's uncertain
It may be happening but it's not us
Ok it's happening, but it's all those poor people who are trying to catch up with us
Ok it's happening, but there's nothing we can do about it.
Ok it happened, but there was nothing we could have done about it.
Yes. You could have done something. Finding yourself it a hole, you could have stopped digging.
You could have kept your friggin' traps shut with your destructive obstructionist bullshit and got the hell out of the way of the smart and motivated people trying to solve the problem.
You've already cost us 35 years of inaction since the problem was well known in scientific circles to exist.
So I say again, shut up and get out of the way.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?