In reporting on a Montana case in which a judge ruled that the state had to include the climate effect of oil and gas permits before deciding on them, the Associated Press showed just how brain-dead the discussions of “global warming” have become.
District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in favor of several young plaintiffs – ranging in age from 5 to 22 – saying they “have a fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate as part of the environmental-support system.”
As proof of the harm the plaintiffs are suffering, the order has a list of horribles that includes:
- “Olivia expressed despair due to climate change.”
- “Badge is anxious when he thinks about the future that he, and his potential children, will inherit.”
- “Grace … is anxious about climate change.”
- “Mica gets frustrated when he is required to stay indoors during the summer because of wildfire smoke.”
(Perhaps the judge should have ruled against the adults who are filling these poor children’s minds with climate alarmist fantasies, but that’s another story.)
The ruling was heralded by the likes of Julia Olson, executive director of the Oregon-based Our Children’s Trust, which has filed similar lawsuits in other states, who said: “Today’s ruling in Montana is a game-changer that marks a turning point in this generation’s efforts to save the planet from the devastating effects of human-caused climate chaos.”
(Apparently, after “global warming,” and “climate change,” and “climate crisis” failed to move the needle, the left is trying out “climate chaos.”)
We will admit that we find ourselves in wholehearted agreement with Emily Flower, spokesperson for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who called the ruling “absurd” and said that this “same legal theory has been thrown out of federal court and courts in more than a dozen states. It should have been here as well, but they found an ideological judge who bent over backward to allow the case to move forward and earn herself a spot in their next documentary.”
In any event, it was up to the crack reporters and editors at the once respectable Associated Press to come up with what is perhaps the most asinine sentence ever written about this issue.
“The ruling following a first-of-its-kind trial in the U.S.,” the AP reported, “adds to a small number of legal decisions around the world that have established a government duty to protect citizens from climate change.”
“A government duty to protect citizens from climate change”?
Think about that for a minute.
Do they mean any sort of climate change, such as the climate change that occurs around the world every year when temperatures can change from sub-zero to 90 degrees in a matter of months?
Or perhaps they mean that the government should protect citizens from things like El Nino, that naturally recurring – but scientifically inexplicable – climate phenomenon that we are currently experiencing, and underwater volcanic eruptions, both of which have driven this summer’s heat waves.
Or, longer term, what about ice ages? There have been five of them in the earth’s history – also for reasons nobody can fully explain. The last one ended 10,000 years ago, which is about how long these “interglacial” periods last. A few years ago, some researchers predicted the next ice age could begin in 2030. Is it the government’s duty to protect us from this climate variation?
Someone should take these AP reporters aside and explain to them a basic fact of life: The climate is always changing. Always. Sometimes for the worse. Sometimes for the better.
They might go on to explain to these reporters that the best way to deal with an ever-changing climate isn’t to wish change away, or pretend that denying a drilling permit will make one iota of difference, but to encourage human ingenuity and prosperity.
That’s how you deal with a climate that is always changing. By adapting to it. It’s why deaths from naturally occurring disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and so on, have steadily fallen as mankind has become smarter and more prosperous.
It’s radical anti-growth environmentalists – aided by brain-dead reporters – not oil and gas companies, who are the biggest threats to the health, safety, and well-being of those kids in Montana.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
Like one of the guys on the “Blue Collar Comedy Tour” used to say; “THERE’S YOUR SIGN”!!!!
You folks still don’t know the difference between climate and weather?
I suspect you do, but you don’t have a good argument about the real issues, so you do a stupid post like this.
Seasonal changes are not weather, they are climate. Climate refers to average conditions, which do indeed change hemispherically by season.
Neither are 100,000 yr long glaciations “weather.”
I would add some choice words but I&I says they want us to be nice.
Clueless, utterly clueless.
I doubt you would recognise an entropy-enthalpy diagram if it bit you on the backside.
Such a chart appears to be descriptive, not predictive. Perhaps you could tell what its relevance is to climate change.
Thank you for so effectively demonstrating my point.
You haven’t a clue, have you?
The article does address climate change. Do not ice ages represent major climate change??
so darwin was 100% wrong about adaptation…
Nope. But adaptation takes thousands of generations. And lots of deaths.
It would take “thousands of generations” to adapt to climate change? Are you talking about genetic mutations or technological innovations?
John Merline,
The page won’t let me reply to you, so I hope you see this.
I’m talking about darwinian evolution, in reply to chiral’s post.
As for technological innovations, they will be very important. But we will lose a lot of humans, and many species will go extinct.
Or put on a coat or invent AC. Humans adapt within hours.
Some other species adapt, too. But lots of species will go extinct. Is that OK with you?
Then ther’s the problem with our agriculture. Some parts of the US are getting too hot for our crops and cows. Maybe we could move them north, but the good soil is not up there.
In addition to judges believing that government can do such a thing, there are county commissioners, public utility commissions, planning councils of various sorts, professional associations, and on and on who believe the same. It’s a cult, and we all hope it will burn itself out before too much damage is done.
Now I have to disagree with this statement;
“El Nino, that naturally recurring – but scientifically inexplicable – climate phenomenon…”
Inexplicable it is not. We know the sequence of events which makes it up, what we can’t do is forecast it accurately. I would say we can’t forecast it unlike the climate a hundred years hence, but that would provoke the cult.
Heh, “global warming,” “climate change,” “climate crisis”, “climate chaos”!
You forgot the latest, “Global Boiling”!
Yes, we should absolutely downplay the negative effects of climate change.
…the Biden administration proposes to use machinery to SUCK CO2 out of the Atmosphere.
CO2 is a Building Block of Life on Earth!
Without it no Life can exist. Eliminated first will be all Plant Life, next Starvation and the Elimination of all Animal Life including Human Life!
No one proposes to eliminate CO2. The goal is to get it back to an appropriate level, or at least to stop it from getting worse.
But ininformed people like you will keep talking nonsense.
Glen, what is nonsense? At what level, in your expansive research, does CO2 not lead to a boom in plant life…. which then thrives while lowering CO2 in the atmosphere while
shitting out oxygen?
What is an appropriate level? Who determines what the appropriate level is? Why has the earth survived previous times when CO2 was significantly higher?
What is the perfect temperature for the world? Again, who determines that temperature and why has the world survived both higher and lower temperatures?
“uninformed people like you”
Glen, you really need to take a couple of classes on applied statistics. The methods used by thos so called climate scientists are just plain wrong. It has takrn humankind 25,000 years to create the economic systems that bring so much well being world wide. It is stupid to destroy it based on wrongly designed statistical methods.
KmmI1337$$, creating CO2 is done by consuming O2, so your argument is nonsense, even if the effect on O2 in either direction is trivial, because there is so much more O2 than CO2 in the atmosphere.
As for the boom in plant life, there are gains and losses, but the losses from higher temperatures outweigh the gains. And there are losses from ocean acidification, as well.
Bill, a guideline for what is the appropriate level, is close to the range that the current species of the Earth have evolved to survive in. Some will do better, and some will do worse, with a warmer or cooler Earth. But a rapid change will cause many extinctions, because individuals of many species, especially plants, won’t be able to relocate fast enough, and many species won’t be able to evolve fast enough to adapt.
The species that thrived 100M years ago are mostly not present now.
Excellent!
You missed the basic point: the speculation that CO2 from using hydrocarbon fuels is causing ‘global warming’. There is NO empirical evidence that human-generated CO2 has any measurable effect on the Earth’s climate(s). It is a myth, a kind of Popular Delusion, promulgated by globalists to justify a new, tyrannical ‘Global Governance’ (Algore’s term).
Unlike the delusions of the past (Witchcraft, the Philosopher’s Stone, the Magnetic Fluid, etc.) this one has the backing of powerful elites (academic, government, NGO, finance, corporate media, etc.) and so will be harder to eradicate. But eradicate it we must. To do so we must expose and ridicule the basic fallacy, that CO2 is a ‘pollutant’ and the ‘control knob’ of the climate. Your child’s teacher is wrong, and so are all the self-appointed ‘authorities’ who are pushing for the ‘Great Transition’ to ‘Green Energy’. It is nothing less than a gigantic hoax, intended to destroy the industrial foundations of the Western World.
Follow the money. Billions are getting diverted into people’s pockets. Mitigating the effects of climate change is very big business. Conservation (e.g., insulation) is the most cost-effective way to reduce CO2, if that were the actual object of the exercise, and installing solar panels and wind turbines is the most expensive way on a per-ton basis. The fact that billions are going into the latter might lead one to believe that reducing CO2 is the mere excuse for the spending, not the purpose of the effort.
Yes, ‘reducing CO2’ is the excuse for the spending, but the public has to be convinced the purpose is ‘to save the Earth’. The billions are mostly coming from government (directly and from tax incentives and subsidies), and if we can disabuse the public of the ‘save the Earth’ dogma, support (or acquiescence) would dry up.
Which presidential candidate will be the first to denounce the CO2 myth as a flat-out hoax? So far, only one I know has the guts and the sense. His initials are DJT.
You are spreading lies.
Humans have increased atmospheric CO2 by 50%. There is no other explanation for this increase, and it is well explained by human activities
CO2 is a critical greenhouse gas, without which the Earth would be an iceball planet.
There is no way that a 50% increase in CO2 can not cause warming. The only way we would not experience the warming is if some other major cooling factor, like atmospheric dimming, occurred.
We are experiencing dramatic warming, much, much faster than natural cyclical warming.
Rubbish. Atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Little Ice Age, but the human contribution is tiny, and that only since the 1940s. CO2 is a ‘greenhouse gas’, but very minor (.04% of the atmosphere); water vapor is vastly more important. CO2 becomes ‘saturated’ as well; doubling it would have almost no effect. Cf. Prof. William Happer: https://www.biznews.com/global-investing/2022/11/04/co2-happer
There is no ‘climate crisis’. You have been gulled, fooled, lied to. And by the way, the 1930s in the United States were warmer than the present.
No, the human contribution is massive, if you look at the increase.Yes, it’s a small amount of the total annual carbon output of the planet. But our contribution has thrown the carbon cycle out of balance, because the natural carbon sinks can’t absorb it all, causing a small additional percentage accumulation each year, so that we have had a 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 so far, and the rate is increasing. Climate scientists are in agreement that that increase is from humans.
CO2 is the primary driver of warming. A little warming causes increased water vapor, which amplifies the warming. It is a small percentage, but powerful. Water vapor is bigger, but less powerful per ton. Methane is smaller, but more powerful per ton, and it’s a driver, too.
If a third of the water vapor were removed from the atmosphere, it would return quickly. If a third of the CO2 were removed from the atmosphere and oceans, the carbon cycle would be close to in balance.
Cherry-picking specific times in specific places is bad science. The global average is warming, regardless of local exceptions.
Nonsense.
“There is no way that a 50% increase in CO2 can not cause warming.”
The proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere has increase from a pre-industrial level of about 280 ppm to about 420 ppm in 2022.
That’s an increase from 0.028% to 0.042%. At those levels, it’s meaningless to say “increased by 50%, because the actual volume increase relative to the total is so small.
The theory of significant climate warming due to CO2 depends on the significance of other factors to multiply the effect of CO2 – especially the factor of atmospheric water vapor.
The response of water vapor to CO2 increase, and how much it multiplies warming, is in dispute. In climate modeling, this factor considered powerful – but the value used in models has to be estimated because the actual value is unknown.
Ron said, “That’s an increase from 0.028% to 0.042%. At those levels, it’s meaningless to say “increased by 50%, because the actual volume increase relative to the total is so small.”
Your claim might seem like common sense to you, but it’s false. CO2 is a poweful greenhouse gas, even at small concentrations. Without it, the Earth would be an iceball planet.
Ron, maybe this is an adequate analogy.
Suppose an enclosed tennis stadium has 2 tear gas grenades set off in it. Do you think a 3rd one would make zero difference? It would make a difference.
For those with a lower IQ than normal; Climate change is natural as is global warming and they run in cycles and have done so for billions of years. It is our Sun which determines our climate and its cycles, and for the really stupid, “there is no Global Warming”. It is the likes of men like Al Gore who had planned to make millions off the carbon Credit scam they forced everyone to accept.
Listen to what real scientist are saying and not those prognosticators who are pushing that scam. In other words this is shades of Bill Gates pretending that he is a scientist. He isn’t, not even close. Wake up America, you are being scammed by sociopaths with an agenda which is not about helping humanity, but about profits.
When money talks you can be assured that it will NEVER be in our favor !!
Oh, I see that you want us to be oh-so civil, when what we’re witnessing is next to criminality by state operators. Now is the time for anger because if you don’t get angry you will become a slave in this police state destroying America.
Anger can get our points across in no uncertain terms, but like good Christians you want us to be civil like good little servants turning the other cheek. If that is what you truly want, then you have become part of the problem in the destruction of America because you don’t want to hear any dissenting comments.
Interesting that, according to this judge, government has an obligation to protect citizens from “climate chaos”, but in fact the police (i.e. government employees) are not obligated to actually protect people from criminals.
Note to Julia Olsen and Judge Seeley: The volume of global oceans is 300 million cubic miles. The temperature of those waters is about 5 or 6 degrees F above freezing. The area of the continental United States is about 3 million square miles. If you could pile the ocean waters on the US, it would make a stack 100 miles high. Knowing the slight radiation imbalance produced warming rate, it turns out that warming that volume 1 degree F will take thousands of years.
Your scenario is useless.
The oceans are warming at a dangerous, even fatal rate. We are already seeing massive bleaching, leading to massive deaths of the world’s coral reefs. Those are the nurseries of much of the ocean’s life.
Read this and it will make your day.
https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Happer-Lindzen-SEC-6-17-22.pdf
That article says that temperatures and CO2 levels of hundreds of millions of years ago would be OK, because they have happened before.
That’s completely ignoring biology. The plants and animals of hundreds of millions of years ago are not us and our living companions on the Earth. We are already looking at a catastrophy in the oceans from current temperatures.
Just one more politically connected mediocre lawyer in a black robe.
“Crack reporters and editors at the once respectable Associated [with leftists] Press”? When was the execrable Associated (with leftists) Press “respectable”? 80 years ago?
Humans seem to be programed to want stress in their life and if they can’t find it, they make it up.
Yet the true measure of ‘climate’ is ground water temperature which, while rising gradually since the last Ice Age has not changed enough to measure.
People on Earth are much the same as ants on a cruise ship. We have no control over the climate or the steering.
Silly attempt to discount all of the major effects of warming that we are already seeing, and that will continue to get worse. Hot sea water is killing the coral reefs, which are key to most sea life.
We are clearly causing the warming. We need to get control of our actions.
More nonsense.
The Great Barrier Reef is at a 36 year high.
Stop making stuff up.
Gnash your teeth all you want. Nature is going to do what its going to do. Run and hide if you like. I’m old enough to remember when fall-out would render all farm land sterile by Y2K. I remember that the limestone cities like Edinburg would melt from acid rain by 1990. The coming little Ice Age was discussed in my Jr. High science class.
Relax. Hold your breath if you like.
BTW- The Great Barrier Reef is bigger than ever. Thats’ what coral does.
Are you saying Alberta and Saskatchewan farmers don’t want to grow corn?? A warmer climate expands growing seasons further north where higher proteins are created to grow better beef.
I’m not making things up. But you seem to be misleading people to try to get them to think that coral bleaching and death are not a problem.
I’m glad that the Great Barrier Reef is having a good year. It’s had a lot of bad years. Florida reefs are having a terrible year.
Stop misleading people with cherry-picking data.
Correct. Humans are incredibly adaptable and the climate is always changing. For instance, if we do enter an new ice age, I can see us adapting to it rather well. The Eskimos did it for centuries even without modern technology. We currently have a permanent human habitation in Antarctica and we dream of living on the Moon. I can see something like domed cities and greenhouses out on the ice. Plus Texas will have pleasant summers for a change.
Do you care about millions of other species? Do you care about massive crop losses?
Makes you wonder what kind of Go Green Junk their shoving in their heads
Been say’n for longer than I can remember that the “anthropogenic” contribution to global CO2/carbon concentration is minuscule in comparison to natural forces. BTW, carbon is one of the essential elements to life! Similar to the COVID “PLAN/SCAMdemic”, so is the whole CO2/carbon “climate change” scam. The “Lurch” is so full of BS, the methane emanating from that hole just below his nose would fire several gas lanterns.
Yes, the human contribution is a small percentage, but it has thrown the carbon cycle out of balance. A little extra CO2 each year, over more than a century, has caused an increase in atmospheric CO2 by 50%. That’s huge.
There’s been speculation for some time re the intention of the biden administration where it concerns enviro policy… to the effect that many are saying we need to be on the lookout for lockdowns because climate crisis of course. Well if the judicial system is now legitimising the notion that the govt is required to protect us all from the climate, then this is part of that path, isn’t it.
Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, 1991:
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill …. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
What’s the name of the logical fallacy, that if someone once said something objectionable, then that can be used to discredit anything that reminds you of it?
The judge concludes:
1. We know the amount of GHG from Montana generated sources AND conclusively know these GHG cause climate change
2. The amount of GHG cause measurable harm to children and damage to the environment
3. The new judicial standard is a “fairly traceable connection” as opposed to actual proof.
Under these lax standards, Montana could simply ban automobiles, wood stoves, cattle ranches – or almost any industry or anything else that causes “anxiety” in some mentally weak children – all in the name of a “clean and healthful environment”.
Well, there’s one judge who should be bounced into traffic court.
If you haven’t read State of Fear by Michael Crichton, I recommend it highly. Nearly 20 years old, it is as relevant today as it was when written.
Climate hange is a lie. I taught statistics at thevuniversity. The way climate scientists use statistics is just plain wrong. In a 3 day seminar I conducted at NOAA, I explained what they did wrong and how to fix it. Afterwards the vice admiral in charge told me, “You just don’t understand.” I responded, “You are right. I don’t understand. But whatever you are doing here is mot science. I don’t know what it is, but it ain’t science.” He just walked away.
By the way, most people do not know that the raw science data is a classified national security secret. You can get the data after it has been “corrected”, but not the raw data.
Its their milkcow-non-profits and GMO’s are the destination of non tech academics from the elite universities.
Perhaps the Honorable Judge Seeley would be wise to simply issue an injunction against underwater volcano eruptions. Stopping those would help.
Not so much. Total world vocano emissions of CO2 are about 1/100 that of human emissions. But deniers lie about it a lot.
“Some researchers believe the next Ice Age could begin in 2030.” Exactly why the push is so hard now. They know a cooling period is coming. Arriving so soon that useful idiots will believe what they do now is why 2031+ is cooler than average. While it’s literally impossible for humans to do anything by 2030 (or ever) to change the temp., the Commies will use whatever wins they gain between now and then to shout…”See, we effected change….”
Deniers have been claiming cooling is around the corner for decades. They have been wrong for decades.
Wrong, as usual.
Temperature.Global calculates the current global temperature of the Earth.
It uses unadjusted surface temperatures.
The current temperature is the 12M average mean surface temperature over the last 12 months compared against the 30 year mean. New observations are entered each minute and the site is updated accordingly. This site was created by professional meteorologists and climatologists with over 25 years experience in surface weather observations.
Data Sources
NOAA Global METARs
NOAA One-Minute Observations (OMOs)
NBDC Global Buoy Reports
MADIS Mesonet Data
2015 average: 0.98 °F (0.54 °C) below normal
2016 average: 0.48 °F (0.27 °C) below normal
2017 average: 0.47 °F (0.26 °C) below normal
2018 average: 1.33 °F (0.74 °C) below normal
2019 average: 0.65 °F (0.36 °C) below normal
2020 average: 0.00 °F (0.00 °C) below normal
2021 average: 0.20 °F (0.11 °C) below normal
2022 average: 0.47 °F (0.26 °C) below normal
https://temperature.global/
Congrats on finding a ridiculous site that disagrees with all the worlds major meteorological organizations.
“A ridiculous site that disagrees with all the world’s major meteorological organizations.” We might just steal that for our motto!
Every time a liberal uses the words “climate change,” a junkie get free needles and fentanyl.
The Sun is not going anywhere. Stay tuned.
The cult Glen belongs to must be really proud of his ability to hold off us “deniers”. The first comment of the thread was posted at 3:05 am on the 16th. Glen responded to that post at 3:43 am. Then between 12:18 and 12:34 pm he posted 5 times. Following that he posted 4 more times between 3:16 and 3:56 pm. Then on the 17th he posted 9 times between 11:19 am and 12:48 pm, followed by 2 more a little later. Ultimately he can convince no one since he offered no data source to support his claims.
“A government duty to protect…”
This his both hilarious and ludicrous! Where else have we heard about a government duty to protect?
Ah, the riots following the death of St George Floyd.
And how did that protection work out for you? Especially those who live in large cities operated by Democrats.
Incidentally, the Supreme Court has already ruled that governments do not have any specific duty to protect any individual or group; they only have a general duty to prevent excess damage from mayhem.
Therefore, if this case ever gets into the jurisdiction of the federal courts, the proper ruling would be that governments have no specific duty to protect