Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[Norbert]

Don't get where you come to that conclusion.

Bipartisan congress and a Republican president signed the legislation creating the EPA with the job of protecting the environment. Where does the SCOTUS get the authority to draw a strictly partisan arbitrary line determining what the EPA can and cannot do 52 years later?

You are worried about a dictatorial Executive (I am as well), but the SCOTUS members are there for life. There's no recall and no stopping them if they overreach.

Yes, not a lawyer, but it would seem that insofar as SCOTUS considers Congress to have the authority over the EPA, it would make more sense that it would be the job of Congress to stop the EPA from going too far, *if* Congress thinks that it goes too far. Why would, in principle, Congress need the help of any court to tell the EPA what it should do or not do? Unless perhaps Congress itself files a lawsuit against the EPA, or something like that.

 

[patmurphey]

...Bipartisan congress and a Republican president signed the legislation creating the EPA with the job of protecting the environment. Where does the SCOTUS get the authority to draw a strictly partisan arbitrary line determining what the EPA can and cannot do 52 years later?...

On the issue of partisanship, the conservative judges are Constitutional Conservatives, who believe that their responsibility is to rule based on law and the Constitution not partisan views and popularity, as opposed to activist judges, dominant for decades, who feel they have the responsibility and ability to write new law. As to timing of any ruling, the court has NO jurisdiction except in cases brought before it by parties with standing.

 

[patmurphey]

Yes, not a lawyer, but it would seem that insofar as SCOTUS considers Congress to have the authority over the EPA, it would make more sense that it would be the job of Congress to stop the EPA from going too far...

Congress has no authority to enforce law. That belongs to the very partisan Executive branch. With regard to the EPA, look at the Executive actions of Obama, then Trump, then Biden.

 

[mspohr]

On the issue of partisanship, the conservative judges are Constitutional Conservatives, who believe that their responsibility is to rule based on law and the Constitution not partisan views and popularity, as opposed to activist judges, dominant for decades, who feel they have the responsibility and ability to write new law. As to timing of any ruling, the court has NO jurisdiction except in cases brought before it by parties with standing.

So where does a Constitutional Conservative judge get justification in the Constitution for telling the EPA that the Constitution prohibits them from regulating CO2 ?

 

[DrGriz]

So where does a Constitutional Conservative judge get justification in the Constitution for telling the EPA that the Constitution prohibits them from regulating CO2 ?

The so called "conservative" SCOTUS justices had no respect for stare decisis of over 50 years on several topics after several of them lied to congressmembers and said that they did. They could not come up with constitutional reasons for reigning back EPA and simply did so, showing they are the activist judges.

 

[SageBrush]

With regard to the EPA, look at the Executive actions of Obama, then Trump, then Biden.

And ignore the executive decisions of trump ?

 

[Norbert]

Congress has no authority to enforce law. That belongs to the very partisan Executive branch. With regard to the EPA, look at the Executive actions of Obama, then Trump, then Biden.

So neither does SCOTUS. That doesn't seem to explain why Congress needs a court to intervene in the process of it exercising its authority over the EPA. Does SCOTUS think that Congress cannot, in principle, act fast enough to resolve big questions *if* Congress sees a need to do so, and that SCOTUS is faster? Or why do the conservative judges think that SCOTUS needs to become active in case of larger questions about EPA deviating from the intention of Congress?

(I might easily miss something as I am not familiar with matters like that.)

EDIT: It would seem to me that SCOTUS should forward such questions to Congress, instead of making a decision itself (which I guess would have to be understood as a preliminary decision on behalf of Congress.) That is, questions where there is no obvious contradiction to Congress' intention.

 

[mspohr]

Government policies will not get UK to net zero, warns damning report

Progress report from the Climate Change Committee suggests ministers could renege on greenhouse gas emissions commitment

www.theguardian.com

The government is failing to enact the policies needed to reach the UK’s net zero targets, its statutory advisers have said, in a damning progress report to parliament.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) voiced fears that ministers may renege on the legally binding commitment to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, noting “major policy failures” and “scant evidence of delivery”.

 

[JRP3]

I did not say that. I said that they don't care about climate events in the West. How many wildfires are there each year in New England, and how many acres do they burn? Are the people in the New England region suffering from drought?

I am seriously asking, because I am ignorant. Are there climate issues currently in New England? Are temperatures over 100 degrees regularly now? Are the sugar maples dying from intense heat or other climate matters?

Most people are concerned and more aware of what affects them directly. As you say you are ignorant of climate issues outside of your area, but I'd say most in the Northeast are quite aware of what's happening in CA. Here in central NY we are having another dry summer, not drought situation yet but it could get there. Friends recently needed a water truck to come full up their well because it ran dry for the first time. I'm seeing more dead trees in my woods the last few years, maples and basswood. It's concerning.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

SCARY: Glacier collapses in Italian Alps

Lhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Oapo5gxbSMw&vl=en

The Climate Change/Global Warming issue is hitting like this in Italy.
How many disasters like this will happen before that Governments all over the world will take the necessary actions to work out the Climate Change/Global issue?

 

[mspohr]

Methane much more sensitive to global heating than previously thought – study

The growth of this greenhouse gas – which over a 20 year timespan is more than 80 times as potent than carbon dioxide – had been slowing since the turn of the millennium but since 2007 has undergone a rapid rise, with measurements from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recording it passing 1,900 parts a billion last year, nearly triple pre-industrial levels. “What has been particularly puzzling has been the fact that methane emissions have been increasing at even greater rates in the last two years, despite the global pandemic, when anthropogenic sources were assumed to be less significant,” said Simon Redfern, an earth scientist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. About 40% of methane emissions come from natural sources such as wetlands, while 60% come from anthropogenic sources such as cattle farming, fossil fuel extraction and landfill sites. Possible explanations for the rise in methane emissions range from expanding exploration of oil and natural gas, rising emissions from agriculture and landfill, and rising natural emissions as tropical wetlands warm and Arctic tundra melts.

Their findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, suggest global heating is four times more influential in accelerating methane emissions than previously estimated, with rising temperatures helping to produce more methane (by speeding up microbe activity in wetlands for example), while at the same time slowing down the removal of methane from the atmosphere (with increasing numbers of wildfires reducing the availability of hydroxyl radicals in the upper atmosphere). “It was a really shocking result, and highlights that the effects of climate change can be even more extreme and dangerous than we thought,” said Redfern.

 

[mspohr]

I led the US lawsuit against big tobacco for its harmful lies. Big oil is next | Sharon Y Eubanks

Both industries lied to the public and regulators about what they knew about the harms of their products. Both lied about when they knew it. And like the tobacco industry while I was in public service, the deceptive advertising and PR of the fossil fuel industry is now under intense legal scrutiny.

They also both funnelled money into promoting fake science. The American Petroleum Institute and Exxon injected large grants into the climate denial research of astrophysicist Willie Soon, in the same way that tobacco companies propped up misleading health research from well-compensated friendly scientists. The full extent of this work may never be known, as both industries often ran their grants through nonprofit intermediaries that hid the source of their cash – and in some cases, as with the Heartland Institute, both industries used the same intermediaries.

 

[mspohr]

Democrats have a month to revive the climate deal our planet needs | Daniel Sherrell

Though it’s been subtext since the advent of Maga, it is worth stating plainly what this ruling makes obvious: there is a death drive animating the modern conservative movement. It is merciless and strange and remarkably consistent. It stands on the side of whatever makes our country poorer, greedier, less safe and more desperate. It deregulates firearms after a massacre at an elementary school. It deregulates carbon after experts issue a “code red for humanity”. It forces mothers to bring their children to term, and then abandons those children to bullets, to wildfires, to grinding, generational poverty. Its pro-life policies seem to reverse precisely at the moment of birth. When it comes to living children, conservatism is a pro-death movement.

After the court gutted the EPA, conservative leaders celebrated it as a win for democracy. Mitch McConnell argued that it had given “power back to the people” by wresting climate policy from the hands of “unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats” and investing it in Congress alone. The irony could not be more acute. Nevermind that “the people” – 60% of Americans by one recent estimate – actively support the EPA regulating carbon emissions. Nevermind that the decision was issued by an unelected, unaccountable court with no claim to democratic legitimacy (the Republican supermajority having taken shape over an era in which Democrats won the popular vote in eight of nine presidential elections).

It would be a mistake to dismiss this as pure, self-dealing avarice. To at least some of the conservative stalwarts who spent decades orchestrating the decision, it represents a sincere vision of the good. The richest people in the world, loosed from the bounds of expertise, oversight or electoral accountability, imposing their will on a prostrate public. It is a clean, satisfying system. It activates something deep in the amygdala, a slavering, animal need for dominion.

 

[patmurphey]

...(I might easily miss something as I am not familiar with matters like that.)

EDIT: It would seem to me that SCOTUS should forward such questions to Congress, instead of making a decision itself...

That says it all... They did send it to Congress when a case came before them.

 

[mspohr]

That says it all... They did send it to Congress when a case came before them.

No, they cancelled Congress.

 

[mspohr]

Another Step Toward Climate Apocalypse Opinion | Another Step Toward Climate Apocalypse

For party fealty is, of course, what this is all about. Anyone who believes that the recent series of blockbuster court rulings reflects any consistent legal theory is being willfully naïve: Clearly, the way this court interprets the law is almost entirely determined by what serves Republican interests. If states want to ban abortion, well, that’s their prerogative. If New York has a law restricting the concealed carrying of firearms, well, that’s unconstitutional.

In other words, the politics of climate policy look a lot like the politics of authoritarian government and minority rights: The Republican Party looks more like Hungary’s Fidesz or Poland’s Law and Justice than like the center-right parties other countries call conservative

And partisanship is the central problem of climate policy. Yes, Joe Manchin stands in the way of advancing the Biden climate agenda. But if there were even a handful of Republican senators willing to support climate action, Manchin wouldn’t matter, and neither would the Supreme Court: Simple legislation could establish regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions and provide subsidies and maybe even impose taxes to encourage the transition to a green economy. So ultimately our paralysis in the face of what looks more and more like a looming apocalypse comes down to the G.O.P.’s adamant opposition to any kind of action.

 

[DrGriz]

That says it all... They did send it to Congress when a case came before them.

I can't understand why you think that they did this. Congress, wisely knowing that they did not have the time, expertise, or technical training to determine what interventions are needed or economically and technically feasible to protect the environment, set up an administrative agency to do just that.

The case at hand, emissions standards for coal fired plants, came up during the Obama administration, and has been on hold in the courts ever since.

In spite of that, the goals have been achieved, due to economics, technical advances and reality. The experts at EPA were exactly right!

So what do you think congress should do differently?

The case before the Supreme Court was a moot point. Their decision was arbitrary, capricious and avaricious and made without knowledge or expertise in the matter involved. They drew a specific line that had no basis in the Constitution whatsoever.

 

[Norbert]

That says it all... They did send it to Congress when a case came before them.

What do you mean with "a case"? Other cases in general? So why not this case? In this case, they made a decision that the EPA is not authorized in spite of this being about regulations for emissions. However according to their own opinion, it is Congress that determines the autorization of the EPA. So why do they intervene as a court and say the EPA is authorized to issue certain kinds of regulations about emissions, but not others, when they themselves say that such distinctions are up to Congress?

 

[patmurphey]

Geez! The Supreme Court can ONLY make rulings on points of law in cases that are before it. If a law is passed or, as in this case a regulation is issued, the court has no right to rule unless a case has been brought before it by a party with standing, and Cert acceptance) has been ruled.

 

[mspohr]

Geez! The Supreme Court can ONLY make rulings on points of law in cases that are before it. If a law is passed or, as in this case a regulation is issued, the court has no right to rule unless a case has been brought before it by a party with standing, and Cert acceptance) has been ruled.

So?
Yes, there was a case brought. Anybody can bring a case. The SC doesn't accept most cases. They accepted this case.
Why?
The question is why they told the EPA that they couldn't regulate CO2 when Congress specifically passed a law telling the EPA to regulate pollution.
Congress (in its wisdom) didn't enumerate all of the possible pollutants and left it up to the EPA to decide which pollutants to regulate. They followed the law.
The Supremes cancelled the EPA. Why?