The courts are not immune to bad science. The Latest On International Efforts To Save The Planet Through Climate Litigation April 09, 2024/ Francis Menton When I first came upon it, I called it the “stupidest litigation in the country.” In 2015 a group of adolescents, led on a leash by some activist environmental lawyers, had sued the federal government in the District Court for Oregon. The plaintiffs alleged violation of their fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment, and sought as remedy a compulsory national plan to “phase out” the use of fossil fuels nationwide plus (why not?) “draw down excess atmospheric CO2 so as to stabilize the climate system and protect the vital resources on which Plaintiffs now and in the future will depend. . . .” I first covered this litigation in a post in December 2017 titled “The Stupidest Litigation In The Country Reaches The Ninth Circuit.” Why “stupidest litigation”? Because this case seemed to represent the ultimate reductio ad absurdum of the entire idea of courts and of litigation, and indeed an attempt at complete subversion of our three-branch system of government. Just make up a new and sweeping “constitutional right,” find a friendly activist-minded judge, and you can get an order transferring all the significant operations of the legislative and executive branches of the government to a single unelected person operating out of a courthouse in Eugene, Oregon. Surely, no court would take this seriously. READ MORE
The disease has spread to Europe. There is no human right to a safe or stable climate Posted on April 9, 2024 by curryja by Judith Curry “Europe’s highest human rights court ruled Tuesday that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change , siding with a group of older Swiss women against their government in a landmark ruling that could have implications across the continent.” [link] Continue reading →
Russia + Iran produce about the same amount as the US produces. It's still a world commodity. Like with oil, we may produce more, but that doesn't mean the oil commodities markets are beholding to the USA. This is born out by price of LNG, which shows major spikes for world events.
Do we work toward clean rivers because it is a "human right"? Is it a human right that the government must act toward securing a solid economic future? Curry has long suggested that governments need to do their best against the consequences of climate change. She just doesn't want to do anything to alter the magnitude of those consequences. Denying human rights arguments in this way may be legal, but the fact of the matter is that governments DO have a responsibility for the future. And, weighing this by the number who die today is not a way to measure the importance of climate change in the future.
This is an OLD argument. What isn't explained is that scientists the world over do not accept this argument as debunking the negatives that climate change brings. Once again, you pick some writing that promotes your idea, while ignoring known problems with that writing.
Curry: Summary. There will be a continuing need for fossil fuels. Rapid restrictions to fossil fuels before cleaner energy is available interferes with more highly ranked sustainability goals – no poverty, no hunger, affordable and clean energy, and industry-innovation-infrastructure. There is no human right to a safe or stable climate. Apart from the lack of an international agreement, such a “right” contains too many contradictions to be meaningful.
Nobody has suggested an end to fossil fuel production - let alone a rapid end. With NG, the issue is EXPANSION, not reduction. Beyond that, reduction of certain uses of fossil fuels can have benefits beyond the long term saving in climate change. The people do have a right to make changes that reduce energy prices, that improve health as shown by healthcare analysis, etc. These aren't argued on the basis of being "rights". For example, production of electricity through non-fossil fuel methods is cheaper. That meets Curry's desires. Also, there IS substantial international agreement, and even there it is not based on rights. Curry is pushing a position based on faulty arguments.
We do dominate. United States. Production: 1.03 trillion cubic meters. ... Russia. Production: 699 billion cubic meters. ... Iran. Production: 244 billion cubic meters. ... China. Production: 219 billion cubic meters. ... Canada. ... Qatar. ... Australia. ... Norway. • Mar 19, 2024 Top 10 Countries for Natural Gas Production (Updated 2024)
The point is that prices are not set by asking whomever produces the most. Plus, the disruptions caused by the US cutting pipelines, etc., are political acts carried out by military means. So, the question remains what producing the most actually merits.
I'm referring to the Nord Stream pipeline. Nobody is admitting responsibility, of course. But it is not an easy operation. The USA was carrying out military operations in the vicinity. Many believe the US included a mission to place a remotely detonated charge on the pipeline, with the destruction taking place at a later date.
Bad science has spawned a stupid goal. Net Zero CO2 Emissions: A Damaging and Totally Unnecessary Goal April 18th, 2024 The goal of reaching “Net Zero” global anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide sounds overwhelmingly difficult. While humanity continues producing CO2 at increasing rates (with a temporary pause during COVID), how can we ever reach the point where these emissions start to fall, let alone reach zero by 2050 or 2060? What isn’t being discussed (as far as I can tell) is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels (which we will assume for the sake of discussion causes global warming) will start to fall even while humanity is producing lots of CO2. Let me repeat that, in case you missed the point: Atmospheric CO2 levels will start to fall even with modest reductions in anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Why is that? The reason is due to something called the CO2 “sink rate”. It has been observed that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more quickly nature removes the excess. The NASA studies showing “global greening” in satellite imagery since the 1980s is evidence of that. Last year I published a paper showing that the record of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa, HI suggests that each year nature removes an average of 2% of the atmospheric excess above 295 ppm (parts per million). The purpose of the paper was to not only show how well a simple CO2 budget model fits the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements, but also to demonstrate that the common assumption that nature is becoming less able to remove “excess” CO2 from the atmosphere appears to be an artifact of El Nino and La Nina activity since monitoring began in 1959. As a result, that 2% sink rate has remained remarkably constant over the last 60+ years. (By the way, the previously popular CO2 “airborne fraction” has huge problems as a meaningful statistic, and I wish it had never been invented. If you doubt this, just assume CO2 emissions are cut in half and see what the computed airborne fraction does. It’s meaningless.) Here’s my latest model fit to the Mauna Loa record through 2023, where I have added a stratospheric aerosol term to account for the fact that major volcanic eruptions actually *reduce* atmospheric CO2 due to increased photosynthesis from diffuse sunlight penetrating deeper into vegetation canopies: What Would a “Modest” 1% per Year Reduction in Global CO2 Emissions Do? The U.N. claims that CO2 emissions will need to decline rapidly to achieve Net Zero by mid-Century. Specifically, they say 45% reductions below 2010 levels will need to be made by 2030, and Net Zero will need to be achieved by 2050, in order to limit future global warming to the (rather arbitrary) goal of 1.5 deg. C. But let’s look at what a much more modest reduction in CO2 emissions (1% per year) would do to future atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Here’s a plot of the history of global CO2 emissions, and how that trajectory would change with 1% per year reductions from 2023 onward. (Even this seems optimistic, but we can all agree the U.N.’s goal is delusional), When we run the CO2 model with these assumed emissions, here’s how the atmospheric CO2 concentration responds: Even though the CO2 emissions continue, atmospheric CO2 levels start to fall around 2060. Also shown for reference are the four CMIP5 scenarios of future CO2 emissions, with RCP8.5 often being the one used to scare people regarding future climate change, despite it being extremely unlikely. The message here is that CO2 emissions don’t have to be cut very much for atmospheric CO2 levels to reverse their climb, and start to fall. The reason is that nature removes CO2 in proportion to how much excess CO2 resides in the atmosphere, and that rate of removal can actually exceed our CO2 emissions with modest cuts in emissions. I don’t understand why this issue is not being discussed. All of the Net Zero rhetoric I see seems to imply that warming will continue if we don’t cut our CO2 emissions to essentially zero. But that’s not true, because that’s not how nature works.
Roy Spencer believes in "intelligent design", too. He's a long time denier, which makes it even more important to wait to see what climatologists the world over think of this idea. Peabody Energy, a major coal company, supports his work.
The anti-LNG madness continues. The Incredible Dumbness of Biden’s War on LNG, Part Deux David Middleton Guest “You Can’t Fix Stupid, Part Trois” by David Middleton Biden’s pause of new LNG export permits is truly a “stupid and futile gesture“… Biden’s imbecilic pause did not affect…
Humans eat. Since when are humans alien to earth? Aren’t we part of earth as much as a mouse or a palm tree? https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2113629119#:~:text=Using a large, farmer-reported,climate trend during this period Next time you eat a corn chip, or burn a candle or sit on leather upholstery, remember you are benefiting a bit from CO2 fertilization.
Some more science vs. unsubstantiated opinion on benefit to humans from CO2 fertilization. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4021318/
