In Bush Jr years, the EPA had to be taken to court to even accept that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are pollutants, meaning they have to be regulated.
The only other law I can think of would be reckless endangerment, hopefully somebody here can explain why it wouldn't apply.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...
There are many Hondas out there running around with chrome plastic ULEV labels riveted to the car. ULEV is Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle, and in this circumstance "Emissions" refers to NMOG or "Non-Methane Organic Gas" which does not include CO2. I have anecdotally encountered many people who assume ULEV means "Doesn't Pollute As Much", and that is true.
In my state, when you get a smog-check or emissions inspection, the gasses the state measures to issue the sticker are known as "Emission Gasses" in the regulatory literature used in the state DOT approved inspection technician licensing training. CO2 (along with oxygen) is classified as a "Diagnostic Gas" and is not considered for this purpose as a tailpipe emission.
Many customers of the DOT inspections wrongly assume the emissions reduce CO2 or "Global Warming" when its really just reducing smog, cancer, asthma, acid rain, etc
Of course the tested emissions gasses such as oxides of nitrogen are quite harmful, and anyone affected by them will be unhappy, no effort at all has been expended to educate the public wrt CO2.
Most people assume their cars cause less "Bad Stuff" from the tailpipe laws and ULEV standards and catalytic converters and advanced chemicals. Their idea of that Bad Stuff usually includes CO2, but this is not the case. Hydrocarbons neccesarilly oxidize into CO2, H20, and other byproducts.
My memory certainly doesn't stretch back to the 1970's introduction of EGR Valves, but the rage that acid rain, ozone, smog caused back then got us into really good shape in a lot of ways regarding NOX. 60s and 70s Americans still have ulcer inducing rage about the diesel stink and headaches anytime they get near 'em.
In Europe, if I am not mistaken, the tax paid on displacement is in part due to the shorthand way of attributing more displacement=more co2, plus the heavy fuel tax. The result is that the euros put-put along behind some very, very efficient power plants, while in the USA the marketing had everyone demanding v6 gasoline minivans and dumpy pickup trucks.
Lot of people just get off on burning the stuff too, they like the fuel smell from the tailpipe.
By the mid 1990's, while every garage monkey was bitching about having to use a computer to fix the cars, vehicles finally started to actually get good.
But what blew my mind a little bit was learning about the Plymouth Scamp (Dodge Rampage) https://www.allpar.com/omni/rampage/scamp-rampage.html
These babies have about the power of a Mercedes-Benz inline5 240D but gas, mind blowing post-fuel rationing MPG and with a truck bed! Probably way better from a stop than the nowadays-too-dangerous-to-drive Mercedes 240D too, I couldn't say having never driven a Scamp. The oldest and easily most skilled mechanic I've ever known had a Scamp as his main daily driver until it finally rusted away less than a decade ago, and he sure loved it.
Sorry to pointlessly ramble, love this subject.
It's time for the US to realize they are much richer than most other countries. They should show the world they are willing to make real sacrifices. Otherwise we will see the tragedy of the commons play out on a global scale.
We have modern nuclear technology today, we should just elect to use it.
Nuclear may be preferable to coal but (IMO) not to large scale development of solar, wind, and higher efficiency grids.
It will be hard for Americans to stay at home some vacations, to build denser cities, drive smaller vehicles and eat less meat. Those are sacrifices that will not hurt the economy !!
How long would it take to build out nuclear "with no sacrifice necessary"?
Less time than it will take to finish this lawsuit.
In the 1970s, Sweden built reactors in 5-7 years. In current decade, China has built reactors in 5-7 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Sweden#List_o...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China
If we just stopped using oil millions if not billions of people would die from malnutrition in a far shorter timeframe than global warming is going to cause.
The world did fine without tonnes of plastics for quite a bit of time. Yea, it would require rethinking industrial civilization (unclear it would survive), but we need to stop weaning ourselves off this toxic asset ASAP and as quickly as possible.
In contrast, the oil and gas companies are going to spend $5 TRILLION over the next 10 years to develop NEW oil and gas reserves, and expect to grow their markets, sales and obviously, emissions.
A bit tougher for people to live without food.
These types of laws tend to be much more pervasive than "blue sky laws" that enable securities fraud cases.
There was a Supreme Court ruling about a decade ago that under federal law (specifically the Clean Air Act), it is solely the job of the EPA to regulate energy companies in most aspects related to the environment.
That ruling does not cover state tort laws or state securities fraud laws. It's been a tactic by the fossil fuel industry to move nuisance cases to federal courts, but in many recent rulings, most of the federal courts have been throwing them back to state courts in jurisdictional rulings.
The Supreme Court just a few days ago declined to hear a number of cases related to nuisance suits, which threw them back to state courts: https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy...
A number of other nuisance suits are about to be filed soon, most notably by Washington DC and Honolulu. There may be a very large number of these lawsuits in the future, whether it be by cities, counties, or states.
The MA and NY lawsuits are grandstanding and scapegoating.
Or here's a good one. They claim that Exxon has been misleading people by claiming to be clean whilst massively expanding their fossil fuel production. There's a nice relevant quote in the 1982 internal report: "Mitigation of the "greenhouse effect" would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion. Shifting between fossil fuels is not a feasible alternative" Sounds pretty damning, right? Not quite. It continues: "Shifting between fossil fuels is not a feasible alternative because of limited long-term supply availability for certain fuels although oil does produee about 18% less carbon dioxide per Btu of heat released than coal, and gas about 32% less than oil". Which implies increasing available gas reserves via fracking would be highly useful, and sure enough Exxon have invested lots of money in this and touted the environmental benefits of doing so.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-ene...
Also the SCOTUS effectively sent a number of these cases back to state courts this week, solving any jurisdictional issues for now. Of course, the newest wave of these cases are still very new (and more are likely coming soon) and have yet to be litigated outside of jurisdictional issues.
That's quite funny when you think about the costs we will incur if we don't get a handle on this. Most people really do think in the short term.
If somebody cold-called me and asked me if I would be willing to give them $10 to stop climate change, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves... but that would have nothing to do with my opinions on climate change. Rather it would be my aversion telephone scams, as well as skepticism that whatever organization I was talking to was actually able to efficiently use my $10 for what they claimed. If I gave $10 to every organization that claimed they could solve a serious problem, I'd be broke and I wager not one of those problems would be solved.
So it's going to be _hard_ to argue that more informed customers or shareholders would have made different choices, particularly in the absence of severe negative consequences so far.
Even if society later discovers that it made a mistake when making it legal.
We have an excellent precedence in terms of big tobacco and the lies and disinformation they fed the public about the link between lung cancer and smoking.
For instance, it is legal to sell a drug that is FDA-approved. But suppose:
- It transpires years later that the FDA approval was based in part on the pharma company suppressing unfavourable clinical trial results.
- The pharma company claims the FDA was aware (in some sense) of those suppressed studies, and still approved the drug.
- A patient dies from adverse reactions observed in one of the suppressed studies. The patient's family is advised to litigate.
Who is liable for what here?
They are not asking me about all those 9/11 fees when i air travel. Why are they worried to take that climate change fee? I dont get it.
Because when you raise prices on people’s method of transportation significantly, they protest, a lot. Politicians don’t want to be voted out.
Airplane flights are often paid for by companies and aren’t a typical part of most people’s day-to-day life.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...
This seems to my non lawyer eyes to sound more like "Hey you lied to the investors who wouldn't otherwise have bought your securities". Which is also a thing, but seemingly a bit convoluted.