Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: It’s mutually assured destruction time thanks to the advocates of Mother Earth…
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
How dare you say that your rights are greater than some patch of dirt!
“How radical has the U.N. become? This radical. Volker Türk, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated in a recent speech at Oxford University that nature rights are equivalent to human rights.
“…
“ Granting rights to nature would destroy all that he claims to want to accomplish for suffering humanity. Freedom requires prosperity. Instituting sterling environmental practices depends on economic thriving. Eradicating destitution in the world will necessitate responsible but vigorous exploitation of natural resources — the very practices that nature rights radicals seek to impede.”
Remember when National Geographic was about showing wildlife, provided spiffy maps, and showing tribal tiddies? Not anymore!
“Today, the National Geographic Society, in collaboration with The Alfred Kobacker and Elizabeth Trimbach Fund, are proud to announce For Nature. Announcement of the new program comes in anticipation of the celebration of the International Day for Biological Diversity, May 22). For Nature will support National Geographic Explorer Callie Veelenturf’s vision to advance the Rights of Nature movement and provide funding for ten Explorer projects to advance this work.
“The Rights of Nature movement seeks to bring rights-based legal protection to threatened and endangered species and habitats. Under the newly-launched For Nature program, this movement will be further catalyzed and expanded with the help of the Society’s global community of researchers and conservationists, storytelling and education expertise, technology and communications support and elevation opportunities to drive the impact of this work and grow the movement for species and habitat protections.”
When in doubt, scream “murder”, even if the homicide victim is “nature”…
“There is a huge difference between a society under the rule of law and a society under the rule of lawyers. The rule of law treats law as a product of legitimate, deliberate democratic acts, which remains stable, predictable, written down for all to know until changed by another such act of the people. As George Washington described in his farewell address, ‘The Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.’ The rule of lawyers, by contrast, sees law as an invitation for creativity by a small coterie of legal elites who can make it the vanguard for social change without consulting the governed.
“At times, this can seem like an elaborate prank. But even when the theories are so preposterous as to deserve mockery, it’s no laughing matter. So it is with the drive to make ‘climate homicide’ a thing in the courts without it ever passing legislatures. So it is with a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in state court in Seattle blaming the death of a Washington woman in a non-air-conditioned car during a 2021 heat wave on five oil companies (Exxon Mobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, and ConocoPhillips) on the theory that they have been ‘altering the Earth’s atmosphere.’ The complaint adds one pipeline company (Olympic Pipeline, a BP subsidiary) that is based in Renton, Wash., apparently for the sole purpose of preventing the case from being removed to federal court on grounds of diversity of citizenship. The complaint’s allegations say nothing else about the conduct of the pipeline company, so one would expect that the rest of the defendants will argue that Olympic was improperly added to the case and that the case really ought to be removed to federal court.
“Forum-shopping shenanigans aside, the theory of the case is ridiculous. The model is lawsuits against the cigarette companies, but individuals smoke cigarettes sold by particular companies. The theory here is that the fossil fuel companies have injured everyone in the entire world now and in the future by means of any business operations with any customers, with the chain of causation running through the atmosphere and climate of the entire planet. Fundamental to the law — to the point that the Supreme Court was drawing on it as an analogy as recently as four days ago in refusing to trace environmental impacts beyond the first step — is the concept of proximate causation of injury, which limits how many intervening steps can be traced before deciding that the plaintiff’s injuries are not the legal responsibility of the defendant. As the Supreme Court has often reiterated in rejecting creative and ambitious efforts to show proximate cause, ‘the general tendency of the law, in regard to damages at least, is not to go beyond the first step.’
“Nothing in the history of Anglo-American law allows a chain of causation this attenuated to masquerade as proximate causation of particular injuries. It’s an insult to the memory of Rube Goldberg. The complaint asserts that these oil companies’ “willful and deceitful campaign has influenced the public’s purchasing and investment decisions for decades, driving increased demand for fossil fuels,” and “has also reduced demand for and investment in clean energy, thereby delaying the clean energy transition.” That’s a lot of intervening decisions by other people, companies, governments, and electorates. These oil companies are big, but are they big enough by themselves to change the climate of the entire planet? Are they, and not the end users of their products, responsible for emissions by end users’ cars, trucks, and factories? The complaint asserts claims for wrongful death, public nuisance, and products liability under Washington State law. The theory of product liability — which blames the makers of fuel for everything powered by that fuel — is that ‘these products have never been safe because their intended use or foreseeable misuse creates a risk of catastrophic harm to the climate and humankind.’”
TTFN.
