Grandstanding lawyers want to save the planet. Who will save the planet from grandstanding lawyers?
Eight states and New York City have sued five US power companies in an action seeking cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide.
Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal, quoted by the Associated Press, said the aim is to "save our planet from disastrous consequences that are building year by year and will be more costly to prevent and stop if we wait."
Wrong assumptions. Wrong response. Wrong branch of government.
The lawsuit complains that the companies contribute to global warming by burning fossil fuel in power generators.
Yes, the generators emit CO2 one of the gases that hold reflected heat in the atmosphere. But the emissions don't represent "disastrous consequences" from which the planet needs saving.
Plaintiffs will adopt the alarmist argument that a build-up of CO2 causes observed warming in a trend likely to be catastrophic. They might fool a jury with this line of reasoning—or a judge who knows more about law than science.
In fact, the CO2 build-up of the Industrial Age is poorly correlated with change in measured temperature. And the mechanics of whatever relationship may exist are poorly understood.
Alarmists argue that the CO2-temperature relationship is linear and scientifically accepted. They've frightened many people into accepting this view. They're wrong.
The climate, scientists agree, has many benign ways to adapt to changes in atmospheric chemistry. The planet has many reasons other than a CO2 build-up to warm and cool. The probability that catastrophic warming, the kind that fills alarmist propaganda, will result from change to one variable among many is minuscule.
The question is whether that tiny probability, clouded as it is by uncertainty, warrants an urgent and costly political response. Scientists disagree about the answer. Plaintiffs in the power-company lawsuit are trying to force an essentially political question into the branch of government least suited to deal with it.
A legal system already contorted by aggressive tort litigation doesn't need the abuse.
Humanity has more to fear from predatory lawsuits founded in misrepresented science than it has from global warming.
(Online July 23, 2004; author's e-mail: [email protected])
