Children Can Now Sue The US Government Over Climate Change (vice.com)

"America's children have officially won the right to sue their government over global warming," reports Motherboard. An anonymous reader quotes their article: Thursday, a lawsuit filed by 21 youth plaintiffs was ruled valid by U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene, Oregon. A group of citizens, whose ages range from nine to twenty, charged President Obama, the fossil fuel industry, and other federal agencies with violating their constitutional rights by declining to take action against climate change. "Federal courts too often have been cautious and overly deferential in the arena of environmental law, and the world has suffered for it," wrote Judge Aiken in her ruling. [PDF]
Several groups -- including the U.S. government and the American Petroleum Institute -- had asked the judge to throw out the case, but the judge ruled instead that climate change would "threaten plaintiffs' fundamental constitutional rights to life and liberty," calling man-made climate change an "undisputed" fact. In a related story, Slashdot reader devinp shares a new study which suggests "Global changes in temperature due to human-induced climate change have already impacted every aspect of life on Earth from genes to entire ecosystems, with increasingly unpredictable consequences for humans."

Comments

have to prove damage

[phantomfive]

I would think it would be hard for anyone to prove that they've been damaged by global warming.

Also, there is the legal principle of sovereign immunity: The King Can do No Wrong. If memory serves, victims of radiation from nuclear tests in Nevada sued the government, and lost based on that principle. If victims of nuclear fallout can't win the case, I can't imagine these people will.

But anyway the case should be an entertainment. Bring out the popcorn!

Re:have to prove damage

[Orgasmatron]

Sadly, the government can waive immunity. And then there is the sue&settle technique where an agency partners up with an activist group and together they come up with a plan where the activist group sues the agency, then the agency settles. The settlement then becomes a court order to do or not do something that Congress never would have agreed to.

Re:have to prove damage

[phantomfive]

Has that happened before?

Re:have to prove damage

[Anonymous Coward]

EPA has a whole dept that works with enviro nuts to sue and settle if they cant get a regulation thru congress. They give enviros money to bring suit, then cave to them and say we have to make regulation.

Re:have to prove damage

[JaredOfEuropa]

It's an interesting case. Moreso because the government isn't really "declining to take action against climate change", is it? At least the current administration acknowledges hat AGW is a problem, and they have some policies to address it. The real question is: what should they be doing, and are they doing enough? There was a similar case here in the Netherlands, where an environmental group sued the government and won. In that case the judges simply said: "government must abide by the treaties they signed, including the Kyoto one", noting that the country wasn't meeting the agreed emission goals. But in this case, I don't think a judge could have ordered the government to sign and ratify the treaty in the first place, merely to uphold the agreements therein.

In this case, what could a judge order the government to do? Reduce emissions by X? Build N wind farms? Sign some treaties? I imagine that a settlement would boil down to whatever gets negotiated between gov't and environmentalists, but... wouldn't it be a funny-as-hell joke on the plaintiffs if a judge ordered the government to fund 20 new nuclear power plants to help meet CO2 reduction goals?

The Dutch ruling has similar interesting side effects: it turns out there are many other treaties and agreements not being kept, and apparently we can now have the court force the government to respect those treaties. For example, the rule ("recommendation") in the NATO treaty about military spending, and the subsequent 2014 agreement of the "freeloading countries" to increase spending and at least approach the minimum agreed amount. Not quite what those environmentalists were after...

Re:have to prove damage

[CrimsonAvenger]

The real question is: what should they be doing, and are they doing enough?

They should be mass-producing a standardized nuclear reactor design to replace every coal-fired plant (and then every gas-fired plant). And no, they're not doing enough.

Re:have to prove damage

[swillden]

wouldn't it be a funny-as-hell joke on the plaintiffs if a judge ordered the government to fund 20 new nuclear power plants to help meet CO2 reduction goals?

It'd take more than 20, but, no that wouldn't be a funny joke, that would be a great move.

Re:have to prove damage

[JaredOfEuropa]

Absolutely. But I do not know what the actual law says about this (in the Netherlands or in the USA)

Re:have to prove damage

[Orgasmatron]

Jerry Pournelle has been saying this for years.

Can you imagine how the world would be different if in 2003, instead of invading Iraq, we had spent that money on nuclear power?

First a few hundred billion to design and develop a standard power plant, one that was pre-approved and could be deployed nearly anywhere for about a billion dollars each. Then about 100 of them. Then, Fischer-Tropsch plants to turn the cheap electricity into cheap fuel.

I'd throw a billion at Bussard's group for inertial electrostatic containment fusion research too.

Re:have to prove damage

[silentcoder]

That depends on what the suit demands to an extend. This suit isn't demanding compensation - just that government stops the rights-infringing behaviour and starts acting correctly, such cases have already been won in several countries around the world (most recently in the Netherlands) and on other topics as well - court cases can and have forced governments to change policy.
Much like sovereign immunity did not prevent the supreme court from legalising gay marriage. In South Africa when the government was denying the link between HIV and AIDS as an excuse to avoid having to make anti-retroviral treatments available in state hospitals, they were sued and the constitutional court ultimately found that their policy violated the people's constitutional right to healthcare, and forced them to make the drugs available. It was an interesting one since the drugs at the time (primarily nevirapine) were not yet great treatments for infection but WERE great at protecting vulnerable people from *getting* infected (notably it could prevent mother-to-child transmission in pregnancy).

The US system is different in some ways but similar enough that the case, at least in theory, could actually get to the supreme court and potentially lead to mandated policies. Whether that can happen in a court with a Trump appointed 9th judge is another question but not really related to the legality of the idea, merely to the likelihood of convincing the judges to do it.

Re:have to prove damage

[david_thornley]

From what I remember from other reading, it's really hard to sue the government over a matter of politics. It's far easier to sue over a problem with execution of policy. If you want to change policy, you vote and write your Congressional representatives and that sort of thing.

So, if the plaintiffs want to argue that we should be spending more on CO2 abatement, they don't have much of a case, since that's a political question. If there is a definite policy that the government is failing to execute properly, or pertinent laws that they are ignoring, they have a chance.

Re:have to prove damage

[david_thornley]

They can't. (At least not in the US.) However, a signed and ratified treaty is the law of the land, according to the Constitution, and that's something the courts can rule on.

Constitutional rights

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I guess I have to go back and read them again.

I don't remember a constitutional right about climate change.

Re:Constitutional rights

[phantomfive]

.....rights to life and liberty
Those are what the judge was referring to.

Re:Constitutional rights

[rwven]

It's a valid claim if they can prove they've been damaged by climate change/warming/etc. Therein lies the rub.

Re:Constitutional rights

[William Baric]

That's an extremely broad interpretation of rights to life and liberty. What's next? Americans suing the US government for not having done enough research to find a cure for cancer?

Re:Constitutional rights

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Good point.

I'll watch this case and sue because I don't have a home like Al Gores has with a pool. After all, the government hasn't done a decent job of making sure my wages are on par or surpassing theirs.

Re:Constitutional rights

[Major Blud]

Not to mention that this is really a suit being brought by the parents of these youths.....parents who themselves help contribute to global warming.

Re:Constitutional rights

[tfmg_b]

You can't sue if your exact case is not illustrated in the constitution. Parent modded insightful. I can't recognize this site.

Re:Constitutional rights

[phantomfive]

The summary specifically mentioned constitutional rights, you should go back and read it.

Re:Constitutional rights

[bussdriver]

They won't win; however, some points:

The constitution and it's amendments do not enumerate rights; they are not bestowed upon the people. The people already are have their rights which can only be infringed upon; a big distinction. The constitution even makes this point (go look yourself.)

The people can define and demand recognition of any rights they choose.

Then there is the "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" mission statement part where life and liberty can be pretty miserable and so that last inspirational phrase was included.

Re:Constitutional rights

[alvinrod]

You probably don't want to go around talking about a right to life with the incoming administration. They're liable to interpret that in ways you won't like.

Re:Constitutional rights

[mobby_6kl]

You could say the same thing about the commerce clause, but look - it can now be used for everything.

Re:Constitutional rights

[Anubis IV]

Generally your rights get infringed before you have standing to sue. Last I checked, everyone is still alive and free, so I don't think those are the constitutional rights they think they've had infringed. For that matter, I'd be hard pressed to name any. As much as I think climate change is a topic that needs addressing, unless they can cite specific harm that they personally have already suffered, I don't know how this case wasn't thrown out for a blatant lack of standing.

Re:Constitutional rights

[truedfx]

Just because they have the right to sue doesn't mean the suit will be successful, it just means it's not obvious whether the suit has merit and should get before a judge. Yes, it's a broad interpretation, but not so broad that we already know beforehand how a judge would rule.

Re:Constitutional rights

[thegarbz]

That's an extremely broad interpretation of rights to life and liberty. What's next? Americans suing the US government for not having done enough research to find a cure for cancer?

Indeed I would hope that if the US government put as little effort into cancer as they did into climate change that they would also get sued for this.

It sounds ridiculous, but this is not the first government to be sued by it's citizens for not doing enough about climate change https://www.theguardian.com/en...

But really I consider climate change secondary now. Climate change hasn't affected me and likely won't directly affect me. However fighting climate change has directly resulted in initiatives that have already made my life better. The air smells cleaner, there's less smog, driving behind cars no longer fills my cabin with horrid smelling fumes, the oil refinery near where I work doesn't smell anywhere near as bad as it used to, there's less diesel dust settling on everything... even to climate deniers I don't see any good reason why we shouldn't continue down this road of stemming pollution.

Re:Constitutional rights

[pipingguy]

"The air smells cleaner, there's less smog...

That's actual pollution, not CO2. I await your reasonable response mentioning that the US Supreme Court had deemed CO2 to be a "pollutant".

Re:Constitutional rights

[Roger W Moore]

It's a valid claim if they can prove they've been damaged by climate change/warming/etc.

All it says is a right to life, not the right to a comfortable life. Climate change will cause a lot of upheaval that may damage our quality of life but will not actually kill us.

Re:Constitutional rights

[JeffOwl]

Excellent point. They could even use it for this since rising sea levels could impact trade.

Re:Constitutional rights

[tsqr]

Then there is the "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" mission statement part where life and liberty can be pretty miserable and so that last inspirational phrase was included.

That would be the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. The Constitutional reference to life and liberty (and property too, but not happiness) is in the 5th Amendment, which prohibits the Federal government from depriving individuals of those things without due process.

Re:Constitutional rights

[thegarbz]

That's actual pollution, not CO2. I await your reasonable response mentioning that the US Supreme Court had deemed CO2 to be a "pollutant".

Sorry forgive me. I completely forgot the only emission from coal fired and oil fired power plants was CO2, and that the massive increase in fuel efficiency and effective burning of engines has only changed the amount of CO2 emissions.

How stupid of me.

Re:Constitutional rights

[pipingguy]

Let's go down to 250PPM.

Re:Constitutional rights

[ChrisMaple]

It's called reckless endangerment. It's the principle behind laws against exceeding posted speed limits even if you don't collide with something.

Re:Constitutional rights

[ClickOnThis]

pollutant -- A substance or condition that contaminates air, water, or soil. Pollutants can be artificial substances, such as pesticides and PCBs, or naturally occurring substances, such as oil or carbon dioxide, that occur in harmful concentrations in a given environment. Heat transmitted to natural waterways through warm-water discharge from power plants and uncontained radioactivity from nuclear wastes are also considered pollutants.

From The American Heritage Science Dictionary. Emphasis above is mine.

Re:Constitutional rights

[srmalloy]

But I think you could reasonably say the emission of any substance that causes harm to the environment is a "pollutant," even if a nominal amount already existing is harmless.

When we get the first defense in a murder trial on the grounds that the defendant was acting to reduce the victim's carbon footprint, we'll know it's gone over the deep end to where the "Twinkie defense" lives.

Re:Constitutional rights

[silentcoder]

Please note the key difference: those are all groups of private citizens (that mostly did not do the things you accuse them off anyway).
These kids are suing the GOVERNMENT.

In the US system you CANNOT sue a private interest for violating your constitutional rights since you don't HAVE any constitutional rights in that context. The US constitution doesn't enumerate universal rights for you - it ONLY restricts what the GOVERNMENT can do - the rights the GOVERNMENT cannot infringe upon. Your employer still can, your neighbour still can.

Rights established by other laws can frequently be protected from private citizens as well, but constitutional rights ONLY restrict government. You can't sue any of those groups over a constitutional thing since they are not the government. You could perhaps sue some of them for harming you by violating some other ordinary civil law though (but good luck finding a lawyer who will try).

This is actually relatively unique to the USA. In most other countries in the free world constitutional rights are protected against violation by ANYBODY - including other private citizens, and there are legal limitations on the degree to which you can waive them in a contract. Most cannot be waived at all and any contract clauses that claim to waive them are unenforceable.
In South Africa for example, we didn't need a civil rights act to make it illegal to refuse to let black people stay in your private hotel, the constitution says people have a right not to be discriminated against - and so it's a crime for ANYBODY including a private citizen or business to act in a discriminatory fashion. We also have a right to freedom of thought and speech - and of course judges sometimes have to balance between these when they conflict. The general balance has been that you can think and even say racist stuff all you want (and live with likely getting fired or boycotted for it) but as a business or employer cannot act on those beliefs.
Round here, if your catering business that serves the public refuses to cater a gay wedding you could potentially go to jail for it (though nobody ever has - the government has actively avoided using the criminal justice system for discrimination cases - and rather deferred those to a special tribunal called the human rights commisison, which can only levy fines and does not have the power to jail people. This is because they, rightfully, believe that trying to convince people discrimination is wrong will be more effective than trying to fit all the bigots in our already overcrowded jails).

Re:Constitutional rights

[silentcoder]

I'm pretty sure that if the victim was Donald Trump then there's at least even odds that you can find a jury that will acquit.

Re:Constitutional rights

[silentcoder]

I can only presume their lawyer is working pro bono ? Or has agreed to work on seed funding?

Re:Constitutional rights

[poofmeisterp]

It's a valid claim if they can prove they've been damaged by climate change/warming/etc. Therein lies the rub.

Agreed. This is another cigarette lawsuit. There will also be a group of people who claim their life and liberty are compromised by the lack of progress due to restrictions. And no, for others reading this, I'm not saying that either is okay. I'm saying that it's a lawsuit that will go on and on and on and on and on and.... Before the lawsuit is settled, natural progression will probably have proven its merit, or disproved it. At that point, arguments can destroy the internals of the years of "lies" from "the other party". Sigh. Maybe the children will get to see how the legal system in a capitalist society REALLY works and be quite, uh, educated.

Re:Constitutional rights

[superwiz]

It's called reckless endangerment. It's the principle behind laws against exceeding posted speed limits even if you don't collide with something.

You arguing against your own point. It takes a law to make speeding illegal. As dangerous as it may be, it would not be criminal or actionable for someone for anyone who hasn't caused harm through those actions (ie, for anyone who hasn't hit anyone). Since there is no law requiring the federal government to protect the state of the environment to remain suitable for future generations, failing to issue such protections is not actionable. And any judge worth the name would know that. The government cannot even be sued for failing to prevent 9/11 and 9/11 has already happened. Suing for failing to protect against probable threats cannot be possible if they cannot be sued for failing to protect against threats which have already materialized. The suit would revolve around the debate which is purely political: whether the harm is foreseeable. And such a decision cannot be made by a jury.

Re:Constitutional rights

[david_thornley]

I don't know of any Constitutional right to life and liberty, either. Those are from the Declaration of Independence, which has no legal force. What the Constitution has is some guarantees of due legal process before execution or imprisonment.

Re:Constitutional rights

[david_thornley]

Indeed I would hope that if the US government put as little effort into cancer as they did into climate change that they would also get sued for this.

That's not a matter for the courts. That's a matter for Congress and the President on the Federal level. I would hope that Representatives, Senators, and Presidents would not be elected if they put as little effort into cancer as they did into fighting climate change. Unfortunately, my hope is futile for now.

Re:Constitutional rights

[bussdriver]

Yes, I know. The Declaration of Independence is not irrelevant because as you said part of it ended up in there; it's still relevant because it was the stated reason for the whole thing happening in the first place. It is the reason, the purpose, the mission statement that later created the other stuff which had to be inspired around the ideals that motivated some people to rise up and create the situation where the constitution was written to uphold the ideals they literally fought hard for.

Implementing it by fighting (deletion) then by creating a government (define functions) then follow it (execution) until it falls into despotism (pwned.)

Countersuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we get to countersue on the basis that these children are morons?

This is the exact reason why Trump won

[SensitiveMale]

People are getting tired and realizing how much time and money stupid shit like this actually costs.

Re:This is the exact reason why Trump won

[ArtemaOne]

Are you referring to Trump's 100+ civil suits currently pending?

Re:This is the exact reason why Trump won

[The Evil Atheist]

And people are short sighted, short attention spanned idiots and arseholes.

"I'm so sick of hearing about it, therefore, it doesn't exist"

Re:This is the exact reason why Trump won

[SensitiveMale]

No, I'm referring safe spaces.
No, I'm referring 63 genders.
No, I'm referring to people being sick and tired of being called racist if they happen to disagree with Obama.
No, I'm referring to people being sick and tired of being called a homophobe if that don't actively support 100% everything that "the right" gay leaders support.
No, I'm referring to people being called a bigot and every other name in the book if they aren't completely caught up with the PC jargon du jour.
No, I'm referring Democrats paying mentally ill homeless people to start fights at Trump events.
No, I'm referring to yearly proclamations of global warming being irreversible in twenty years for the past forty years.
No, I'm referring that there hasn't been any global warming temperature changes in almost twenty years.
No, I'm referring to rioters who can't handle that their candidate lost an election.
No, I'm referring a business that tells his employees to quit if they voted for Trump.
No, I'm referring to Democrat leadership actively favoring a candidate.
No, I'm referring to the DNC chief being forced to step down because of that unethical behavior and then being immediately being hired by the winning candidate.
No, I'm referring to the next DNC chief caught colluding with journalists by passing on a debate question.
No, I'm referring that DBC lying about it and then having proof that Brazille passed multiple debate question to Hillary.

I can keep going on, but I'll stop.
This is why Trump won.

Re:This is the exact reason why Trump won

[Cederic]

So you choose to prefer harrasing people (or exposing them to harrassment) who're different from you?

Being exposed to facts is not harassment. Being removed from an echo chamber is not harassment. Being asked to justify the bullshit being spouted is not harassment. Hearing other opinions is not harassment.

There are laws against harassment. Safe spaces are not required, and are very much not safe to many of the people made unwelcome in them.

Re:This is the exact reason why Trump won

[Cederic]

Let's go with one gender, female, because that's what we all actually biologically start out as

No, we start out as male, female or interesting. At least 60 of the 63 genders are fundamentally variations on those three, so trying to define 63 may be useful when exploring sociology and biology but has no place in law or defining who can use a bathroom.

So the logical reaction to being called a racist is to elect an overtly racist leader?

When anything and everything is described as 'racist' the term loses its meaning. When people are told they're racist - even when they're not doing or saying anything racist - then they interpret someone else being described as racist as meaning that person is pretty fucking normal.

Trump may or may not be racist. Many of the people that voted for him may or may not be. All of them have been publicly described using that term, so why should they really care about it?

(see also: Homophobe and bigot)

Re:This is the exact reason why Trump won

[ChrisMaple]

How many Clinton voters just want their welfare payments to keep coming?

Re: This is the exact reason why Trump won

[ClickOnThis]

I bet you're a loser in real life. Don't forget the house and senate going red which makes an even broader base of conservative support. When the people who were afraid to back him in 2016 vote in 2020 his margins will be better.

A few things to keep in mind...

First, the historical pattern has been that the President's party loses seats in midterm elections. So, the house and senate may not stay red in 2018.

Second, majorities of voters disliked both Clinton and Trump. That means there were many people who did not like Trump but voted for him anyway, largely as a protest against the status quo. In four years, he will be the status quo, so he'll have to run defensively. It's not clear that the same protest-voters who held their noses when they voted for him this time will do so again.

Next time, drop the ad hominem and wishful thinking, and go for some logic.

Re: This is the exact reason why Trump won

[david_thornley]

Actually, the election to turn the Senate Democratic was in 2016. That class is very heavily Republican, and should have been easier to turn more or less balanced. Unfortunately, from my point of view, it didn't work.

Re:This is the exact reason why Trump won

[david_thornley]

Clinton did well in more educated groups, so I'm not sure how the welfare recipient vote went.

And it won't stand

[s.petry]

This will be overturned, and it should be. This ruling falls right in line with allowing people to sue gun makers when a person gets shot. People in general should be very worried about this type of ruling because as you state, it is simply a waste of tax payer money.

Re:And it won't stand

[harvey the nerd]

We need sanctions on lawyers and judges for this kind of corruption.

Can I sue?

[ScentCone]

I want to sue the government over the existence of a large number of things and people that they are allowing to threaten my life and happiness. Especially that guy that cut me off in traffic today. And the lack of fiber to my door. It's unfair and I want a bunch of money because my feelings are hurt. Maybe I'll go out and burn down somebody's business and smash some windows, since protesting is fashionable.

Re:Can I sue?

[thegarbz]

I want to sue the government over the existence of a large number of things and people that they are allowing to threaten my life and happiness.

Then go for it. You can sue pretty much anyone for anything. Just don't expect to actually win.

Especially that guy that cut me off in traffic today.

I'm going to sue you for that guy cutting me off in traffic too. I mean it's your fault just as much as it is the government's right?

And the lack of fiber to my door.

Maybe you should actually sue the people who are responsible.

It's unfair and I want a bunch of money because my feelings are hurt.

Not all lawsuits are for money. The lawsuit brought against the Dutch government last year for instance was to force them to implement CO2 reductions. But this is America and dollars and lawsuits rule supreme so everything must be about money right?

Maybe I'll go out and burn down somebody's business and smash some windows, since protesting is fashionable.

Careful, you may get sued.

Re:Can I sue?

[ScentCone]

Wow, you really, really are sarcasm-proof, aren't you. Is that painful, in today's world?

National Debt

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Do children get to sue over the accumulating National Debt they will be saddled with.

WWon't survive 5the new SCOTUS

Re:National Debt

[penguinoid]

Well, it would certainly be interesting if they passed a law saying that the generation that voted for a bill gets to pay the resulting taxes.

Re:National Debt

[lgw]

Do children get to sue over the accumulating National Debt they will be saddled with.

Sure, they might even win, and the government could pay them $X, by means of increasing the national debt by $X. Everyone wins!

Re:National Debt

[Kohath]

If the climate children win money, it will add to the debt. Then the debt children can sue the climate children.

Re:National Debt

[david_thornley]

Congresscritters vote for increased spending and reduced taxes because it helps them get re-elected. If the US public as a whole wanted deficits cut, they'd be cut, even under Republican Presidents. If a Senator could get more credit for cutting sixty billion of waste from the budget than getting one billion of pork for his or her own state, we'd see a lot less waste in government.

The Absurdity Continues

[pipingguy]

What if they don't get a pony for Christmas? Their favored political party loses an election?

Looking forward to some rational discussion

[penguinoid]

I expect some coolly rational discussion in a warm friendly atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient.

[jclaer]

Food plants are now 15% more efficient than 30 years ago. Fewer hungry people! Widely known fact. Search youtube for "earth greening".

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[whoever57]

And furthermore, the problem stems mostly with developing nations [wordpress.com] and not the industrialized ones.

How about a graph that shows CO2 emission per person, instead of one that ignored the fact that there are about 4x the number of people in China than the USA?

Also, how about acknowledging that China is already ahead of the USA in investment in renewable energy sources?

So, no the problem isn't actually developing nations, it's the USA. The USA is being left behind and the economy is likely to suffer long term.

Re:Do the math

[hcs_$reboot]

China = 18.6 % of world population
US = 4.4 % of world population

Civil suits

[Okian Warrior]

Are you referring to Trump's 100+ civil suits currently pending?

And are those 100+ civil suits against him personally, or against various companies?

Is he innocent until proven guilty? Or are we just assuming here...

Are civil suits the same as felonies? I seem to remember another candidate playing hopscotch with several felonies.

Are civil suits of the same order as rape? I seem to remember another candidate...

Eleven states sued Barak Obama over a single action, 25 states sued him over another, almost triggering a constitutional convention. There's a long line of civil and federal suits as well, not to mention the numerous lawsuits filed against Hillary Clinton, for example from Benghazi family members.

Oh hell, of course. Now I see.

Everything about him is awful in every possible way, but one of the Clintons was never indicted.

Re:Civil suits

[ArtemaOne]

Wait, you're still talking about Clinton? You realize she lost, right? And innocent and guilty? Civil suits, come on.

Re:Civil suits

[lgw]

but one of the Clintons was never indicted.

One of the Clintons hasn't yet been indicted. Plenty of time next year.

Re:Civil suits

[Bing Tsher E]

You need to understand that H. Clinton's innocence or guilt has nothing to do with the fact that she was in an election. In fact, now that the election is over, it should be clear to you that the election is no longer a factor in people going after her.

Re:Civil suits

[ArtemaOne]

Okay? But how do you get from climate change lawsuits, to Trump, and then to a has-been politician?

Re:Civil suits

[No Longer an AC]

We'll be hearing a lot about Clinton for a long time, not just from her supporters but from trump's supporters well.

Any criticism no matter how valid will be met with "But Clinton would have been worse" or something similar.

Re:Civil suits

[david_thornley]

Indicted for what? People talk about Clinton and felonies, but I don't see specifics that stand up to examination.

Re:Civil suits

[lgw]

Mishandling of secret information is a felony.

Accepting bribes from foreign governments via the Clinton Foundation is a felony.

<Michael_Jackson> "Allegedly" </Michael_Jackson>

Re:Civil suits

[david_thornley]

Negligence with classified information is not prosecuted as a felony. The closest I could find was a guy who agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. You may disagree with how the law is applied, but if you did what she did you would be likely to lose your clearance or your job, but that wouldn't necessarily happen either.

As far as accepting bribes, you really do need to establish that that happened. There were foreign contributions that they tried to keep less known, but that's not illegal by itself. There was a definite appearance of impropriety, but that's not a felony.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[SeaFox]

Do you have a link for that? I'm only asking because no one knows who that will be, or what they will do, and any guesses on the matter are partisan bullshit.

You mean other than the story that was already posted?

Undisputed science?

[elrous0]

calling man-made climate change an "undisputed" fact.

I wasn't aware that there was such a thing in empirical science as "undisputed."

Re:Undisputed science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Survey research can identify causes based on rigorous science. Chemistry, physics, and ecology don't go away when you don't like them.

Re:Undisputed science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Things fall down. Dispute away.

Re:Undisputed science?

[Calydor]

Helium balloons.

Re:Undisputed science?

[marquisdepolis]

Snarky replies like that is the main reason this is still contested ...

Re:Undisputed science?

[Barefoot Monkey]

Helium balloons should be illegal, as it wastes a very precious resource. There is a limited supply of Helium on Earth, and once that's gone there will be nothing holding the planet up.

Re:Undisputed science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of those questions aren't scientific questions.

How much effect?

I assume that by this you mean "What has the effect been up until now?" because your next question is about effect going forward -- The effect up until now has been observed and answered many times.

What damages will result, if any?

This is a question about predicting the future, which the science can help inform but can not do for you entirely. With something as complex as the global climate there will always be assumptions about the details. There is definitely consensus that there will be damage and that it will be significant and affect many humans negatively, but asking for more detail than that is ridiculous.

If there are damages, should they be mitigated for prevented?"

Not a scientific question, but rather depends on your ethics and/or likely on how direct the impact might be on you personally (e.g. financial impact or significant change to local environment -- people are generally unwilling to allow the former unless they are also impacted by the latter).

If we decide to prevent them, how exactly should we do it?

There have been several proposals for this; deciding on one is not a scientific endeavour but rather an analysis and decision based on cost/benefit.

Re:Do the math

[Jzanu]

Wikipedia isn't reliable. Try here a newspaper with editorial staff subject to corrections, or here a christian research organization which confirms an estimated 19.44% chinese population vs global.

CO2 decreases conginitive function

[tfmg_b]

More to deny http://thinkprogress.org/clima... the exposure—response between CO2 and cognitive function is approximately linear across the concentrations used,” [500 ppm - 1500 ppm] https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... Carbon dioxide is 'driving fish crazy'

Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocracy

[tfmg_b]

http://thinkprogress.org/clima... the exposure—response between CO2 and cognitive function is approximately linear across the concentrations used,” [500 ppm - 1500 ppm] https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... Carbon dioxide is 'driving fish crazy'

Re:Do the math

[hcs_$reboot]

This is what I used

Re:Do the math

[hcs_$reboot]

Oh and we are talking about population. China = 2 US (CO2) but China = 4 US (population).

Past left to insanity.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Children Can Now Sue The US Government Over Climate Change"

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[phantomfive]

http://thinkprogress.org/clima... [thinkprogress.org] the exposure—response between CO2 and cognitive function is approximately linear across the concentrations used,” [500 ppm - 1500 ppm

If replicated, that sucks lol

Re:Too late for them.

[OrangeTide]

So let's sue Trump on his first day as President.

China, the U.S. factory

[tfmg_b]

Your parent also did not say a word about the CO2 produced to make goods in China for our country to consume. http://legal-planet.org/2016/0...

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[Gussington]

And furthermore, the problem stems mostly with developing nations and not the industrialized ones.

So the average Chinese person emits about a quarter the greenhouse gases that an American person does, and you're saying they are the problem? That's some awesome cognitive dissonance you got going on there bud...

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[Gussington]

Food plants are now 15% more efficient than 30 years ago. Fewer hungry people! Widely known fact. Search youtube for "earth greening".

Food has never been a production issue, it has always been a distribution issue.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[ArmoredDragon]

And on that point, Obama didn't really do much of anything to help the environment. We haven't reduced carbon output very much, and the amount we did reduce was mostly due to economics and not any particular vision or plan from the president.

He heavily promoted an attempt, namely the cash for clunkers program, though it was a huge waste of government money and even environmentalists weren't pleased with the results.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

(That, and it caused the price of used cars to go way up for about a year.)

Society is not government

[blindseer]

When I normally use the "society is not government" argument it is usually in response to people that say "government should do something" when they really mean "society should do something". Should government pay to educate children? No, because that is not a power granted to the federal government or most state governments. But we still see public schools anyway, funny that people will vote themselves free stuff when they can. Should society pay to educate children? Of course. This can be done many ways. It can be done on a city or county level. It can be done through donation, not taxation, where people can (and do) voluntarily support schools they view as valuable to the community. It can also be done by parents taking care of their own and paying for school like they pay for their housing, food, and clothes.

Take that above argument on schools and shift it around to fit most anything that government pays for but does not show as a power granted to them.

This is different though. These are people that want to hold government responsible for what society has done. The government didn't cause AGW, society did. What they really want to do is take society to court but that is a class action suit that would fail on so many grounds. What do they expect government to do about AGW? Ban oil?

People will claim that America is "addicted to oil" which is wrong in so many ways but does kind of fit in a way. Think of an alcohol addicts, people that have been drinking alcohol for so long and in such quantities that if cut off the body cannot adjust and it will kill them. America has been burning oil for so long and in such quantities that cutting off the oil will kill America, as in the economy will collapse and real people will die.

If you take alcohol away from an addict then they will seek alternatives in any way they can from places that many would find disgusting and/or dangerous. They'll drink hair spray, hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, or whatever else they can grab, it might still kill them but they'll live longer this way than without. if the oil is cut off then we'll see people buying hydraulic fluid or "hydraulic fluid" (which is in quotes because it's just fuel oil relabeled) to fuel their cars, trucks, tractors, and generators. This might be the nastiest stuff to burn in their engines but people need to get work done and telling them they have to buy an electric powered replacement, which doesn't go as far, pull as much, or move as fast as what they have now, will not go over well.

I'm not a believer in AGW but I'll play along so long as people are practical about it. Electric cars suck big time, they cost too much, take to long to charge, and don't go very far. If people instead say we should use natural gas instead of gasoline and diesel fuel then I can go with that. Natural gas isn't great on range and refill times but that is because we are trying to fit natural gas tanks in vehicles built for liquid fuels and have to fill from natural gas lines made for residential systems. These are problems we can fix and we'll cut CO2 output in half for transportation. There's a bonus that natural gas is real cheap right now.

Those that say electricity must come from wind and solar only are asking too much. If we can agree to replace coal with natural gas and nuclear, with some wind and solar where it makes sense, then I can play along. Saying no to natural gas and nuclear is probably why Clinton lost the election. She could say no to coal, that cost her there in many places but that's manageable. Saying no to natural gas made her unpopular with even more people. Saying no to nuclear just put the final nail in that. Clinton lost in fucking Iowa and they live on windmills and ethanol. WTF? They voted her down like she pissed in their corn flakes, which probably isn't too far from the truth.

Oil fired ships and kerosene powered aircraft might just have to be left alone. There's some real and practical reasons we can't change that. If we can agree that

Re:Society is not government

[hyades1]

If you're not a "believer" in AGW, then you probably aren't a "believer" in gravity or evolution...or even science.

So if you're going to post the kind of drivel you seem so fond of, at least show the rest of us enough respect to keep it short.

Re:Society is not government

[blindseer]

If you're not a "believer" in AGW, then you probably aren't a "believer" in gravity or evolution...or even science.

Tell me something, is it more important to you that I "believe" in AGW as you do or more important that I reduce my CO2 output as you (presumably) do? Think real hard about that.

You tell me I have to do X because it will slow the rise of the oceans, and I'll tell you I don't care because I don't live near any coasts. You tell me to do X to save the polar bears, and I'll tell you I think they are vile creatures that eat cute little baby seals. You tell me to do X because it saves me money, now I'm listening and I don't give a fuck about any baby seals.

If you lobby the government for a new law to make Y required, then I will likely fight you on it if only because I don't like being told what to do. If you convince me that doing Y will make my life better, then not only will I do it I will also give you some of my money so that I can.

Like I said in my other post, I'll play along with your AGW "science", just don't push me too far. You want science? Here's some science. Wind and solar produce electricity at twice the cost of coal and nuclear. Nuclear power produces electricity with a smaller carbon footprint than wind or solar. I want cheap electricity and you want a small carbon footprint. If you cannot see that we both win with nuclear power then we have a problem. If we can agree on nuclear power then we don't have a problem.

Question: You know that not everyone believes as you do, right?
Wrong answer: I'll make them believe.
Right answer: My beliefs do not require them to.

Re:Society is not government

[swillden]

Electric cars suck big time, they cost too much, take to long to charge, and don't go very far.

I see you've never driven one. Electric cars are awesome. Charge time is irrelevant except on road trips, and the road trip problem is not difficult to solve once you have a 300+-mile battery. The only real issue with electric cars is cost. They are expensive because batteries are expensive. With that said, I actually bought my electric car because it was the cheapest option when I got it in 2012. I needed a car for commuting, wanted to buy a new car, and tried to calculate total cost of ownership over the decade or so I expected to have the vehicle. Given the cost of gasoline vs the cost of electricity, the EV was a clear winner, until gas prices fell by almost 50%. Now, it's not a clear winner, but it's not a clear loser, either, and I still like the car.

It occurs to me that given this and our previous conversation, you may perceive me as some sort of eco-warrior, which isn't true. Climate change had nothing to do with my decision to buy an EV. My other car is a one-ton diesel pickup.

Re:Society is not government

[blindseer]

You ignored the part about nuclear power producing less CO2 for the same energy output compared to wind and solar. If you don't support nuclear power then you care more about people "believing" in AGW than the science. As a scientist you see that, no? Nuclear power is the best solution we have today for fighting AGW. Anything else is a lesser solution or some future wishful thinking nonexistent technology.

Again I ask, what is more important to you, that I believe as you do or act in accordance to your beliefs? I'm sure you'd prefer I do both but you can't always get both. Calling people ignorant isn't going to win people over, I suggest you use different tactics to make your point. I lead these horses to water but I can't make them drink. I tell you how to win me over and still you resort to name calling. You might call economics "not science" and perhaps so is psychology, but if you want to get ahead in this world you still need to understand these "not science" concepts.

Is this science to you? Windmills only produce power when the wind blows. Solar panels only produce power when the sun shines. Nuclear reactors will produce power in any weather. That's why the AGW "believers" should support nuclear power.

Re:Society is not government

[swillden]

Did you mean to reply to some other post? Because I can't see how your post relates to mine.

Re:Society is not government

[david_thornley]

The Federal government has the constitutional power to tax and spend for the general welfare, which includes paying for schools. The state governments have the power to pay for and regulate schools, unless the state Constitution says otherwise. We've tried various educational schemes, and having government-funded public schools seems like the best idea so far.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[bigbang137]

This is not new research at all. The effects of increased CO2 on different aspects of cognition are different. Some aspects of cognition continue to work as normal; others deteriorate. I am someone who uses a CO2 meter in my room, so I know the relation first-hand. Fortunately, most of the harm from up to 1100 PPM is easily countered with a good cup of tea. Today some of us have air filters in our rooms. In the future, we may have either carbon capture devices or CO2 filters to decrease it to an ideal level around 350 PPM.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[superwiz]

Food has never been a production issue, it has always been a distribution issue.

That's just factually wrong. The main political division in 19th century England was between the food producers and industrialists. Both subscribed to the idea of Malthusian equilibrium. Which essentially viewed starvation as an inevitable form of population control. Food only became plentiful in the 20th century and largely due to the of short-stock wheat invented by Norman Borlaug.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[blindseer]

What is going on in your room that you need to monitor CO2 levels? Are you doing a lot of "heavy breathing" or something?

Re:Too late for them.

[Anonymous Coward]

People are way ahead of you. He's got like 70+ lawsuits currently going, unrelated to the environment though.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[Bing Tsher E]

Some houseplants would reduce the CO2 in their room.

Plants like CO2 and need it to stay alive.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[bigbang137]

Like I said, I live close to the traffic. Moreover, if there is cooking happening at home on the gas stove with the windows closed, it can send CO2 levels to pretty high alarm-triggering levels. People monitor temperature and humidity; I just go two steps further with CO2 and particulates.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[bigbang137]

Definitely. There are plants in the living room, but none in my bedroom which is where I spend most of my time right now.

EPA is fishy

[harvey the nerd]

Obviously with 99% fewer EPA employees and new daily disclosure requirements for the "survivors", this strategy's shortcomings will be discovered...

the voting dead

[harvey the nerd]

I wouldn't be surprised if 10-20 million of Hillary's votes are illegals, 3rd or 30th votes, or the voting dead.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, how about acknowledging that China is already ahead of the USA in investment in renewable energy sources?

So, no the problem isn't actually developing nations, it's the USA. The USA is being left behind and the economy is likely to suffer long term.

This is the really big thing. Renewables are a technology / capital problem. The better your wind farm, the more energy it can collect for less materials and less cost. Once it's running the actual energy supply is completely free. Solar panels have little inherent cost (just sand) but a huge manufacturing (purification, fab, ....) / technology cost. The more efficiently you can make them the cheaper your energy. The better your storage system, the more energy you can store during the night and low wind periods, the more you can use all of your available renewable energy. What's really interesting is that there are now several technologies for methane (or even sometimes liquid fuel) from electricity and atmospheric carbon dioxide. If these become practical then soon variability problems in renewable energy supplies will be almost irrelevant and only cost will matter.

Now there's a huge race on; the very best of renewable energy is now becoming competitive on overall energy cost with coal. At the same time, with better weather forecasting, wider distribution and more variety of systems, the match of renewable energy availability to demand is getting to be better than other solutions like nuclear (days required to change output) and coal. At this stage, only the insane would be investing in developing old technology like coal and oil.

When previous energy technologies such a nuclear, or electricity grids were adopted, there were huge government subsidies (nuclear / hydro) or heavy government support (full scale electricity grids) which allowed them to break through from economically. Right now, the subsidies, in terms of providing security for Saudi Arabia and support, in terms of making regulations which make it difficult to connect renewable energy to grids, are going in the other direction and actively blocking renewable. If the USA took leadership now, then ideas like Musk's rooftop solar could put the country back into the lead in energy.

If the USA fossil fuel lobby, allied with with the Chinese solar industry, continue to be able to block renewable development, even, for example managing to kill off Tesla as they seem to have killed off earlier US solar companies like Solyndra then within a few years China, which lacks a big corporate oil/fossil fuel lobby will have an unassailable technological lead. First that will be seen in sales however cheaper energy, in particular energy that comes without needing complex delivery and politics like oil and coal, will have much more of an effect. It will be impossible for the US to threaten to blockade China because their economy will be able to run largely without oil and gas and around internal consumption. That will allow the Chinese to take on much larger political risks than they do already. In the long run, China will likely be able to provide cheaper liquid fuel than US allies like Saudi Arabia. At which point it will be game over.

There is an alternative vision, where the USA would actively invest in renewables and protect or subsidise it's companies just enough to compensate for Chinese dumping. It would still be possible to recapture at least an important position in renewables and with it long term energy independence. In this case the USA could stop subsidising the Saudis and interfering in the (now largely irrelevant) middle east. You can consider this a test for your new government.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[blindseer]

I have never heard of such a thing before. I have heard of CO poisoning from gas stoves, as in carbon MONOxide, not carbon DIoxide. I have to think that if you are producing that much CO2 from a gas stove then you aren't frying eggs or baking a turkey, you are blowing glass. I know people with gas stoves, I'll have to ask them about the CO2 levels they see.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[owski]

You sure it's not a CO meter? It's a different thing, you know.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[Gussington]

That's just factually wrong. The main political division in 19th century England was between the food producers and industrialists.

Right. So think about for a moment, politics in England prevented more food from being produced in England. Since this wasn't limiting food production in say China or the US, it is purely an issue of distribution. Just as politics in Africa prevents those starving kids from accessing the surplus food we have here.

Food only became plentiful in the 20th century...

When transport technology made it cheap and easy to distribute. There has always been enough food for survival growing on trees, in the ground, roaming fields, or swimming in the oceans, we've just never been able to get it where it needs to go most.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[thegarbz]

And furthermore, the problem stems mostly with developing nations [wordpress.com] and not the industrialized ones.

I notice you linked to a graph that stops at 2010 which conveniently ignores the fact that China has stemmed the rise in emissions in 2011 and actually started reducing their emissions.

So while being dishonest enough to ignore that China has a massively larger population and the emissions per capita are far lower than that of the USA, you additionally cherry pick your data to suit your agenda. You also ignore that China and India are building more clean energy sources than the USA and have signed on to more climate accords faster than the USA has.

All of this leads to your dishonest post being what citizen scientists commonly refer to as a "dick move".

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[thegarbz]

Food plants are now 15% more efficient than 30 years ago.

YES!

Fewer hungry people!

YES!

But sadly these two statements have absolutely zero to do with each other. We're currently trending towards a massive reduction in crop yields thanks pissing many years of farming science against the wall in the name of "organics".

Also world hunger is not an issue of crop yield.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[Anonymous Coward]

And furthermore, the problem stems mostly with developing nations [wordpress.com] and not the industrialized ones.

I notice you linked to a graph that stops at 2010 which conveniently ignores the fact that China has stemmed the rise in emissions in 2011 and actually started reducing their emissions.

Thanks for pointing this out. It's funny how you always know they are lying, so you see one lie (the per head of population thing) but miss the other. It seems to be designed to hide the trick. Here's the graph which shows the real story.

All of this leads to your dishonest post being what citizen scientists commonly refer to as a "dick move".

We never know whether he's lying or has been lied to. Even if he was lied to he's clearly not checking the facts, but still, many of them honestly believe the garbage they are fed which is a bigger problem than the lies.

Re:Wow...

[Cederic]

Yeah, but they're suing the wrong people. They should be suing their parents for bringing them into a fucked up world.

If nobody had children then current levels of consumption and carbon release would be fully sustainable. The planet would recover in 3-400 years and non-human lifeforms would flourish.

Maybe I should sue the US government for not legislating against children.

Re:Too late for them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump? Seriously? You're looking for a single government to be the singular solution to this problem?

You fuckers are lost. Clean up your own backyard first of all. Drive a car? Eat meat? Live in a house that is more than 800 square feet? You may not be a denier but you're still part of the problem. Shaking your head in agreement to those who'd sign pacts and make gestures of good will is not enough. And even if all the people on the globe adopted a green life that may not even be enough to stop what's already started. We may have to eliminate people. Best to start by not having children at all. You ready to take the bull by the horns or are you going to sit and pout because you're weak and a fucktard?

just believe me

[mad7777]

Believe me. Global warming is a hoax. I've got people, they all tell me the same thing. Everybody says so. It's a big league hoax. Believe me, cause I'm a genius.

As a famous man once said...

[argStyopa]

"My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[haruchai]

how about acknowledging that China is already ahead of the USA in investment in renewable energy sources?

how about not forgetting how far behind china is compared to the much of the world in so many other aspects of environmental protection, human rights, and everything else?

Things in North Am weren't much better in the 70s so China & India are less than 40 yrs behind; the unknown is how long it'll take them to catch up.
But President Trump will make it easier for them - by making sure we get back to when we were (the) great(est polluters)

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[pipingguy]

I'm sure there'll be lots of sophistry upcoming in the comments here trying to discredit your post.

How is US Constitution Upheld?

[Roger W Moore]

The settlement then becomes a court order to do or not do something that Congress never would have agreed to.

...but can't they just use their immunity to ignore it? I'm curious how the US constitution holds any weight though if the US government is immune to the courts. They might be able to strike down laws but it seems that if the US government takes an action which is against the constitution there are no legal consequences if they are really immune.

Re:MAJORITY does

[pedz]

According to scopes http://www.snopes.com/2016/11/... the electoral college is there so that smaller states do not get swamped out by the bigger states. We forget that we are the United States of America... not the Bickering Citizens of America.

The stories behind the creation of the Constitution are very fascinating and educational. The wisdom demonstrated is amazing. And most of it still applies today.

Seriously, go look at the final maps. Almost the entire middle of the country is Republican. You have the extremely populated east and west coasts that are Democrat. Should they really dictate what the entire country does? The founding fathers believed not.

So far, no one has put forth and passed an amendment to change it. So shut the fuck up.

Also, you are talking about less than 0.5% of the vote difference. As far as popular vote, I'd pretty much call that a tie. It seems very wise to me in that case that an alternative means of picking the winner.

By the way, I did not vote for Trump. I don't understand being upset when someone who you don't really agree with in the first place loses. Next time, try voting for someone instead of against someone else. The external results won't change but your internal peace might..

Actually, the first lawsuit was already won...

[thrill12]

in The Netherlands: Guardian article on Dutch lawsuit here. So there is some precedent, albeit under a different legal system.

Life, liberty, or waterfront rea) property

[tepples]

The constitutional phrasing is in fact "life, liberty, or property". So if a judge rules as you suggest, the next step is to find owners of waterfront real property and show in court the overwhelming evidence that climate change has shifted the coastline, which in turn reduces the usable area of said property.

Re:Life, liberty, or waterfront rea) property

[Roger W Moore]

It's presumably still your property even if it is underwater.

Re:Life, liberty, or waterfront rea) property

[srmalloy]

So if a judge rules as you suggest, the next step is to find owners of waterfront real property and show in court the overwhelming evidence that climate change has shifted the coastline, which in turn reduces the usable area of said property.

Good luck in proving that this nebulous "climate change" has affected the weather to cause, say, erosion which would not otherwise occur naturally, and distinguish clearly between erosion caused by "climate change" and erosion caused by other environmental effects.

Re:Life, liberty, or waterfront rea) property

[bitterblackale]

What's nebulous about it? We have measurements of climate changes and effectors. The outcome of the trial probably won't be a monetary award to the plaintiffs as a regular suit might result in, but most likely some kind of legislative injunction. My guess is that the biggest impact will just be the press that the trial gets. Funny thing is, a large portion of CO2 emissions in the world comes from ploughing. So one thing the judge could do is require the legislature to address farming practises... the problem with that is most of it isn't the United States - a lot of major farms have moved to no-till farming. You have to get the USA, India, Brazil, and Russia all on board the no-till wagon. Just changing the way everyone plants could cut global CO2 emissions by as much as 20%.

Re:Life, liberty, or waterfront rea) property

[david_thornley]

Typically, property rights end at the high tide mark. If the local sea level goes up 1", then maybe the high tide mark moves inland 10" (depending on the geometry of the beach), and there goes the property.

Re:MAJORITY does

[ubrgeek]

> We forget that we are the United States of America

That's the problem. Things started to go downhill when we stopped being these United States of America.

Re:The War Starts

[Imrik]

As one of the people in the 'rational' states, I'm far more scared of what the state and local government is doing than I am of what the President may do.

Weebles wobble

[tepples]

Things fall down. Dispute away.

Weebles wobble but they don't fall down.

Re:The War Starts

[tepples]

How are we going to have a proper civil war unless hoop skirts come back into style?

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Yep, Myron Ebell doesn't believe in climate change and Mike Pence doesn't believe in evolution. What a fantastic start we're off to.

(Not to mention that proposed Chief of Staff Steve Bannon doesn't believe in equality, Trump himself doesn't believe in the First Amendment, and likely Secretary of the Interior Sarah Palin doesn't believe in vowels or coherent sentences.)

Eyes on the prize

[WaffleMonster]

Lawyers love to push this kind of insanity in which everyone is guilty or liable for something as it translates into massive profits for themselves.

Lawyers within the US already eat up by far highest percentage of GDP of any other developed country. Obviously being #1 by a sizable margin still isn't enough for them. They always want more.

Re:Too late for them.

[BlueStrat]

We may have to eliminate people.

You first. Until then, STFU.

I'm in the final stages of HIV, so done and done.

Your turn.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[ChrisMaple]

I used to work for an electronics manufacturer that used pressurized liquid CO2 to provide cooling for low temperature testing. When it evaporated, the CO2 gas was vented into the room. Concentrations got high enough that the CO2 would react with the water in tears, forming carbonic acid around the eyes. It was somewhat painful, but as far as I know did not cause any damage.

The point is, you don't need a CO2 sensor to detect CO2 levels high enough to cause damage.

Re: Cure now, Gym later

[pixelpusher220]

House cats kill 1000 times the number of birds. Yes a thousand

Re:MAJORITY does

[ChrisMaple]

the majority of Americans voted AGAINST Trump.

That is a lie.

The majority of Americans did not vote. The majority of eligible voters did not vote.

Of those who voted for Presidential Electors, neither Trump nor Clinton received a majority (47.3% and 47.8%, respectively). Of those legally eligible to vote, who voted for Presidential Electors, neither Trump nor Clinton received a majority.

When the Presidential Electors do meet, it is likely that Trump will get at least 54% of the total. And that is the only election for President.

Re:Too late for them.

[BlueStrat]

I'm in the final stages of HIV, so done and done.

I don't know why I typed "HIV" when I have hepatitis-C, not HIV. I think it was because I was thinking of an acquaintance who has HIV when I read the OP.

Strat

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[ChrisMaple]

If the problem is politics (or more accurately, tyranny) then it is misleading to call the problem "distribution".

Re:MAJORITY does

[pedz]

> We forget that we are the United States of America That's the problem. Things started to go downhill when we stopped being these United States of America.

Excellent point!

Re:How about suing the gov't.....

[ChrisMaple]

The style of warfare that will be waged against us depends on 2 factors: what style of war our enemy is capable of waging and what style of war we're capable of defending ourselves against. Lacking an effective defense against, say, the enemy dropping clowns on us, pretty much guarantees the enemy will defeat us by dropping clowns on us.

Re: Cure now, Gym later

[pixelpusher220]

linky here's an article trying to decry how deadly turbines are...and yet buries the lead with this paragraph:

And, according to a 2013 report from scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and FWS, stray and outdoor pet cats kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals, mostly native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles, annually.

emphasis mine

Even if you go with the more recent figures of almost a million turbine bird deaths, it's still more than a thousand times more.

Turbines are far safer today than they were just a decade ago. They spin slower and use gearing to increase generated power, rather than just having faster blade rotation.

Re:Good luck with that.

[ChrisMaple]

Congress has the Constitutional ability to form new courts, and by implication has the ability to disestablish any federal court except the Supreme Court. One way to get rid of these bad judges (since impeachment doesn't seem to be used enough) is to end the courts with bad judges and form (only as necessary) equivalent new courts with good judges.

Re:The War Starts

[ChrisMaple]

Mere existence as a country does not suffice. Cuba and Rwanda "get through it". Want to live in one of those places?

Re:Flying Spaghetti Monster

[Applehu Akbar]

Since Arizona has had a rainy year, this means we have to tour the country, giving out water to all the drought-stricken areas.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[Applehu Akbar]

The atmosphere "cares" only about the total CO2 it gets, not the carbon per capita.

Re:Too late for them.

[Applehu Akbar]

"We may have to eliminate people."

This has been the Greens' goal all along. That's why they not only whip up apocalyptic hysteria over the carbon issue, but actively prevent us from engineering our way out of whatever fraction of the problem turns out to be real.

They don't want a solution. They want the apocalypse.

Just out of curiosity

[nehumanuscrede]

How does a child bring forth a lawsuit ?

Considering no countersuit can be brought against minors, exactly what stands in the way of adults using children as proxies for lawsuits on their behalf ?

If allowed, how would you even counter such a thing ? Can the government sue children if they don't learn at expected levels ? After all, under educated citizens later on in life are a drain on the government and civilization in general.

It's essentially the courtroom version of human shields :|

Re: Too late for them.

[mpercy]

The United States is a collection of more-or-less sovereign states, joined in a common federal government. Somewhat like the EU. The member countries of the EU have distinct national interests but also share common interests with other EU members.

It is not surprising, then, that virtually the same mechanism as the US Electoral College is used, except it is the Parliament that elects the EU President and not a separate body specifically for the purpose. But the mechanism is very similar.

The candidate for President of the Commission is proposed to the European Parliament by the European Council that decides by qualified majority and taking into account the elections to the European Parliament.

The Commission President is then elected by the European Parliament by a majority of its component members (which corresponds to at least 376 out of 751 votes).

Following this election, the President-elect selects the 27 other members of the Commission, on the basis of the suggestions made by Member States. The final list of Commissioners-designate has then to be agreed between the President-elect and the Council. The Commission as a whole needs the Parliament's consent. Prior to this, Commissioners-designate are assessed by the European Parliament committees.

The maximum number of MEPs is 750 plus the president
The maximum number of MEPs per country is 96
The minimum number of MEPs per country is 6

The division of seats should be according to degressive proportionality, meaning the more citizens a member sate has, the more seats it will get, but also the more citizens each MEP will represent. So MEPs from smaller countries represent fewer people than their colleagues from larger states.

In the United States EC, the minimum number of electors is 3, the maximum is 55. The total number is 538 electors. The number of electors from a state is based on the states proportion of the total population, but the minimum number and upper limit on total electors may unbalance the equation a bit.

There's no requirement for a vote

[mpercy]

According to the Constitution, a state may chose its Presidential electors in any way the state legislature approves. There is no requirement that a state hold an election for president. California could pass that allows the Governor to appoint Cali's 55 electors directly (presumably from his own party). If they did that, then there would be about 9.5M votes that just disappear from the "popular vote". Had that law been in effect already and Jerry Brown just gone ahead and handed Cali's 55 electors to Sec. Clinton, the EC result would not be impacted in the slightest (as Clinton won California anyway), but because not one Californian would have voted for a presidential candidate, the "popular vote" (taken in the rest of the country) would have Clinton trailing by about 3M votes.

The popular vote is meaningless.

It is true that Sec. Clinton received more popular votes than Trump. But not a majority (as many have claimed). Clinton got about 60.9M popular votes to Trump's approximately 60.3M, but trails the EC votes by about 70 votes. Clinton lost 5 states that Obama had carried twice.

EC votes are all that count, in the rules of the game. Which she knew.

If this were a football game, and Clinton had 609 yards of total offense while Trump had 603 yards, but Clinton lost by 4 touchdowns after having 5 turnovers would anyone be crying about her "victory" on the field due to her "domination" of total offense? She didn't put enough points on the board to win. Sure, she moved the ball slightly more than Trump, but she didn't make enough touchdowns or field-goals or PATs or safeties.

Do Democrats *really* want to console themselves by crying about the fact that their team led by a veteran politician--the most qualified person ever to run for office--had 6 more yards of total offense in a blowout loss to a bad team lead by a ROOKIE that even half his own team doesn't like?

Re:There's no requirement for a vote

[danbert8]

I'm tired of hearing about the "popular vote" as well, but for different reasons. People don't vote for the candidate they want... They vote strategically. And the strategy is based on the electoral college vote. If the rules were based on popular vote, people would vote differently and you cannot say what the results would have been. The fact that she "won the popular vote" in an electoral contest is about as useful as a dragster beating a go kart in quarter mile times. Sure it's technically true but that wasn't a metric of victory as they were racing on a go kart course and the dragster did poorly... If they went to a drag strip, the results would be different and maybe the go kart wouldn't have even been in the final matchup.

You can't change the rules of the election without holding another round of voting where people are aware of the rules.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[whoever57]

The atmosphere "cares" only about the total CO2 it gets, not the carbon per capita.

The atmosphere doesn't "care" about arbitrary divisions of land.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[bigbang137]

The fact that I included specific CO2 PPM levels implies it cannot be a CO meter -- I'd be gone in seconds if I breathed those PPM levels of CO. I paid US$250 for it but they've come down in price. There are many sold on Amazon. In fact, I kept one at work too.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[bigbang137]

The CO2 levels you speak of must be pretty high. Like I said, anything over ~900 PPM starts to affect my cognition adversely. 900 is not that high of a level, and it certainly won't cause tear acidity.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[bigbang137]

CO2 meters have been sold on Amazon for many years, although they've come down in price a bit lately. As you know, fire uses oxygen and emits CO2. Almost all the people you know with gas stoves won't be having a CO2 meter at home, so it'd be pointless to ask them. Moreover, the concern I expressed applies only when the gas is used with the windows closed.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[bigbang137]

To continue, I don't take any action at 900. If it exceeds 1100, I increase the cross-ventilation and maybe go get a cup of tea.

Re:MAJORITY does

[rastos1]

USA is not an idiocracy, the majority of Americans voted AGAINST Trump.

Majority of Americans voted for Trump OR Hilary.

Nuclear

[Pezbian]

Nuclear power is amazing. The execution... less so. I'm not _that_ kind of engineer, but it seems to me that common sense should have dictated that putting safety systems in the path of a tsunami was a bad call.

Here's hoping Fusion doesn't suck.

Re:Idiocratists did not knew they live in idiocrac

[GuB-42]

I don't know about the fishes but I am very suspicious about the first study.
CO2 is deadly at about 4% concentration (40000 ppm). That's because the partial pressure is too high to evacuate the CO2 produced by our body properly. But around 1000 ppm, that's such a small fraction of the deadly concentration that I find such an important effect surprising. It is a natural product of our metabolism, it doesn't accumulate and we already have the appropriate biological response to high levels of CO2 (breathing faster).
I suppose a slight increase in CO2 levels may have an effect on people who are not used to it but I don't believe that toxicity from atmospheric CO2 is something to worry about.

Re: Too late for them.

[guruevi]

The electoral college does its work pretty well. It basically breaks up the US into individual communities that then decide what's best for them. The grand majority of Americans not living in cities decided for Trump. Look at a map, pretty much only cities are colored blue; the rest of the US is a solid red. Even in states like NY, about 80% of the areas are red.

The problem is that the majority of people are concentrated in very small areas that are only affected if someone were taking away welfare and government subsidies. They tend to be ignorant about the rest of the US both as to the type of people and how they affect the rest of them and globally.

Why sue here?

[AndyKron]

My cat is suing the city over the unconstitutional leash law they enacted. She's pissed, too. Seriously though, as cutesy as this is, those kids are just being used, and I don't care what the reason or cause is, I don't like it.

GW vs AGW

[zapadnik]

There is Global Warming relative to the start of regular thermometer readings (from around 1850 onward).
There is Global Warming relative to the end of the Little Ice Age.
There is Global Cooling relative to the Minoan Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, and Medieval Warm Period.
There is Global Cooling relative to the start of the Holocene Climate Optimum.

Humans affect the global climate. The human induced component of warming is called 'Anthropogenic Global Warming' (AGW)..
Nature affects the global climate.
The effects of Natural and Anthropogenic Global Warming Effects combine into 'Global Warming' (GW), which contains a component of AGW.
The difference between an Anthropogenic Global Warming 'alarmist' and an Anthropogenic Global Warming 'skeptic' is the degree to which each believes the human component believes that the natural component dominates the human component.

The effect of doubling CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is a rise of approximately 1.1 K. Neither alarmists nor skeptics dispute this !
In addition to the warming effect of CO2 there is an additional factor due to water vapor. The AGW debate is all about the magnitude of the water vapor effect.
Alarmists run computer simulations of global warming, and the range of effects of water vapor range from a factor of 2 to 9 times the effect of CO2
Skeptics point out that the computer simulations are unable to model water vapor correctly, and point out the observed effect of CO2 combined with the water vapor effect produces a sensitivity of around 1.6 K per doubling of CO2.
Under the Scientific Method the computer simulations (which cannot model water vapor effects accurately as they are too complex) are considered "hypothesis", and the satellite and balloon datasets are considered "observation". The computer simulations predict warming of around to 3 times that which is observed.
The Scientific Method thus rejects the simulated AGW as an accurate hypothesis. The Null Hypothesis must be accepted instead until a new hypothesis can be generated.
A new hypothesis will either posit that water vapor effects are signfiicantly less powerful than AGW alarmists fear, or that another mechanism is controlling the warming and not human-emitted CO2. The interaction of solar magnetic activity -> heliosphere -> cosmic ray absoprtion -> cloud formation -> global warming has shown very promising observational leads.

Note: the term 'Climate Change' is meaningless as the climate has always changed naturally, and is never not changing. This is a not a hypothesis under the Scientific Method. The prediction of 'Global Warming' is a hypothesis, but with the slowdown in atmospheric warming over the last 18 years (contrary to the IPCC's AGW model) some slippery people have quietly moved from 'Global Warming' to 'Climate Change' and hoped people were not smart enough to spot the shift.

Thus, these activists are certain to lose. Not because there is a conspiracy to hide 'Climate Change', but because the plaintiffs don't appear to understand even the basic points of the current debate. To win they need to prove the Transient and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivities are as the IPCC says they are, prove that this is harmful (when the observational evidence shows the 'greening' of the planet as plants thrive with more CO2 and can survive with less water, so now grow in arid regions where they could not before), and prove that the US Government withheld some mythical evidence that is contrary to observe reality and the scientific understanding (which is NOT settled, as some activists would like you to believe). The students cannot win this, because they have the science completely wrong and fanaticism is no substitute for facts in a court of law (provided the jurists are apolitical).

Everyone agrees what CO2 does. Everyone! what is being debated is the effect of WATER VAPOR. And based on observational evidence the computer simulations predict far more warming than is observed (that i

Re:GW vs AGW

[david_thornley]

The difference between an Anthropogenic Global Warming 'alarmist' and an Anthropogenic Global Warming 'skeptic'

If those are your only two categories, and it seems to be, you're to be commended for giving us an advance warning that the rest of your post is not worth reading.

If you will add a third category, that of people who have examined the evidence more or less, and concluded rationally that AGW is going on, and will cause very serious problems if it continues, we can talk.

It would also help if you learned more about Climate Science before expounding on it, but then this is Slashdot.

Re:GW vs AGW

[zapadnik]

Your Third Category is the same as the First. Only you cannot see it.

It would also help if you learned more about Climate Science before expounding on it, but then this is Slashdot.

As a physicist I have reduced the debate to the core point of difference. Perhaps if you use the Scientific Method instead of engaging in fact-free ad hominem then we could make some progress.

Which magnitude of Climate Sensitivity is the one you agree with? the one estimated by computer simulation, or the observed value that is vastly lower that is actually measured by two satellites and thousands of balloons of the LTT ? I chose reality. I'm guessing you choose philosophy, which is the incorrect conflation of computer models as data rather than hypothesis.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[dywolf]

"obama didnt do anything for the environment"

you mean other than:
-the Paris Accords
-the Green Energy Revolution
-the DoE loan program
-protecting more land or water than any other president
-and more

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[sed quid in infernos]

The summary is incredibly misleading when it says that the opinion calls "man-made climate change an 'undisputed' fact." The opinion says, quite correctly, that man-made climate change is undisputed "for the purposes of this motion." This happens in every opinion about a motion to dismiss, because that's what a motion to dismiss is: an argument by the defendants that, even if every fact alleged by the plaintiffs is true, the plaintiffs should still lose. The court has definitely not held that climate change is an undisputed fact. (Note, I'm not making a comment about science; I'm making a comment about the way civil litigation works.)

It will get overturned

[RogueWarrior65]

http://www.nolo.com/legal-ency...

Case has no bearing to known law

[MSTCrow5429]

This is going to be thrown out if and as soon as this judge doesn't do it herself. They're alleging extremely speculative harm, and the stated harm is extremely tenuously related to its alleged cause. You cannot sue essentially the entire world for something that hasn't happened yet, it is unclear if it will happen, and even if it did, that it would have any bearing on their Constitutional rights. And I can't think of any that would be infringed in any case. Judge has gone off the deep end, and that's not good no matter what their personal ideologies are.

Take the analysis to the next level, again

[GPS Pilot]

You were correct to take the analysis to the next level by calling for a CO2-emissions-per-capita figure, rather than simply comparing the raw carbon emissions of China and the U.S.

But now, take it to yet another level by comparing CO2 emissions per unit of GDP produced. I did the simple arithmetic for the 2009 figures and here is how many tons of carbon are required to produce each dollar of GDP:

China: 3.69e-4
U.S.: 9.85e-5

By this measure, the U.S. produces goods and services 3.74 times more efficiently than China.

Now, you can chalk the much larger U.S. GDP up to the decadent lifestyle of Americans -- they consume much more, so they have to produce much more, right? But every country on earth aspires to someday match and then exceed the U.S. GDP per capita, and it would be a mistake to ignore that dynamic.

So, China emitted 1.84 billion tons of carbon in 2009, and when the year arrives that China matches the 2009 U.S. GDP per capita, it will emit 23.1 billion tons of carbon.

(This assumes two things: China's population does not grow, and its efficiency as measured by carbon-per-unit-of-GDP does not change. Population growth would make the scenario worse, and an efficiency improvement would of course make it better.)

Re:Take the analysis to the next level, again

[whoever57]

That's an interesting metric, but two things need to be taken into account:
1. Cost of living differential. GDP is almost meaningless if your intent is to measure amount of carbon produced to support a lifestyle.
2. As a prior poster pointed out, how much of those carbon emissions are directly related to producing products for the western world? Lots of manufacturing that requires large energy inputs in comparison to the value of goods produced has moved to China and other countries. In other words, the USA has outsourced its CO2 production.

Dick moves all around

[GPS Pilot]

China and India are building more clean energy sources than the USA

Ah, but you ignore the fact that China is building more energy sources of all types. Our friends at Greenpeace warn that in 2016, China has been starting coal-fired power plants at the rate of two per week. http://energydesk.greenpeace.o...

So how is your post not also a "dick move"?

Re:Dick moves all around

[thegarbz]

Because it wasn't dishonest. The clean vs dirty sources are still higher in china future project list. Much higher than those of the USA.

I also note that the Greenpeace article conveniently fails to mention that nearly all of China's coal power plants are now running brown coal rather than the black coal and have CCS as well making them among the cleanest coal power plants ever produced.

*waves dick around*

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[silentcoder]

> Just as politics in Africa prevents those starving kids from accessing the surplus food we have here.
Actually, it's mostly the politics in Europe and America that does that. The number one being: farm subsidies.

In reality, most of the continent of Africa is significantly better situated climate wise for agriculture and in theory capable of outproducing both American and the EU together. The main reason it doesn't is lack of a market. African farmers cannot competitively export to those markets due to the subsidies given to local farmers there. In fact, those subsidies are so high that they can't even sell at competitive rates to locals. The subsidised chicken from the US is cheaper than the locally grown one - even after shipping !
Which has put large numbers of African farmers out of business over the past few decades.

Of course this is hugely generalized and not actually useful for any *serious* analysis as Africa is a massive continent of over 60 nations - and about 5 times the size of Europe and America added TOGETHER. There is NOTHING that is universally true of all those people in this massive landmass. Lumping them together in one thing and trying to generalise is guaranteed to make it absolutely impossible anything you say can possibly be true.
But what I said is true of many farmers in many African countries - while your theory is not true of any of them in any African countries I know about.

Source: I live in Africa, I have lived here for 36 years and have travelled extensively and lived in more than 30 African countries for extended periods.

Re: Cure now, Gym later

[pixelpusher220]

Cool, glad you agree turbines aren't a significant threat to birds

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[thegarbz]

The atmosphere "cares" only about the total CO2 it gets, not the carbon per capita.

And fixing the problem by getting every person to help is a per capita issue. Bloody Americans. You rise to power first screwing up everything else as you go and then you dare to criticise a country who are making the same leaps with lower emissions per person.

Fuck you very much.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[Applehu Akbar]

"...you dare to criticise a country who are making the same leaps with lower emissions per person."

It's not "Americans" in general who are ignoring China's progress on lowering carbon. It's the cabbage-head No Nukes liberals who are afraid of the US starting a reactor program as comprehensive as China's.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[silentcoder]

I'm afraid it's true, Trump has seriously proposed Carson for secretary of education.

The America the Founders Wanted

[Tenebrousedge]

The stories behind the creation of the Constitution are very fascinating and educational. The wisdom demonstrated is amazing. And most of it still applies today.

There were a few really important things they got wrong. First-past-the-post voting probably counts as a mistake; at the least there was no informed decision on that method. Choosing to place the onus for national defense on the militia fell apart very, very early. The adversarial system of justice made far more sense in an era where police did not exist, and given that people mostly no longer enjoy the right to swear out warrants, we should probably have far stronger standards of evidence for those.

Probably the Founders would be most appalled that we have installed soldiers in every city and given them official blessing to kill civilians at will. In the days of muskets and swords, what peacekeeping forces existed mostly carried wooden clubs. The first "Bobbies" in London carried clubs and wooden rattles to summon other police. Later they switched to whistles. The problems of violence they solved were small, and they were probably an improvement over the existing private security forces.

In the 19th century, there was a saying, "God made man, but Sam Colt made him equal." We, as a society, have yet to deal with the vast expansion of violent means available to the ordinary citizen. That may in itself have been survivable. However, there were no more restrictions on nascent police organizations from owning weaponry than any other citizen. So now we have given people employed by the State [a] guns, [b] inherent permission to use said guns, and [c] immunity from the consequences of using those guns as agents of the State. We've also militarized said force, given them broad surveillance powers, and stacked the justice system against the ordinary citizen, because America sees the limits of both intelligence *and* stupidity as challenges to be overcome.

The Founders considered standing armies to be inherent threats to liberty. Our foreign armies may or may not be a threat to liberty in general, but fortunately they have been little-used against the People. Our police forces on the other hand embody every sin that the Founders feared and then some. We have certainly failed to safeguard our rights, but we also must recognize that the Founders' vision was imperfect, or we will never be able to have a dialogue about fixing the Union.

It would be easy to dismiss your arguments about the Electoral College as an appeal to authority and appeal to tradition. Pretending that the Founders were perfect and that we're doing what they wanted is at the root of a number of huge problems this country is facing. "So shut the fuck up" is your only remaining rhetorical redoubt, but given that we just had an election in which either person winning could have been aptly described as a failure of democracy, maybe it's time you start thinking about what conditions *would* raise your doubts about our democratic traditions. Probably it's best though not to try to shut down discussions of how to make this country better, even if you think things are fine as they are.

Re:MAJORITY does

[david_thornley]

If you want to know what the Electoral College was set up for, read Federalist Paper 68.

The idea was that a selection of educated and informed men would be better able to select a President than the general population. By selecting these men just for that purpose, the US could avoid having a foreign power tamper in Presidential elections. and they could keep the unqualified and the demogogues out of office. In other words, the EC as envisioned by the writers of the Constitution was supposed to keep Trump out of office. Publius (the nom de plume of the people who wrote the papers) was awfully self-congratulatory about this.

So you have the relatively sparsely populated center of the country. Should they really dictate what the entire country does? The Founders really didn't have this situation to consider, as there were basically Northern and Southern states along the Atlantic coast for fundamental political differences.

Re:MAJORITY does

[david_thornley]

Or maybe uphill. The proper balance of power between the Federal government and the states, or how much I should think of myself as a US citizen vs. a resident of Minnesota, is a matter of opinion.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I'm afraid it's true, Trump has seriously proposed Carson for secretary of education.

Holy shit. Kill me now.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[Gussington]

But what I said is true of many farmers in many African countries - while your theory is not true of any of them in any African countries I know about.

You are talking long term sustainability vs short term famine relief. There's plenty of examples of charity aid being actively blocked by malevolent people in power.

Source: I live in Africa, I have lived here for 36 years and have travelled extensively and lived in more than 30 African countries for extended periods.

Yet never heard of Robert Mugabe? Odd...

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[superwiz]

So think about for a moment, politics in England prevented more food from being produced in England.

No, the food production was at the peak capacity. The politics were over whether to impose tariffs on food import. The full production of food could not sustain the population or England. If tariffs were lowered, more food would be imported. This created larger work force for the industrialists (more profit for the the industrialists). If tariffs were raised, it meant that the food prices would rise and the domestic producers would get more profits for the food they were already producing. Either way, the amount of food produced would stay the same. And in both scenarios there would still be food shortages. It was only a matter of how large those shortages would be.

When transport technology made it cheap and easy to distribute.

No, the main transportation breakthrough were at the end of the 19th century. It's how US got overproduction of food and nearly bankrupted all the farmers. In the 20th century the actual amount of food produced was significantly increased because of short-stock wheat.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[superwiz]

You blame too much on subsidies. US farmers can produce much higher numbers of animals per square foot of land because they can keep them in essentially non-moving positions their entire lives and feed them with methods allowed by better technology. Free-range chickens, for example, are multiple times more expensive in the US because they are much less efficient to produce. So the advanced technology is what allows for lower production cost rather than subsidies.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[silentcoder]

>You are talking long term sustainability vs short term famine relief
No. I'm talking about famine PREVENTION. The famines were (mostly) not caused by an inabillity to produce enough food locally. Hell most famines weren't even caused by wars. They were mostly caused by farm subsidies in the USA.

>Yet never heard of Robert Mugabe? Odd...

Mugabe is an exception to the rule - what happened in Zimbabwe hasn't happened anywhere else on the continent. You can hardly use him as a representative example. Until 1997 Zimbabwe was the largest food producer on the continent - the destruction of Zim's agriculture had nothing to do with any of the things *either* of us discussed, it was a wholly unique situation of a land-revolution that went very wrong.

Zimbabwe is a lesson in why post-colonial land-ownership reform is a critical thing to do - failing to do so, leaving people suffering in poverty next to the land of their ancestors while the former colonial masters keep profiting from all the land - sooner or later they get tired of it, and take the land back by force. Without either the capital or sklls to actually use that land productively.
A good land reform plan - which includes training - would have prevented the destruction of Zimbabwe entirely. Arguably if their democratic process had worked better (or at least had included term limits) that would have ensured such a process came to pass.

You can't keep the colonial economic division going indefinitely after independence. It just doesn't work. It could only be brought about by massive force of arms, and without that force of arms to maintain it, it cannot be maintained. Better to have a planned, peaceful transfer of economic capital and power, than to wait until people get fed up and take it by force in unplanned chaos.
If Native Americans had not been reduced to a minority in their own country - the same thing would likely have happened in America by the way.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[silentcoder]

All of those technologies are available, and in use, all over Africa. What ? You thought only US farmers were cruel and inhumane enough to practise factory farming ? Besides which, meat production is the smallest factor in the equation. Chicken is the staple meat in most African countries and has been factory farmed here for ages (it's the easiest animal to factory farm). But crops are the important one. Particularly wheat and corn.

And, again, there is no corn or wheat growing technology (including biotech) which is not in active use all over Africa - where those technologies work BETTER than they work in the USA due to a better climate for farming in.

Re: Cure now, Gym later

[syntotic]

How come in my urban life I ve never seen such figures happen?

Re: Cure now, Gym later

[pixelpusher220]

perhaps I'm missing the sarcasm....but urban life isn't where these are happening, at least generally.

Re:MAJORITY does

[syntotic]

Homo oeconomicus is an idiot.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[Gussington]

No, the food production was at the peak capacity.

So all the fish in all the oceans were all fished out? There has never been more people than food available in the world. Thus, all food issues are one of distribution.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[Gussington]

Mugabe is an exception to the rule - what happened in Zimbabwe hasn't happened anywhere else on the continent.

The Ethiopian famine in the 80's suffered from similar issues. Maybe time to give up the "this never happened in Africa" line...

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[silentcoder]

If you think that you either don't know much about the Ethiopian famine or you know very little about the Zimbabwe famine - the two have almost nothing in common. Interestingly, just this morning news broke that a group of former Zimbabwean farmers now living in Malawi just yielded a 3 million tonne maize crop. Zimbabwe lost skills - and they lost it because they didn't do a peaceful transfer of colonial wealth after independence - so they ended up with a violent transfer, which led to skilled farmers fleeing the country. Mugabe actually had very little to do with it (another difference - the abuses in Ethiopia were top-down), it was a grass-roots uprising that happened outside political structures. All Mugabe did was to cash in on the uprising when it happened, and take credit for it. But the only sense in which you could claim he 'caused' it was his lack of doing anything to facilitate a peaceful transfer of land in the preceding years which led to the build-up of frustration over two decades.

You must not underestimate the seductive abilities of power - it's as prevalent in Africa as in the West and has a habit of turning heroes into villains. Mugabe was once hailed as a great hero who brought his people freedom against terrible odds, Africa's own Ghandi. He just had too much power for too long after that. South Africa's Jacob Zuma is similar. The man is now known throughout the country as the most corrupt leader ever. A thief, a rapist, a conman who sells governmental power to private interests for personal gain. Basically Africa's Donald Trump (for once we were ahead of America in a development).
But in all that... people have forgotten who he once was.
Back in 1994 the country was on the verge of a civil war between IFP-aligned Zulus and ANC-aligned Xhosas. A left-over of the divisions of appartheid these two tribes despised each other and as the country was heading to it's first truly democratic elections the IFP was refusing to participate. Not being on the ballot would have caused a civil war that would likely have destroyed the country.
The ANC sent one of their highest ranking zulu members to go talk to the leader of the IFP (Mangosuthu Buthelezi PHD) and convince him that the Zulus will have a place in the new democratic South Africa, that the IFP will have a seat at the table of a government of national unity - that joining the electoral process was better than fighting a war.
He succeeded, and in the process probably saved tens of millions of lives. That man was Jacob Zuma. He should have gone down in history as a hero, one of the saviours of the nation, a man whose actions let millions live who would have died.
Instead - after a term as VP and one and a half terms as president - he will be remembered as a thief, a rapist and the very symbol of corruption.

That's what power does. It turns heroes into villains.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[silentcoder]

Just to spell out how wrong you are: the Zimbabwean problems today is a direct consequence of the legacy of colonialism. Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that has never been colonized by a European power. Many tried and the Italians occupied the place for a brief period but nobody ever succeeded in conquering Ethiopia. The fundamental situations have nothing in common - oh and Ethiopia is a very long way from Zimbabwe... about as far apart as Rio is from Montreal.

Re:Too late for them.

[beastofburdon]

So fucking true.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[Gussington]

If you think that you either don't know much about the Ethiopian famine or you know very little about the Zimbabwe famine - the two have almost nothing in common.

They have one thing in common which is the topic of this thread. The attempts to prevent wide spread death by starvation were thwarted by deliberate efforts to restrict available food distribution. And your claim is this never happened in Africa which I have proven to be false.
To summarise the original point: We have always had enough food globally at any given time to sufficiently feed everyone on the planet. Starvation is a distribution issue, not a production issue.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[Gussington]

Just to spell out how wrong you are: the Zimbabwean problems today is a direct consequence of the legacy of colonialism

I think you are missing the point. This has nothing to do with Zimbabwe's problems, it is that the famine in Zimbabwe was made much worse by preventing available food distribution. If all the crops in Canada failed today there would be no famine.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[superwiz]

Public subsidies are generally well-known. If you can point to any subsidies which are specific to chicken producers in the US, I might agree with you. Otherwise, according to your proposed theory, African chicken growers would be better off buying the subsidized chicken feed from abroad and that would eliminate the arbitrage opportunity.

Re: Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficien

[silentcoder]

I never said chicken subsidies were a factor. The fact that America's health standards on chicken is gross out horifying and the actively threaten African countries with expulsion from AGOA if those countries do not abandon health standards is a bit of a factor but frankly my whole point was that meat is not the issue. Crop subsidies are. There is no productivity enhancing crop tech in America not in use by African farmers. But African farmers still cannot compete with American ones despite a better climate ONLY because no African government can afford to pay subsidies as big as washington does.

Re: Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficien

[superwiz]

But if the feed is subsidized, meat farmers can buy the feed. There is also the issue that chicken feed can be genetically engineered with less care than the food grown for human consumption (because we don't care what chickens digest.. only about that which their bodies make out of the nutrients they extract from plants). So feed can be engineered to withstand more severe weather variations and less favorable soil. From my perspective, that's also a technological advantage. And I don't believe anyone outside the US has the same level of bio-engineering as the US companies do. Of course, making plants more resilient increases the yield and decreases costs. I think sugar farmers are the biggest receivers of subsidies in the US, and I don't think this would hurt any chicken farmers. In fact, given that plants can be engineered to withstand a wide variety of weather conditions and soil can be enriched with fertilizers, the only advantage that Africa can offer growers is warmer average temperature (not sure how the cost of that is offset by more difficult access to fresh water). I wouldn't worry too much about "pain and suffering" aspect of chicken farmers, btw. Chickens can run around with their heads cut off for a while. The level of sophistication of their nervous system is probably not more than that of cockroaches.