Judges should not write laws that the anti-fossil fuel faction cannot get Congress and the people to enact
Paul Driessen
Earth's climate has changed countless times over the past 500 million years. But campaigners claim any recent or future changes are caused by fossil fuel use and agricultural practices.
These activities still add trace amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide (0.04%, 0.0002%, and 0.00003% of the atmosphere, respectively) and are said to alter climate and weather. The combination of water vapor, Earth's complex and chaotic climate system, and powerful solar and cosmic forces brought about the Carboniferous (Coal Age), Ice Age, Little Ice Age, Warm Periods, and fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events that are said to no longer Related.
Climate activists, politicians and bureaucrats at the United Nations, the United States and the European Union then blame fossil fuels for heat waves, cold snaps, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, droughts and even abusive husbands. Kamala Harris said man-made climate change has forced millions of illegal immigrants to cross the border since 2021.
Still, the Climate Alliance has failed to reach an enforceable, workable international treaty that would force all countries Reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. failed to get the U.S. Congress to enact national Legislate—or make a convincing, hotly argued case that reducing some greenhouse gases can stabilize Earth's never-before-stabilized temperatures and climate conditions.
As a result, the consortium has adopted other cunning tactics: regulating fossil fuel technologies and agricultural practices into oblivion; ignoring that 63% of the world’s greenhouse gases come from China, India, and a hundred other developing countries; Expert and talk show host of uncomfortable facts, figures and analysis.
Climate activists have also filed lawsuits in state courts against eight U.S. oil companies whose products account for just 11% of U.S. global greenhouse gas emissions.
Nearly three dozen ultra-progressive jurisdictions want friendly, in-state judges to decide complex issues arising from and affecting every family, business, city, state and country on earth. They want a judge to punish energy companies for causing “dangerous climate change” rather than scientific and legislative debate and process.
Litigants claim they are working to save our planet from climate catastrophe. Their real goal is to reduce our driving, flying, home heating and cooling, red meat consumption, living standards and right to free speech, even if doing so would have little or no impact on emissions or the climate.
They hope to avoid high-profile federal courts that are more likely to scrutinize their far-fetched claims from national, international, scientific and economic perspectives. They fear the U.S. Supreme Court may rule on whether the far left or states can circumvent the legislative process and instead use state courts to impose radical environmental and social agendas.
There is nothing moral, legal or constitutional about this nepotistic forum and backroom dealing. This is another reason for plaintiffs to panic about potential Supreme Court intervention and believe state judges can competently litigate the matter.
To ensure judicial “competence,” the Environmental Law Institute has launched a parallel effort, the Climate Justice Project (CJP), to ensure that judges receive “authoritative, objective, and accurate information about climate science, the impacts of climate change, and the ways in which climate change is changing.” An education you can trust.” Climate science is emerging in the law. “
Of course, as Humpty Dumpty would tell Alice, when the CJP uses a word (like authoritative, objective, credible, scientific or just), it means whatever they choose to mean, no more and no less, because ultimately The problem is who is the master – Active litigators and judges, or We the People and our elected representatives.
Raising more questions, the CJP is funded by the same agencies that fund these climate lawsuits. The JPB Foundation donated $1 million to the CJP and $1.15 million to the far-left Tides Foundation's Collective Action Fund, which pays the Sher Edling law firm the costs of such litigation. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation donated $500,000 to the CJP and $150,000 to the Action Fund. etc.
The left knows that if the country’s highest court reviews these cases, their political strategy will fail. It’s bad for them, but good for our system of checks and balances, common sense, and especially reliable, affordable energy, jobs, health care, and modern living standards.
More than 80% of our energy still comes from oil, natural gas and coal. Wind and solar are notoriously unreliable, require expensive backup power, and require more than ten times more raw materials per unit of electricity than natural gas generators. They are unable to supply petrochemical products, including clothing, cosmetics, fertilizers, paints, plastics, pharmaceuticals and wind turbine blades.
“Renewable” energy is not clean, green, renewable or sustainable. Making batteries for electric vehicles and grid backup involves the mining of many metals and minerals, processes that are energy intensive and destroy habitats, pollute air and water, and harm and poison miners and their families.
Much of the mining occurs in countries with corrupt governments and extreme household poverty, such as Congo and Myanmar, where child and slave labor are rife. The ships are transporting these materials to China, the world's largest polluter, which has cornered the global battery production market and uses more coal, slave labor and pollution-intensive processes to produce “clean, green” energy products.
Electric vehicles are billed as “zero-emission” vehicles because there are no exhaust fumes. People don't know this dirty history, and they don't know that the electricity to charge the batteries comes mainly from coal-fired or gas-fired power plants. Battery fires are very violent and toxic.
Wind turbines also rely on oil, natural gas and coal for the metals and minerals in their towers, generators, fiberglass and epoxy blades, and concrete and steel bases. Solar panels cover hundreds of square miles of former farmland and wildlife habitat, causing a similar impact. Offshore wind turbines harm and kill wildlife, including endangered whales; land-based turbines kill millions of birds.
In lawsuits filed in carefully selected liberal state courts, pleadings and briefs can omit such inconvenient facts, often preventing judges and juries from considering them.
They can use the so-called climate catastrophe as a reason to target a handful of U.S. oil companies while ignoring all other oil and coal companies around the world, as well as the countries that emit 89% of greenhouse gases. The state court lawsuit is inherently ridiculous, claiming that the production and refining processes used by these oil companies and the products they sell are causing climate change unprecedented in the history of the planet and humanity.
Recent Supreme Court rulings reveal why climate alarmists and rent-seekers are alarmed by the possibility of court intervention. West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency held that a government agency cannot unilaterally promulgate regulations in the absence of clear legislative authority Have “significant” economic or political significance.
Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo overturned the “Chevron obedience” rule. Silent or ambiguous legal texts no longer give administrative agencies unfettered power to interpret laws to increase control over people’s lives and livelihoods.
The Free State Court’s decisions in these climate cases will have a huge impact on our environment, our economy, our lives and our country, even though Congress has never given any such authority to any agency or court.
The Supreme Court should absolutely intervene on this — making sure these complex scientific, economic, and political issues are fully studied, debated, scrutinized, and voted on — rather than leaving them to a biased court.
Paul Driessen is a senior policy analyst at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and the author of books and articles on energy, environment, climate and human rights issues.
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