High School Students Sue Federal Gov't Over Global Warming 491
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by
timothy
from the good-thing-they-know-the-whole-script dept.
from the good-thing-they-know-the-whole-script dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Katherine Ellison reports in the Atlantic that a group of high school students is suing the federal government in U.S. District Court claiming the risks of climate change — dangerous storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, and food-supply disruptions — will threaten their generation absent a major turnabout in global energy policy. 'I think a lot of young people realize that this is an urgent time, and that we're not going to solve this problem just by riding our bikes more,' says 18-year-old Alec Loorz, one of the plaintiffs represented, pro bono, by the Burlingame, California, law firm of former U.S. Republican congressman Paul 'Pete' McCloskey. While skeptics may view the case as little more than a publicity stunt, its implications have been serious enough to attract the time and resources of major industry leaders." (Read more, below.)
Pickens continues: "Last month, Judge Wilkins granted a motion to intervene in the case by the National Association of Manufacturers who says the plaintiffs lack standing because their injuries are too speculative and not likely to be reduced by the relief sought. 'At issue is whether a small group of individuals and environmental organizations can dictate through private tort litigation the economic, energy, and environmental policies of the entire nation,' wrote NAM spokesman Jeff Ostermeyer. The plaintiffs contend that they have standing to sue under the 'public trust doctrine,' a legal theory that in past years has helped protect waterways and wildlife. While the adults continue their argument, Loorz says kids his age are much more worried about climate change than many of their parents might imagine. "
DOD considers climate change a serious threat (Score:5, Interesting)
DOD, and the US Navy in particular, have considered climate change to be a major national security issue for several years. There is no question that "climate change" is occurring. As usual, what is in question is:
— Precisely what part human activity plays in concert with natural global climate cycles, and
— Exactly how much the US and other First World nations should dramatically alter their economies and energy strategies while developing economies and other major economies (such as China and India) do comparatively nothing, absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means
Re:kids are worried ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the fact that the latter could be combated with just a modicum of giving a shit adds more insult to injury.
There wasn't a fucking thing Joe Blow could do about The Bomb back during the height of the Cold-War, but something as simple as not generating extraneous waste gets the most ridiculous resistance out of people these days. I have known people that chose not to recycle because "fuck it." Until gas prices got insane, I knew people that would drive 2 blocks away to the corner store to get a candy bar rather than walk. Even something as simple as turning the thermostat up during the summer and down during the winter by a few degrees would result in enormous savings in fossil fuels, but again, there is an insane number of people out there that don't give a single fuck about the environment and a fair amount of people that, it seems, are hostile towards green initiatives solely because "fuck you", like the aforementioned people that refuse to recycle.
It's funny, but 70 years ago American society embraced rationing to support the war effort and beat the Axis, but trying to get society as a whole to embrace green technology is an exercise in futility, and many of these people are the children of those that grew up in that time period in the first place. Did all those lessons not get passed on from the WWII generation or what?
Re:establish the facts of your standing (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously dude, the name Greenland has nothing to do with the actual climate. There are serveral theories about the name but none are that it was a green place a 1000 years ago.
Of course, when you tell someone that they will be travelling with you to a place that is barren, cold and inhospitable you may have trouble convincing even a Viking to come with you. So instead, Erik (according to popular legend) called the island Greenland and instead painted the island as being a wonderful place to settle.
Source: http://ancientstandard.com/2010/12/17/how-greenland-got-its-name/ [ancientstandard.com]
Re:The sad things is... (Score:3, Interesting)
It is not censorship when you insist that only scientific conclusions be heard during debates about scientific issues.
Yea, it is, when you get to decide how "scientific conclusions" is defined.
Re:kids are worried ... (Score:5, Interesting)
hostile towards green initiatives solely because "fuck you"
I'm hostile toward them because I'm too smart. Most (all?) of those initiatives are meaningless feel good frippery with no real world effect, or NEGATIVE real world effect. They require stupid people. Not gonna work on me.
Example, the people who just don't give a F about recycling at the office. We are pure, refined evil, right? Where I work, they purchased extra recycling trash cans and distributed them all over and the idiots blathered on about how we're all going to save the planet by sorting our trash, printed posters hanging everywhere. No one, including myself, noticed we still only have one trash dumpster, not a trash dumpster and a recycling dumpster, how... interesting. As a tech guy I work odd hours, and I get to see the illegal alien cleaning crew pushing a big rolling trash collector around the office and dumping both trash and recycling into the same rolling collector, and that collector dumps mixed trash and recyclables into the same dumpster, and odd mornings that I'm here early I see that dumpster emptied into one trash truck. I know they're not sorting at the landfill, either. So the idiots think they're saving the world, but I know the real world effect is we turned a lot of crude oil into plastic recycling cans, waste lots of money buying those cans, waste time and money proselytizing to people, waste valuable time and money sorting trash that is going to be commingled by the cleaning crew anyway, and finally waste time emptying twice as many trash cans. What a huge amount of environmental damage to fool people into thinking they're preventing environmental damage. I'm sure some minor drone got a nice promotion out of it. So, yeah, I'm one of the insane number of "F you" people who throws my empty soda cans into the regular trash can because apparently I don't want to save the planet.
I have special knowledge about the recyclables/trash issue because of weird working hours. I would assume the same scammers running the same psychological confidence scam in other areas are also not doing anything useful for the environment. Maybe accidentally once in a while they occasionally do something useful by mistake, but on average the environment would be better served by those kind of folks if they merely piled up cash in my backyard and set it on fire. So, yeah, in general, F those people and their goals, they're all scammers.
What does work is financial. So I'm painting my house.. I could use oil and have to buy "bad for the environment" mineral oil solvent to clean the brushes, or I could use latex paint and clean the brushes with practically free water... Thats how I save the environment from hydrocarbon vapor / ozone pollution, by saving money. The actual cost of gasoline is about $8/gallon and thats what it should be at the pump, instead of being cheaper and the balance paid by "stealth" taxation. Higher gas prices would fix a lot of environmental problems.
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
All a lawyer would have to do is read the 10th Amendment and ask where in the Constitution it gives the federal government the power to regulate the climate.
Actually the lawyer wouldn't even have to get to the 10th Amendment. He would only have to stop at the necessary and proper clause, or the general welfare clause, way back in the actual text of the Constitution. But, that lawyer would only stop on those clauses if he had ever read it, understood it, understood the hundreds of years of interpretations of it, had any idea how American law worked, and wasn't blindly blathering ideological talking points.
Speaking of things that are unconstitutional, did you know that the American flag is unconstitutional? It's true! Just look in the Constitution: where does it ever say "Congress shall have the power to designate a flag for the nation"? It's not in there! Thus, the American flag is unconstitutional.
Also, the Air Force is unconstitutional: the Constitution only gives power to create armies and navies, and we never passed an amendment allowing an Air Force.
Another one is paper money: the Constitution clearly says Congress has the power to "coin" money, so obviously we all should be carrying around nothing but coins in our pockets.
Shall I go on making fun of that stupid, stupid point of view?
Re:Nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)
Once upon a time, paper money was issued by banks.
Oddly enough, it still is, technically. That's why it says "Federal Reserve Note" on every bill.
Note, by the by, that arguing "it's perfectly okay when the Congress ignores the Constitution, because the Congress ignores the Constitution all the time" isn't all that useful when they decide to ignore it to your detriment a bit down the road.
Do remember that the Constitution was meant to be a LIMITER on the power of the Federal Government, not an enabler.
Re:kids are worried ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Yeah! How dare those bastards have more money than they could ever spend, including if they started buying countries for themselves.
Made that into a valid opinion for you.
I have no problem with people having more than me; I am not motivated by monetary gain. If anything, the idea of having this level of personal wealth actually makes me quite nervous. I'd feel like I was hoarding a resource for no other reason than I didn't want anyone else to have it.
No person on the planet would have any problems living a comfortable life on £50k a year except Bentley salesmen and ultra-yacht builders. What value do they add to humanity again?
Re:kids are worried ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well if they gotta be brainwashed, at least Captain Planet and Al Gore got to them before Anthony Watts and the Heartland Institute...better to be brainwashed into what happens to be scientifically supported than into science denial. You can recover from one of those.
Re:kids are worried ... (Score:2, Interesting)