Brett Kavanaugh Sorta Believes In ‘Climate Change’, But, That’s Bad News Or Something

Ever since President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, there have been many in the Warmist community who have freaked out. We get things like

Then we have Warmist Robinson Meyer at The Atlantic

Brett Kavanaugh: ‘The Earth Is Warming’
Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court affirms climate change—but that’s not necessarily good news for the EPA.

It probably isn’t surprising that Judge Brett Kavanaugh—a longtime member of the conservative movement whom President Trump nominated to the Supreme Court on Monday—has written about climate change.

What might be surprising is that he says it’s real.

“The earth is warming. Humans are contributing,” he told a federal courtroom two years ago, during a hearing about a major Barack Obama climate policy. “There is a moral imperative. There is a huge policy imperative. The pope’s involved.”

He’s even inscribed this view in his judicial opinions. “The task of dealing with global warming is urgent and important at the national and international level,” he wrote in 2013.

That’s concerning for me, but, not too much. I agree that humans are contributing, I just see it as minimal and not dangerous. But, Kavanaugh hasn’t ever seen to let his political beliefs get in the way of his rulings, excepting his belief in the Constitution. But, anyhow

Yet this is not necessarily good news for liberals. Kavanaugh has sometimes sympathized with the need for environmental protection. But because he considers global warming to be charged with a “huge policy imperative,” he’s skeptical that the Environment Protection Agency (or the executive branch) should be fighting it alone. And as a future justice, he’s likely to block the agency from doing so.

It is a portentous moment for U.S. environmental law. President Obama spent much of his last term trying to deploy the EPA—and one of its animating laws, the Clean Air Act—against the threat of climate change. The Trump administration has devoted its energy to undoing this work, and environmental groups are trying to block him.

Obama spent time passing shaky regulations that kept getting blocked in court, such as the Clean Air Act, which never went into effect to start with.

“We probably have more of a record for Kavanaugh for environmental law than we do for anyone else in recent memory,” Lazarus told me. “Roberts came from the D.C. Circuit, Scalia came from the D.C. Circuit, Ginsburg did, Thomas did—but none of them had the same number of EPA cases that Kavanaugh’s had.”

He has not been a friend of the agency, though he often appears sympathetic to it. Kavanaugh has emerged as a courteous jurist who is intensely skeptical of whether the EPA can legally regulate new environmental threats, experts told me.

And, on that record

Kavanaugh is particularly skeptical of new EPA programs. Like Scalia, he argues that the agency should only issue a new rule if Congress granted them explicit, precise rules to do so in a piece of legislation, like the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act.

Well, that’s shocking! A belief that the duly elected Legislative Branch should pass laws that are explicit to get things done, rather than massive mission creep and Executive Office agencies creating rules and regulations out of thin air? That’s totally outside the mainstream!

Adler, the conservative law professor, agreed that Kavanaugh might strike down future climate rules from the EPA.“I get that the environmental community looks at him and says, He’s going to get in the way of aggressive climate regulation unless Congress does something. And he might.”

“But if climate change is a problem, and it is; and if we should be doing something about it, which we should; then barring some massive technological breakthrough, unless and until Congress steps up to the plate, we’re kind of screwed,” he said.

And rightly so. If Warmists believe so hard, they should make an argument and attempt to pass legislation, not jam it through the EO agencies. And, show us that they really believe by changing their own lives to match their beliefs.

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17 Responses to “Brett Kavanaugh Sorta Believes In ‘Climate Change’, But, That’s Bad News Or Something”

  1. Aesop says:

    Of course he believes in climate change, just like I do:
    In November, the climate changes, and it gets cold.
    In May, it changes again, and it gets warm again.

    Farking moonbats never learned this.

    • covjefe says:

      The global average surface temperature is increasing rapidly with no scientific reason to expect it to stop soon. Scientists attribute the warming mostly to greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere by humans burning coal, oil and gas. The added CO2 stays in the atmosphere for decades and is accumulating.

      In fact, the climate has been relatively stable over the last 10,000 years or so (The Holocene Epoch), that period that encompasses the evolution of the whole of human civilization. Global warming is currently disrupting, and will continue to disrupt, human societies.

      Based on Aesop’s fable, if local weather alone dictated conclusions about global climate, one could argue that a 50F morning and a 80F afternoon shows the Earth warming at 21,900 degrees F per year! But of course, scientists are conservative and have measured temperature changes over the entire Earth over long periods of time to conclude that global warming is occurring. Over the past 40 years scientists calculate, on average, that the Earth is warming at about 0.018 degrees C per year, or about 0.7 degree C since 1980.

      • McGehee says:

        no scientific reason

        The story of your life in one poorly worded phrase.

      • david7134 says:

        Jeff,
        Everything in your comment is basically wrong, especially any variation in climate secondary to CO2. Find another religion.

      • formwiz says:

        First, the climate hasn’t been that stable. Duh. Even so, the data Mr Science used has been faked.

        Second, listen to what Mr Science just said.

        In fact, the climate has been relatively stable over the last 10,000 years or so (The Holocene Epoch), that period that encompasses the evolution of the whole of human civilization.

        Current science believe most extant species (man included) appeared in the last 100,000 – 200,000 years. That’s nowhere near long enough to have evolved independently.

        Mr Science just signed on to Creation.

        • covjefe says:

          Ah yes, “The data are all faked!!” ‘argument’. LOL. Data that conflict with your opinions are always “faked”!! https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_yahoo.gif

          Human CIVILIZATION evolved in the last 10,000 years. The human species evolved over the past several million.

          The appearance of Homo sapiens may date back as long ago as 800,000 years, certainly no later than 300,000 years ago. The genus Homo is some 3 million years old (Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, etc)

          Whose opinion are you citing that claims extant species couldn’t have evolved independently?

          There is no evidence to support creation or intelligent design.

      • Jl says:

        And notice that the .7 -.8 degrees per century was about half that, till “adjustments” made it so. Junk science

  2. JL says:

    Here we go again-“Global warming is disrupting, and will continue to disrupt, human societies.” Weather disrupts human societies as it always has and always will, but absolutely no proof warming is making anything worse. Unless of course you have proof. Good luck

  3. Jl says:

    Problem for the alarmists is that the earth starte to warm long before high CO2. Along with the problem of cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s, when it “should” have been warming. CO2 obviously isn’t the weather control knob in the sky.

    • covjefe says:

      the earth started to warm long before high CO2.

      True. The Sun was “warmer” then and the Earth was in a period of low volcanic activity, and yes increasing greenhouse gases (but less than now).

      Of course CO2 isn’t the only influence on year to year average global surface temperatures, but it is the primary driver of the continued warming today. Other influences (forcings) are varying amount of Sun’s energy, volcanic activity, albedo (reflectance), ocean currents, atmospheric aerosols.

      Problem for the coolists is their selective reliance on evidence. Why do you not think the cooling after WWII is fake? You only find warming to be fake data.

  4. Jl says:

    https://realclimatescience.com/2018/07/finally-proof-that-global-warming-is-man-made/#comments Notice how we magically got to the .8 degree warming-through data adjustments-it used to be half that. And no evidence of it being the “primary driver of temperatures”. If so, no need for “adjustments”. As far as the cooling, very telling that there’s still no explanation for it. It, too, has been partially erased from the temp record. Settled science

    • jebediah says:

      Do you think the polar ice has been reading the “fake” data and melting on purpose?

      Do you think all the scientists are in on the conspiracy? It seems all the datasets show similar results, even Christy and Roy Spencer’s UAH satellite data.

      Do you think all the local meteorologists and the National Weather Service are on it too, with all their record highs?

  5. Jl says:

    Hmm- Sounds like no explanation for the doubling in temperature as shown, nor for the cooling 1940s to 70s. As far as polar ice-http://notrickszone.com/2018/07/07/against-the-forecasts-sea-ice-grows-surface-temperatures-fall-troposphere-cools-polar-regions-stable/

    • jethro says:

      You repeatedly link to the unscientific blog, NoTricksZone. Pierre Gosselin is a disinformer, and was caught, and admitted, using faked photos to make his point that turbines ruin the countryside.

      • drowningpuppies says:

        Notice the lack of links to back up little jeffery keenes’ unscientific fantasy rants.

        https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_cool.gif

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