Pirate's Cove

Hey, if they really want to Do Something, let them make their own lives carbon neutral, right?

Don’t let SCOTUS undo decades of progress on climate change

The decision by a majority of six ultra-conservative Supreme Court justices to limit the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate rising carbon dioxide emissions was expected but is nonetheless deeply upsetting and alarming to anyone who cares about the sustainability of life on our fragile planet — and America’s response to the unfolding climate change tragedy.

Unfortunately, we may soon look back on this verdict in the years ahead as the day when our collective terrifying hot-house future was all but assured by a group of blinkered, ill-informed justices exhibiting all the symptoms of the Dunning Kruger effect: the phenomenon where individuals who know very little about a subject take strident positions informed by their own ignorance, unable to recognize their own lack of expertise.

Hot house future? LOL. As for that Dunning Kruger effect, that’s hilarious, since the vast majority of people yammering about anthropogenci climate change know only the talking points, but, do not understand them.

Let us be clear: The SCOTUS majority does not know what they are talking about. They are risking Americans’ survival for their own shortsighted ideological goals. As Gavin Newsom, Democratic Governor of California observed: “The Supreme Court sided with the fossil fuel industry, kneecapping the federal government’s basic ability to tackle climate change.” We see the SCOTUS majority overreaching in an apparent desire to cripple the regulatory power of the modern state to address common urgent climate challenges.

The job of the judicial branch is to rule on the Constitutionality of governmental actions. Congress can pass a specific, detailed law. One agreed on by all. But, the Warmists can’t, because their ideas are just a big money and power grab.

SCOTUS is ignoring the views of the world’s scientists, who are reporting repeatedly and increasingly urgently through the International Panel of Climate Change, calling for immediate multilayered cuts to greenhouse gas emissions across all parts of our economies and societies — from transportation to power generation, agriculture, industry and sequestration technologies. The science is not in dispute; it has not been for more than 30 years.

The court is discounting the consensus among serious policymakers and economists, from the left and right including U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, former Treasury secretary and Harvard University Professor Lawrence Summers, Nobel Prize-winning economist William Nordhaus, London School of Economics and Political Science Professor Nick Stern, and a great many others. These experts agree regulating and pricing carbon to internalize the real cost of pollution is essential. To be sure, there are arguments about levels, but not about the essential role of regulators in setting the carbon price and regulating emissions. Europe already prices carbon in a cap-and-trade scheme (at 89 Euros and rising); China has launched the world’s largest cap-and-trade scheme. Sweden, Canada and many other states also price or tax carbon.

Not their job. That’s the job of elected law makers in the Legislative Branch. Nor is it the job of anyone in the Executive Branch, not without specific legislative authorization.

The Biden administration must redouble its efforts to achieve legislative breakthroughs on climate change regulation and oversight.

States — California and others, must redouble their own plans to regulate, restrict and cut local greenhouse gas emissions.

Voters — especially younger voters — must vote in the midterms for candidates who are committed to immediately addressing climate change and commencing policy reforms legislatively. We have no time to waste. Climate tipping points of no return loom large and are almost (or already are) upon us.

Hey, voters: if the people who are pushing this are refusing to make their own massive carbon footprints zero, why should you trust them? Would you trust a religious leader preaching a simple life while they live in a mansion, fly in a private jet, and have a Rolls Royce? An attorney general who has a long rap sheet of crimes? A politician constantly taking fossil fueled flights, being ferryed around in a huge fossil fueled convoy?