Activists are reeling from a bombshell court decision earlier this week when a federal judge dismissed two cities’ lawsuits seeking damages from oil and gas companies for the effects of climate change.
But in its haste to counter the impact of the judge’s ruling, a key player in the climate litigation campaign admitted that they want to use the courts as a policymaker.
In a blog post the day after Judge William Alsup’s ruling, Kathy Mulvey from the Union of Concerned Scientists complained that the judge “deferred to legislative- and executive-branch solutions” to climate change.
She went on to list the amount of money spent by certain oil and gas companies and their trade associations on lobbying – activities that are not only legal but fully protected by the First Amendment.
Mulvey also tabulated profits for several large oil and gas companies, which of course is entirely irrelevant in court. The judge was tasked with determining whether a handful of companies can be held liable under the law for the future impacts of global climate change.
Could you imagine a federal judge ruling that companies’ treatment under the law was contingent upon what their net revenues were? That sounds more like Venezuela (or maybe Ecuador) than the United States.
But the truly revelatory moment in the UCS post is under the subheader: “Fossil fuel companies exercise undue political influence to block policy solutions.” Mulvey writes:
“Thus, the judge’s conclusion that climate change is a matter for the legislature and the executive branch is a Catch-22 that makes my brain hurt. Yes, Congress and the White House should take decisive action to curb climate change, but the fossil fuel industry has pulled out all the stops in an effort to block strong federal policies. The industry has friends in high places in the Trump administration: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, to name just a few. Just this week, Buzzfeed broke the news that Pruitt urged fossil fuel executives to apply for EPA regional administrator positions.
“The defendant companies are not just responding to consumer demand. They do what they can to fix the market through undue political influence, which has forestalled the development and availability of renewable energy. And the duty of the legislative and executive branches to act does not absolve the judicial branch of responsibility.” (emphasis added)
UCS is admitting that Congress and the White House have not enacted the policies they want, and they amazingly believe that lack of action somehow grants the judiciary not only the authority but the “responsibility” to take action itself.
This is, of course, completely absurd.
The role of the judiciary is to interpret the law, which is what Judge Alsup did. The power to pass legislation – including any potential carbon tax or other climate policy – rests with Congress, although the executive branch has exerted a certain degree of authority there through agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Even then, EPA’s authority is derived from a broad delegation of power granted to the agency by congressional action, such as the Clean Air Act.
UCS and other supporters of the climate litigation campaign are upset that neither Congress nor the EPA has imposed their draconian, anti-energy policies. They blame this on lobbying from fossil fuel companies, which is not only dubious but also has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of Judge Alsup’s decision.
From the very beginning of this climate liability campaign, experts have worried that activists were trying to suppress free speech and are suing companies over their disagreement on climate policy.
Activists deny these allegations, but UCS may have just done more to confirm them than anyone yet. In doing so, UCS has ironically provided justification for Judge Alsup’s decision.
Read more at EID Climate
The Union of Concerned Scientists are a totaly political action group of Fake Scientists like Bill Nye David Suzuki or what ever kind of Crack-Pots that comes out with some idiotic study connecting Hose water and Childhood Cancer
I think they prefer not having scientists because a scientist might question the science involved with what they are trying to sell.
Mulvey has admitted trying to use judicial legislation. That is where polices that can’t make it through the legislative and executive branches of government, usually because they shouldn’t, are implemented by court orders. This by passes democracy. However, it is pretty clear that environmental activists don’t believe in democracy. Maurice Strong, the father of the IPCC, actually stated that democracy needed to be modified.
It is very common for liberals to accuse others of the very thing they are doing. She complained about the lobbying of the energy industry. What about the lobbying of the environmental organizations? What about the climate change advocacy campaign by NOAA that is totally funded by tax payers?
I’ll never know why but around 1983 I received a great deal of mail from the Union of Concerned Scientists trying to get me to join. The literature said that you don’t have to be a scientist to join. They have now had that policy for 35 years and it sure shows.
On another matter, William Masters had an excellent comment that should be its own article.
Judges don’t want any part of the climate shit show for good reason . Aiding and abetting the world’s largest con – job doesn’t look good on anyone’s resume .
Pass it back to the politicians who are responsible for giving the climate con artists room to rob tax payers of $trillions and cause tens of thousands of premature fuel poverty deaths each year .
THE STEFAN-BOLTZMANN LAW,
THE CONUNDRUM OF GREENHOUSE GAS WARMING.
FRANKLIN’S SPOKES
In the Spring of 1976 Astronomer, Fred Franklin at the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge Massachusetts saw something everyone would say was impossible. In the nine-inch refractor telescope he was observing Saturn with, he saw that Saturn’s B ring had radiating spokes running outward in them, more important they didn’t change!
We know that the inner ring travels faster than the outer ring so they should shear apart gradually stretching out and then disappearing, but they didn’t. One would think that a discovered oddity, totally at odds with physical laws, would get some notice, but every journal turned down Franklin’s papers. Even more astounding was the fact that not one fellow astronomer turned their telescope to see if they were actually there. They criticized but they never checked. Every astronomer and institution on the planet Earth chose to be ignorant of the truth. They could have seen them but they chose to not look.
In 1980 however, NASA did look, but not by design. Voyager 2 had finally reached Saturn and began taking its photos, and in those pictures were Franklin’s spokes. The impossible was real, everyone in Astronomy was wrong.
But Why? Why didn’t someone look at Saturn?
How is it possible that a planet of Astronomers did not look at Saturn?
Many people afflicted with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), share a common trait, they hold fast to repetitive behaviors. Like Dustin Hoffman’s character “Raymond” in the movie RAIN MAN, they must repeat certain behaviors. This is probably a coping mechanism that gives the Autistic person some comfort and stability in a world they cannot adequately understand. We know it is a coping mechanism in normal people who do it, and everyone does it. Yes, we the normal have similar behaviors to the Autistic, in science we call it Dogma!
Science is filled with Dogmas and the people who hold to them and hold tight to them they must. Even when they do look they won’t believe. They come up with incredible explanations to refuse the truth.
The Earth is the Center of the Universe.
The Planets travel on crystal spheres that form perfect circles.
God doesn’t play dice with the Universe.
The Photon, Higgs, and Neutrino have no mass. (Okay so we’ve only found the Higgs and Neutrino mass, but really the math was proven wrong two of three times, you really think it will be right about the Photon?)
Saturn can’t have stable spokes.
Max Planck said:
“Old Scientists hold to old ideas. Science advances one funeral at a time.”
MY GOLDEN TIME
There was a time, years ago, when if you put my name into a Google search I came up first. No Sex researcher, no economist, my papers came up first:
INERTIA AS A CHANGE IN ENERGETIC STATES, AND ITS EFFECT ON THE TWIN PARADOX,
and;
STRETCHED AND NEAR-ZERO SPACETIME, A NEW MODEL OF GRAVITATION AND BLACKHOLE DYNAMICS.
Everyone was reading my papers and why shouldn’t they have? I explained the cause of Inertia, and that it caused the Time Dilation that allowed the twin to age much slower than his twin on Earth. Warped Space didn’t do it, Mass Energy Equivalence did.
I explained why Black Holes went BANG!!. Why the Universe was expanding at an accelerating rate of speed. And I did it by tossing Warped Space-time onto the trash heap of science. That’s right, no Relativity!!! It was big news, and so simple a model, no convoluted math like in Relativity Theory. Easy to understand and so simple people kicked themselves for not thinking of applying the Law of Diminishing Returns to Black Holes before I did.
But then I started to write papers, like this one, that pointed to the impossibility of man-made greenhouse gas warming of the Earth. My papers were quickly blacklisted and taken down. The Autistic by choice crowd was not amused with the Truth.
And this is the Truth.
THE STEFAN-BOLTZMAN LAW
By the close of the 19th Century, Science had correctly concluded that all matter warmed above absolute zero degrees Kelvin would radiate some thermal radiation in the infrared bands, but a formula to allow us to calculate how much thermal energy was being radiated was needed. In 1879, Austrian physicist Josef Stefan provide it. He created the constant known today as the “Stefan Constant” represented by the Algebraic symbol Sigma.
Incorporating Stefan’s work with that of Ludwig Boltzmann we get the Stefan-Boltzmann formula. Which tells us that the radiant energy (in joules), given off by a Black Body, is equal to Sigma (Stefan’s constant), times the Absolute Temperature of the mass taken to its forth power: T x T x T x T = T4
Or to quote NASA in paragraph 7 of this web page:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page6.php
“Why doesn’t the natural greenhouse effect cause a runaway increase in surface temperature?
Remember that the amount of the energy a surface radiates always increases faster than its temperature rises — outgoing energy increases with the fourth power of temperature. As solar heating and “back radiation” from the atmosphere raises the surface temperature, the surface simultaneously releases an increasing amount of heat–equivalent to about 117 percent of incoming solar energy. The net upward heat flow then, is equivalent to 17 percent of incoming sunlight (117 percent up minus 100 percent down).”
This rule also holds for a DROP in surface temperature. The amount of energy a surface radiates always decreases faster than its temperature decreases, at a rate equal to the fourth power of the drop in absolute temperature.
How does this apply to the Greenhouse Effect (GHE) you ask?
It is the Greenhouse Effect.
THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT
The GHE is powered by the radiation given off by the Earth’s surface. The Greenhouse gases (GHGs) and water vapor at the bottom of the atmosphere absorb some of this outgoing heat and sends it back down to the surface, currently adding just over 61 watts per meter square of energy to the incoming Sun heat.
If you increase the CO2 in the air enough to reduce the incoming sun heat by 1%, then the earth being 1% cooler will radiate off 4% less heat. As the earth’s atmosphere absorbs 1% more incoming sun heat, it will also absorb 1% more outgoing earth emitted heat. With 4% less heat being sent out by the earth that leaves a 3% net decrease in the greenhouse effect. With a 2%, drop in earth temperature due to greater CO2 blockage of incoming sun heat, the heat emitted by the Earth’s surface will fall by 8%. Meaning the GHE will fall by -6%. The earth’s atmosphere keeps in 2% more earth emitted heat, but there is 8% less heat being given off by the planet so (-8%. + 2% = -6%).
In order to increase the GHE, you must increase the amount of heat given off by the Earth. More Earth emitted heat will cause more heat to be reflected back to the earth. While less heat given off by the Earth’s surface will lead to less heat being reflected back at the Earth.
How does this prove that GHG warming via increased amounts of carbon dioxide is impossible?
THE TOP OF THE ATMOSPHERE REFLECTS HEAT OUT
The GHGs and water vapor at the bottom of the atmosphere reflect back at the Earth, but the GHG and Water vapor at the top and mid levels of the Earth’s atmosphere primarily reflect incoming Solar radiation back out into space! As NASA states at its web site on Infrared Astronomy at this addy:
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/ir_tutorial/irwindows.html
“Most of the infrared light coming to us from the Universe is absorbed by water vapor and carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Just over 62% of the Sun’s heat never makes it to the surface of the Earth. It is absorbed in the atmosphere and sent back out into space, and that is good for us. The Moon has no atmosphere to absorb the Sun’s radiation and its average daytime temperature is 223 degrees Fahrenheit! Hot enough to boil water.
If we increase the amount of GHGs and or water vapor in the atmosphere, that means that more incoming Solar Infrared radiation will be absorbed and reflected back out into space, cooling the Earth.
NASA provides a chart showing the amount and type of Solar radiation that is being blocked at the above web site too.
Looking at that NASA chart showing the opacity of the Earth’s atmosphere, you can see on the far left 100% of the Gamma and X-Rays are blocked out. 70% of the UV is blocked out. between 6% and 11% of the visible light is blocked out. Over 62% of the Near-IR is blocked out, while only 20% of the Mid-IR (10 micrometers or 10-micron range IR radiation) is blocked out. Almost all the Far-IR is blocked out. Additionally, most of the Microwave energy is blocked out as well as the Low Radio waves energy. Only the AM and FM bands of Radio wave energy make it all the way to the Earth’s surface without blockage.
However, this chart is based upon current levels of trace gases and water vapor in the atmosphere. Increase the levels of these trace gases, or water vapor and they will block out more of the radiation that currently makes it to the surface of the Earth cooling the Earth.
Let’s do the math, shall we?
Here is a website with a free to use Stefan-Boltzmann calculator:
http://calculator.tutorvista.com/stefan-Boltzmann-law-calculator.html
You’ll be able to run your own tests to see how much less or more heat you get when you change the absolute temperature of the Earth’s surface.
Let’s start with a temperature of 100 degrees Kelvin, an emissivity of 0.5 and an area of 1 square meter. Put an “x” in the “Radiation Energy” box.
At this temperature, the calculator tells us that a 1 square meter of the earth will emit 2.835watts of energy.
Now let’s reduce the temperature 1% which is 1 degree K.
At 99 K we only get 2.72328968835 watts of energy being emitted, 4% less energy is radiating out with only a 1% drop in absolute temperature.
Now lets try a 2% drop, using 98 degrees Kelvin.
Now the radiated energy had dropped to only 2.6149137336, 8% less energy with only a 2% drop in the absolute temperature.
A 3% drop gives us only 2.50980511635!!!
As NASA says, the radiant energy will always fall or rise faster than the temperature change. Meaning even though the increase in CO2 will lead to a slight increase in the insulating value of the Earth’s atmosphere towards outgoing radiation as well, the drop in radiated energy off the Earth’s surface will always be greater, leading to a decrease in the GHE, not arise. A rise in the GHE is impossible unless you can increase the temperature of the Earth.
Not only will more CO2 lead to less IR photons reaching the Earth, but the GHE will also fall reducing the Earth’s surface temperature twice!
1. Less incoming sun heat, and:
2. Less backscatter radiation from the Earth’s lower atmosphere.
Now that you know of the Stefan-Boltzmann Law and have a calculator to do the math, look it up, don’t take my word for it, verify everything I’ve said.
Don’t refuse to turn your telescope towards Saturn.
Read about the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, Wikipaedia has a very nice explanation for the layperson. Here is a video on YOUTUBE.com that a layperson will understand:
So, Kathy Mulvey of the Union of Concerned Scientists isn’t a scientist at all. In fact she’s got a BA in English and French but apparently knows enough about climate change to try to force us to give up fossil fuels which drove the vast improvements of our lives over the last century-plus.
The facts that many leading Eco-Wacko groups are sending in their lies about Climate Change wheather it be NRDC,Greenpeace The Nature Conservancy Etc their spewing out their Malarkey in a flood of Lies
it’s always been about politics. The climate change agenda drivers have NEVER had science on their side. It’s an agenda of manipulated data installed into faulty, unreliable models that can’t accurately tell us what the weather is going to be next week, much less in 100 years.
There are judges that would take the steps they desire but there will always be at least one that would realize what the law allows and stop them in their tracks. These people should be able to derive enough lobbying capital if what they are pushing is accurate and true. Otherwise, they should accept the political reality. The planet’s climate will always be changing, even after all humans are gone.