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Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#121

Post by anonymousiam »

delecti wrote: post #92
supernova87a wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this law/provision was passed at a time before there was a clear notion of CO2 from burning fossil fuels being connected to climate change, and they were thinking about more traditional pollutants/harms like logging and drilling oil. (In my opinion) This historic law/provision is not specific enough (or it does not create a novel enough kind of cause of action) for the climate change type of problem, to be en…

The connection between atmospheric CO2 and warming was actually identified as early as around the year 1900. I wasn't around then to have a sense of the broad social awareness of things, but I've gotten the impression that the science was fairly obvious before the 1970s.

I assume that the year 1900 "identification" you refer to is the work from Svante Arrhenius, which was later disproved.

https://www.climate-debate.com/forum/so-if-angstrom-already-...

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#122

Post by phpisthebest »

Aachen wrote: post #93
deprecative wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that their parents and grandparents probably are the same folk that ensured a worse quality of life for them I'm going to side with the kids on this one.

To be fair, until about 1990 the problem was virtually unknowable if you weren't a climate scientist working on cutting edge research yourself or were in the board room of the oil company that apparently had this investigated and then chose to make the most of their remaining time. I can't fault two entire generations for greenhouse gas emissions from before then, and after it became common knowledge, I can understan…

what you have personally done that was not "direct financial benefit to" yourself

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#123

Post by gaganyaan »

phpisthebest wrote: post #119
pseudalopex wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the clear intention of the law?

Clearly not the abstract "harms" asserted in the case, where by one plaintiff has a medical aliment that was acerbated by COVID and because of that MT did not due enough for climate change. Also the case was largely about individual "extreme weather" events that have no clear, direct link to MT pollution, and there is zero evidence to suggest that should MT suspend all their pollution today, right now, it would chang…

Where does it specify what you claim?

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#124

Post by undersuit »

asynchronous wrote: post #105
undersuit wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Montana can start at home. Our government recently approved Northwest Energy's purchase of a coal plant after Washington and Oregon companies divested because of climate policies from their home states.

And yet almost all of western Montana is still powered by clean hydropower. Why does the west love to rip ourselves to shreds over non-issues? Our enemies aren’t half as dedicated as we are.

What enemies? Oh enemies like fossil-fuel energy companies?

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#125

Post by shadowtree »

breakyerself wrote: post #28
shadowtree wrote: post #19

From a logical perspective, Montana now needs to declare war on China and India. The US' CO2 emissions have been falling for a long time, now at levels of the 1950s. Pritzker's nuclear ban also means Montana invading a fellow state.

The US is the #2 largest CO2 emitter and the largest overall historical emitter of CO2 so it would make more sense to declare on the US itself and China, then India if there's still powder left after that, but I don't imagine you're being anythinglre than facetious.

China in 2021 emitted 12,500 Mtons of CO2.

The US in 2021 emitted 4,700 Mtons of CO2.

The EU in 2021 emitted 2,700 Mtons of CO2.

China emitted nearly as much CO2 than the US and EU combined.

The US' CO2 output peaked in 2000, with 6000 Mtons, has been steadily declining ever since.

https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2022

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#126

Post by shadowtree »

undersuit wrote: post #84
shadowtree wrote: post #19

From a logical perspective, Montana now needs to declare war on China and India. The US' CO2 emissions have been falling for a long time, now at levels of the 1950s. Pritzker's nuclear ban also means Montana invading a fellow state.

Montana can start at home. Our government recently approved Northwest Energy's purchase of a coal plant after Washington and Oregon companies divested because of climate policies from their home states.

Montana has a population of 1.1 million people. Does not even make the size of a small Chinese city.

Nothing Montana does has a measurable effect on global climate change.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#127

Post by terminous »

saghm wrote: post #79
the_gastropod wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's crazy to me is how common this line of thinking was from way back. Thomas Jefferson was borderline obsessed with basically this same concept. There's a really excellent letter from Jefferson to Madison from 1789 describing the importance of usufruct. [1] My favorite chunk of this thing / the meat of the argument: > I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, ‘that the earth belongs in usufruc…

> I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident Reminds me of another famous quote from Jefferson. I wonder if describing things as "self-evident" was a personal favorite idiom of his or if it was just a common phrase back then. It seems like a fairly common phrase to me now, but it's hard to know if that's only because Jefferson popularized it.

From Walter Isaacson’s "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life":

On June 21, after he had finished a draft and incorporated some changes from Adams, Jefferson had a copy delivered to Franklin, with a cover note far more polite than editors generally receive today. "Will Doctor Franklin be so good as to peruse it," he wrote, "and suggest such alterations as his more enlarged view of the subject will dictate?"

Franklin made only a few small changes, but one of them was resounding. Using heavy backslashes, he crossed out the last three words of Jefferson’s phrase, "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" and changed it to read: "We hold these truths to be self-evident."

The concept of "self-evident" truths came less from Jefferson’s favored philosopher, Locke, than from the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of Franklin’s close friend David Hume. Hume had distinguished between "synthetic" truths that describe matters of fact (such as "London is bigger than Philadelphia" ) and "analytic" truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition. ("The angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees" or "All bachelors are unmarried." ) When he chose the word "sacred," Jefferson had suggested intentionally or unintentionally that the principle in question the equality of men and their endowment by their creator with inalienable rights was an assertion of religion. By changing it to "self-evident," Franklin made it an assertion of rationality.”

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#128

Post by toomuchtodo »

jacquesm wrote: post #63
stevenwoo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I post this a lot but it's a relevant but super long read/listen - Piketty at the end of a 45 hour long audiobook (Capital and Ideology with additional web resources - charts and data) concludes we cannot change our course ala the climate/economics without changing the national constitutions of all countries to incorporate some language like this to protect future generations from the current one, current property ow…

Yes, this is fairly obvious. The question is whether or not it will happen on a scale large enough to make a difference. These things are global in nature and you can't really solve global problems with local solutions, though you can create global problems with local activities. The level of coordination required is massive otherwise the hold-outs will be able to reap the advantages of not playing nice.

Lots of humans die every year, and lots age into voting globally, in various forms of government. Electorate turnover is inevitable. It won’t happen overnight, constant force will be required. Success is not assured, but the effort is probably better than “smoke if you’ve got ‘em.” Collectively, we keep going until we can’t.

You don’t have to get to the goal, only to tipping points that lock in the desired outcome.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#129

Post by estebarb »

jacquesm wrote: post #63
stevenwoo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I post this a lot but it's a relevant but super long read/listen - Piketty at the end of a 45 hour long audiobook (Capital and Ideology with additional web resources - charts and data) concludes we cannot change our course ala the climate/economics without changing the national constitutions of all countries to incorporate some language like this to protect future generations from the current one, current property ow…

Yes, this is fairly obvious. The question is whether or not it will happen on a scale large enough to make a difference. These things are global in nature and you can't really solve global problems with local solutions, though you can create global problems with local activities. The level of coordination required is massive otherwise the hold-outs will be able to reap the advantages of not playing nice.

Probably not. See Latin America: most governments recently elected are against environment preservation efforts, and most people seems very happy with their suicidal plans.

For example, in Costa Rica the government is reactivating bottom trawling (which apart from destroying ecosystems also releases a lot of CO2), looking to extract natural gas, canceled the electric train plans, increased the maximum lifespan of busses even more (so, more polluting decades old units for population)...

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#130

Post by triceratops »

phpisthebest wrote: post #53
triceratops wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a windmill can chop up whales the freaking largest mammal on the planet, I wouldn't dare stand in its way. Let us submit to our windmill overlords forthwith.

Sound... not chop up. The sound is the problem

Got it. So then you agree that we should start by banning luxury yachts, cruise ships, and fishing fleets? And then on to cutting offshore oil and gas drilling, or at least putting extremely strict sound limits on it.

Energy is crucial to our civilization, so cutting energy generation should be last on the list of priorities. If you really care about helping the whales, I'd suggest starting somewhere else first. Write your Congressperson to sponsor a bill eliminating all super yachts right now.

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