A Surge of Climate Lawsuits Targets Human Rights, Damage from Fossil Fuels

A climate denier is in the White House, pushing policies that will boost emissions. Congress is doing nothing to stop him. So citizens and local governments who are facing the impacts of rising seas, worsening heat waves and extreme weather are increasingly looking to the courts for help.

Rhode Island in 2018 became the first state to sue
the fossil fuel industry over climate change, citing the
growing risks from sea level rise and extreme weather.

The past year saw a surge in new lawsuits filed against fossil fuel companies, and major developments in cases pressing governments for action in the United States and abroad. And while the plaintiffs haven't secured any substantial victories in U.S. courts, they may be scoring a different victory by drawing attention to the inaction of Congress and the Executive Branch, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.

"Lawsuits, even if unsuccessful, can help shape public opinion," he said. "Mr. Scopes lost the monkey trial, but it led to a lot more awareness about the issue of teaching evolution.”

Read the Inside Climate News story by Nicholas Kusnetz - “A Surge of Climate Lawsuits Targets Human Rights, Damage from Fossil Fuels.”

Scott Pruitt’s EPA will wreck air quality, American Lung Association finds

The American Lung Association is taking the EPA and Congress to task for sidelining science and imperilling public health in the process.

 EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. 

The group's annual “State of the Air” report tends to be optimistic. Long a backer of the Clean Air Act, the group’s report last year praised regulators for allowing both economic growth alongside an improvement in air quality. But this year, things are a little different.

For one thing, the 2018 report, published Wednesday, singles out EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for his role in sidelining scientific research at the agency he helms, as well as specific members of Congress that have proposed legislation that would weaken the Clean Air Act.

Read Alex Lubben’s story from Vice News - “Scott Pruitt’s EPA will wreck air quality, American Lung Association finds.”

White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research, underscoring administration’s preference for fossil fuels

The Trump administration is poised to ask Congress for deep budget cuts to the Energy Department’s renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, slashing them by 72 percent overall in fiscal 2019, according to draft budget documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Filipinos ride energy efficient electric tricycles during
a test drive in TaguigCity, south of Manila, Philippines,
 in January this year. 

Many of the sharp cuts would probably be restored by Congress, but President Trump’s budget, due out in February, will mark a starting point for negotiations and offer a statement of intent and policy priorities.

The document underscores the administration’s continued focus on the exploitation of fossil fuel resources — or, as Trump put it in his State of the Union address, “beautiful clean coal” — over newer renewable technologies seen as a central solution to the problem of climate change.

Read The Washington Post story by Chris Mooney and Stephen Mufson - “White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research, underscoring administration’s preference for fossil fuels.”

How Much Does Climate Change Cost? Try $1.5 Trillion (and Counting)

The Trump administration, and its allies in Congress, are fighting a losing war. They continue to press forward for the development of oil, gas, and coal when the rest of the world understands the implication of that folly. Global warming is the most pressing issue for our time. Period.

The thing is governments really have two choices when it comes to managing the impact on its people from global warming: spend money on trying to reduce the problem or spend money on cleaning up the catastrophes.

Firefighters clear debris from a mudslide in Los Angeles,
California on January 9, 2018. The deadly rain storm claimed
 the lives of 13 people in Santa Barbara County. Flash
flooding also occurred in the recently burned areas
of Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

The Trump administration is on the hook for the catastrophe. A report released Monday by The National Centers for Environmental Information pegged the total cost this year at $1.5 trillion, including estimates for Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. (And that doesn’t even begin to count the human toll, lost lives, lost jobs, lost opportunity.)

I witnessed firsthand the impact of Hurricane Maria on the island of Dominica last month. We keep hearing stories about the power grid being down (similar to Puerto Rico) and you think, Why? It’s been months. Why aren’t the lights on? Then you see nearly every electrical pole on the island sideways. The entire grid needs to be rebuilt (or better, rethought) and that’s decades of infrastructure. So the figure of $1.5 trillion is far short of what will be needed. Nearly every electrical line, every other house, the damage was so widespread it’s impossible to overstate. And that’s just one island. Multiple the effect across the region. The planet.

Read Mark Trahant’s story on Yes! Magazine - “How Much Does Climate Change Cost? Try $1.5 Trillion (and Counting).”

EPA keeps US scientists from presenting climate report, agency accused of censorship

The US Environmental Protection Agency has kept three scientists from speaking at an event, in a move condemned by researchers and Democratic members of Congress as an attempt by the agency to silence a discussion of climate change.

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has rejected
 the scientific consensus on climate change.

The scientists were scheduled to discuss a report on the health of Narragansett Bay, New England's largest estuary, on Monday (local time).

Among the findings in the 500-page report is that climate change is affecting air and water temperatures, precipitation, sea level and fish.

The EPA did not explain why the scientists were told not to speak, but said in a statement that the agency supports the program that published the document with a $US600,000 annual grant. The EPA is the sole funder of the program.

Read the ABC News story - “EPA keeps US scientists from presenting climate report, agency accused of censorship.”

Science Nerd Hopes to Unseat Congress' Most Detested Science Denier

When Derrick Crowe moved back to Texas after working on Capitol Hill for six years, he thought that he was done with national politics.

Science nerd, Derrick Crowe, and climate
 change denier, Lamar Smith (right).

"Having worked on the Hill extensively, you get a pretty good idea what life is like if you're a member of Congress," says Crowe, who served as congressional staffer for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. Charlie Stenholm (D-TX), and Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA). "It's a difficult life, and it's difficult for your family."

Nevertheless, the 36-year-old native Texan and self-proclaimed "science nerd" now finds himself reentering the political stage, this time running for Congress himself in a climate-oriented campaign to unseat one of the most ardent climate change deniers in Washington, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX).

"Things have gone too far in this district and in this country for me to stand on the sidelines," says Crowe in a statement announcing his bid for Texas's 21st Congressional District—an area that includes parts of Austin, San Antonio, and a large swath of the Texas Hill Country. "We don't have much time to avoid truly catastrophic impacts by changing our behavior and energy use here in the United States," he says. "And Lamar Smith is blocking every single one of those efforts.”

Read the Mother Jones story - “Science Nerd Hopes to Unseat Congress' Most Detested Science Denier.”

Donald Trump and Climate Change: Top 10 Ways He Could Reverse Progress.

‘A Trump presidency is expected to try to overturn Barack Obama's global warming agenda, cancel the Paris climate agreement, approve Keystone XL pipeline, and more’

Donald Trump (left) and his vice
president, elect, Mike Pence.

Judging by the brief discussion of energy policy on Donald Trump's White House transition website, what he'd like to change about the Obama approach is everything.

Presented below are our expectations for Trump's Top Ten list—along with some evidence about how complicated it might be to achieve these objectives, even with a Congress led by Republicans.

Read The Inside Climate story - “Donald Trump and Climate Change: Top 10 Ways He Could Reverse Progress.”

The house science committee’s anti-science rampage

There has always been tension between
 scientists and Congress. But Lamar
Smith, the chairman of the House Committee
 on Science, Space, and Technology, has
 escalated that tension into outright war.

If you know the answers you want in advance, you can always find them by cherry-picking your data.

That’s what climate-change deniers have tried to do in recent years in arguing that there’s been a “pause” in the global-warming trend over the past two decades—suggesting, thereby, that global warming is just a temporary anomaly unrelated to human industrial activity. Last year, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put the “climate change hiatus” myth to bed. They published a paper in Science that showed, using new and more definitive data, that the claimed “pause” hadn’t taken place.

Not long after the paper was published, something odd happened. Kathryn Sullivan, the head of N.O.A.A., received a subpoena. It came from Lamar Smith, the Texas congressman who chairs the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and it demanded that the N.O.A.A. scientists turn over records and internal communications. They had already turned over their data in response to previous requests but refused to turn over scientists’ correspondence. In a statement, Smith accused the N.O.A.A. scientists of falsifying their data:

It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades. The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want. . . . NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda.

From climate change and evolution to sex education and vaccination, there has always been tension between scientists and Congress. But Smith, who has been in Congress since 1987 and assumed the chairmanship of the Science Committee in 2013, has escalated that tension into outright war. Smith has a background in American studies and law, not science. He has, however, received more than six hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions from the oil-and-gas industry during his time in Congress—more than from any other single industry. With a focus that is unprecedented, he’s now using his position to attack scientists and activists who work on climate change. Under his leadership, the committee has issued more subpoenas than it had during its previous fifty-four-year history.

Read the story by Lawrence M. Krauss in The New Yorker - “The house science committee’s anti-science rampage.”

Obama outlines case for ambtious climate action

“

Speaking to graduating cadets at the US Coast Guard Academy on Wednesday, President Obama once again outlined his administration's case for ambitious climate action.” Mother Jones reports.

At the heart of today's speech: the president's contention that global warming constitutes an immediate threat to America's national security and will cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars if left unchecked.

Obama took direct aim at climate change deniers in Congress. "Denying it—or refusing to deal with it—endangers our national security and undermines the readiness of our forces," he said. "Politicians who care about military readiness ought to care about this too."

Read the Mother Jones story - “Obama: Climate Deniers in Congress Are Undermining Our Troops”.

'Follow the money' tells the tale of doubtful climate researcher

“Follow the money” was among the earliest of advice given to understand what drove climate change deniers.

Little has changed and that adage is again proved through a story in the New York Times headed: “Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher”.

That story, by Justin Gillis and John Schwartz, tells how for years, politicians wanting to block legislation on climate change have bolstered their arguments by pointing to the work of a handful of scientists who claim that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity.

“One of the names they invoke most often is Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun’s energy can largely explain recent global warming.

“He has often appeared on conservative news programs, testified before Congress and in state capitals, and starred at conferences of people who deny the risks of global warming,” they write.

Forceful comments underlined with mockery by U.S. President

President Barack Obama made some of his most forceful comments to date about global warming in his 2015 State of the Union address.

The U.S. president mocked the Republican reluctance to acknowledge man-made climate change and warning Congress against attacking his efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama spoke about climate change late in the 63-minute long speech. But his rhetoric was blunt. "No challenge — no challenge — poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change," he said. "That's why, over the past six years, we've done more than ever before to combat climate change, from the way we produce energy, to the way we use it...And that's why I will not let this Congress endanger the health of our children by turning back the clock on our efforts."

Inside Climate News writes about President Obama in a story headed: “A Defiant Obama Asserts Climate Agenda With Firmness and Mockery”.