This is a funny case of “hoist on your petard”. Obama has been whining about “climate change” for his entire time in office, and even before. He’s even thrown a few bones the way of the Cult of Climastrology. This goes for John Kerry, as well. Yet…
Youth Sue Obama Administration For Allowing Climate Change, Violating Constitutional Rights
“We have a moral obligation to leave a healthy planet for future generations.”Twenty-one young people from around the country filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration on Tuesday accusing the federal government of violating their rights by contributing to climate change through the promotion of fossil fuels.
The plaintiffs, who range in age from 8 to 19, filed their complaint in U.S. District Court in Oregon. The complaint lists numerous defendants, including President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Defendants have for decades ignored their own plans for stopping the dangerous destabilization of our nation’s climate system,” the plaintiffs said in their complaint, which was filed with the help of the Oregon-based nonprofit Our Children’s Trust. “Defendants have known of the unusually dangerous risk of harm to human life, liberty, and property that would be caused by continued fossil fuel use and increase [carbon dioxide] emissions.”
And what is the point of all this?
But in the eyes of Olson and the plaintiffs, that’s not enough. They are asking for a court order to force Obama to immediately implement a national plan to decrease atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million — a level many scientists agree is the highest safe concentration permissible — by the end of this century. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has already hit 400 parts per million.
They are very, very upset over the use of fossil fuels. Very upset
(Julia) Olson, a public interest attorney, has been working closely with plaintiff Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, 15, since 2011. It was Martinez who originally asked Olson to prepare the case against the United States government.
Martinez, who serves as the youth director for Earth Guardians, spoke before the United Nations General Assembly in June and demanded world leaders take action against climate change. It was his third time addressing the United Nations.
It’s a long way from Boulder, Colorado to New York City. Did Martinez walk or ride a bike? Most likely, we can say with 97% confidence that he took fossil fueled flights. Which would violate his own Constitutional rights according to the lawsuit!
It will be amusing seeing Obama, Kerry, et all defend themselves against this suit.
When you were 15, how many times had you addressed the United Nations? Same here. Some snowflake.
Since a lawsuit is a very serious accusation, I would say your statement above has some serious implications and if I was the defending attorney, I would definitely use this as part of a reason to dismiss the case altogether from the onset.
It’s sad to see our youth with so much potential and drive, following a dead end. In 20 more years this will all be laughed at and the entire climate change industry will have financially collapsed. These kids will find themselves the casualties of this ignorant pursuit.
The weather is a very complicated process and since we are only 100 years or so into understanding how the earth climate actually works, I would have to say that maybe those who think they know it all about climate change need to calm down and stop saying carbon dioxide is a poison….
Since I’m from Iowa I can tell you that every farmer knows that the sun is the primary controller of climate and that higher levels of carbon dioxide bring higher crop yields.
That means we can feed more people on the earth…
Since you are from Iowa…….. Well perhaps you are unaware that the Sun is actually giving us LESS irradiance. Now than. 60 years ago
But other factors such as greenhouse gases are driving an increase in temps
Higher CO2 may bring about higher yields if all other conditions can also help in equal amounts
Simply increasing one factor. Thst may increase. Plant growth say water ur CO2 might help but too much out of balance with other needs will NOT help
Think flood
Or too much Sum. And not enough plant nutrients. To sustain the increase in growth
Well, anyone can file a lawsuit about anything, if he can fins an ambulance chaser to do the work for him.
But I’ve got to love the concept of holding President Obama and his wretched Administration, which will be over in 1½ years — which isn’t soon enough! — responsible for conditions a hundred years into the future. Considering that the President wants to hold some people responsible for things that happened 150 years ago, it’s kind of like karmic justice.
Teach weren’t you at one time. A “precious snowflake” ?
Wasn’t the tuition at your prep school over the YS median income ?
Would you discribevtvat life as a special snowflake as. A privileged life?
Michael,
No one is calling CO2 a poison (it can be at high enough concentrations – as can most chemicals). CO2 is not evil. It’s an innocent molecule. But CO2 added to the atmosphere is causing the Earth to warm. This is a fact.
Most scientists think the rate of warming and importantly the extent of the warming will cause more problems to human culture than any good that higher CO2 can possibly contribute.
That’s the argument. It’s selfish and anthropocentric for sure, but we have a right to protect our species, don’t we?
Being from MO myself, far be it for me to criticize our neighbors to the north, but Iowa farmers may not have all the necessary information and tools to assess long-time climate trends. Let me add that I find Midwesterners to be the best people on Earth, tough, resilient, open and kind, and I’ll never leave. When I think of the working classes I think of Missouri and Iowa farmers, St. Louis auto workers, Piedmont MO waitresses, Springfield MO school teachers, a welder in Rogers Arkansas, checkers at the Kirkwood WalMart, a professor in Iowa City with an autistic child, a Black man with bad knees in the local Five Guys having lunch with his wife…
John wrote:
If what you wrote is true, then we need those CO2 emissions, to keep us from falling into another ice age! :)
Trouble is, NASA reported that they have observed about a 1ºF global warming on Mars! If solar output is giving us slightly less energy, then you’d think that the same would be true on Mars, which ought to mean that the planet would get cooler, not warmer . . . unless, of course, those rovers are really spewing the CO2 out their tailpipes!
Now if those that think that CO2 levels are dangerous to life on Earth, there is a much simpler solution that the government could embark on that would directly attack the problem.
We could create Sabatier reactors that would break down the CO2 molecules in the atmosphere into methane and oxygen. But since it’s not about reducing CO2 in the atmosphere but rather about socialist greed and control you will not see this put into action.
You will see how our basic lifestyles will instead be reduced to third worlders while the socialist bastards at the top will live CO2 producing luxury.
This is why teach addresses the hypocrisy, because in the end, those who tell us how to live will always make exceptions to their own lifestyle because they are “more important” than the rest of us.
So you trust temperature readings from a planet 55 million miles away (at its closest), but not on Earth.
Michael typed:
Can you tell us more about Sabatier reactors, e.g., capacity, cost, methane storage, hydrogen source, reaction conditions etc. Can they handle over 36 gigatons (about 72 trillion pounds) of CO2 a year? That would break even.
Anyway, if commercially feasible and the capacities are suitable this would be a great step forward.
But the existence of this reaction doesn’t prove that those concerned about AGW are motivated to take over the control of the Earth.
Dana,
Mars is warming and no SUVs! That’s and oldie but goodie zombie lie that I haven’t heard in a long time.
Can you produce evidence that Mars is warming? Neptune and Pluto have warmed even though the Sun has dimmed a bit. It’s thought that the warming in those planets is due to orbital periodicities. Is that happening now on Earth? Not according to the evidence.
I’m not saying the lower naive but honest AGW fans are trying to control others… I am saying those in elevated positions of government and influence have found this movement to be a great mechanism to monopolize and profit from such a movement.
It’s difficult to fight against such greedy interests when wrapped in an environmental cloth because honestly, most people actually DO care about living in a clean environment and the well being of our posterity.
The fight against the climate changers is more directed towards those higher up who are two faced and not necessarily directed at the lower clueless followers.
Since I am not all knowing and have an open mind I am willing to look at the CO2 levels and weigh each argument for and against the level of CO2 in our atmosphere.
When I place myself in the mindset of agreeing that high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere poses dangerous effects for the livelihood of mankind I end up asking myself what is the best solution to such a problem.
As has been stated before by others, a solution to curb consumption by eliminating CO2 creating means creates a serious catch22 for the betterment of human existence, we have to look at a different solution.
That solution is clearly the Sabatier Reactors. NASA has such research and designs. Since the idea has been around for over 100 years it’s not unreasonable. Here is the link to one of the papers regarding such a device. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20120016419.pdf
My concern is that we don’t understand enough about CO2 levels in the atmosphere to make definite decisions one way or the other. And I would hate for us to start changing the atmosphere based on junk science and untruthful self interests of a few.
The debate should be open and done by the science community and not manufactured by the commercial and political interests because we all know the impure motivations of both sides and in the end can have disastrous results.
If the science finds that higher levels of CO2 will pose dangerous outcomes for the human race then the only obvious way to solve it is to fight the problem directly and that is with man made reactors to break down the molecules into other molecules.
If it a serious issue then citizen taxation around the world can pay for these atmosphere scrubbers. Only then would a tax on carbon emission make sense. Only then could the funds accumulated from such taxes be honestly used to pay directly and only for the reactors.
Of course, I don’t believe the CO2 levels pose a negative effect as I see evidence to support more positive effects than negative effects…. But again, I am no scientist and neither is the political class.
More liberal snowflakes find another, new constitutional right. I’m amazed.
“Iowa farmers may not have all the necessary information and tools to assess long-time climate trends.”
It’s absurd to suppose that a farmer might know anything about weather or have any reason to take the trouble to research the subject. But a 15 year old kid who brings an absurd lawsuit should be instantly accepted as an expert.
BTW IF ANYONE would know whether the climate has been changing over the last few decades, and if so what the nature of that change is, it would surely be a farmer, who has to deal with weather every day.