ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL BLOGS

SUPREME COURT ISSUES LANDMARK SUPERFUND DECISION

  Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. et al. v. United States, issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 4, 2009, makes 2 landmark changes (or at least clarifications) in Superfund jurisprudence:

    First, for someone to be liable as an "arranger" under the law, that person must have an "intent" to dispose of the hazardous substance at issue; and,

    Second, while Superfund liability is presumed to be joint and several, a Responsible Party can defeat joint and serveral liability if that party can show there is a "reasonable basis" to apportion liability (i.e., to make liability only several).

    The Court's Slip Opinion opinion is at the link above.

    From today's Washington Times

Carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels recorded their largest drop in 19 years last year, the federal government's chief clearinghouse for energy information reported, adding new fodder to the debate in Congress about how -- or whether -- to reduce greenhouse gases.

   

SATELLITE TRACKING SHOWS ARCTIC ICE AT 7-YEAR HIGH

    From the IARC-JAXA Information System website:

    "The IARC-JAXA Information System (IJIS) is a geoinformatics facility for satellite image analysis and computational modeling/visualization in support of international collaboration in Arctic and global change research at the International Arctic Research Center in corporation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)."

The website's graph of the Arctic ice extent shows that 2009 represents a 7-year high in such extent.  To see this graph, go to this page.  

 

HOW CAN WE RELY ON THESE PREDICTIONS?

    The Associated Press  reports today on a recalculation by the University of Bristol (Great Britain) of the sea-level rise from a warmer planet.

     Just a couple of years ago, you will recall, global-warming gurus confidently predicted that the Earth's seas would rise 16-19 feet because of melting ice.  Now, however, University researchers have concluded that

the entire [Antarctic ice] sheet would not collapse, with parts of it remaining grounded on the continent. Thus, they said, sea level rise would be only about 3 meters, or just under 10 feet.

     So, in just a few short years the consensus prediction of a nearly 20-foot rise in sea levels has been nearly halved.  Moreover, per the Bristol study, the 10-foot rise will take 500 years to occur.

     So, the government (more accurately, opportunistic politicians), big business (have you noticed all the "green" commercials on TV lately?) and the more extreme environmentalists are asking us to curb our lifestyles based on unreliable forecasts of doom and gloom.  Even accepting the Bristol study as accurate (in a couple of ore years, will there be yet another revision?), to avoid a 10-foot ocean rise over 500 years should we all be plunged into an even deeper recession, or even a depression, now through such nutty schemes as California's AB 32 or the federal government's brilliant decision to declare carbon dioxide (i.e., the breath we exhale and that plants need to breathe) a "pollutant"?

     The clarions of doom and gloom about global warming will eventually be recorded by history as climate ideologues, not as rational thinkers.  Indeed, even now, have you noticed how many of these ideologues are changing their warnings from ones about "global warming" to warnings about "climate change"? 

     Since human intervention totally aside, the climate has been,is and always will be, "changing", these claims can never be disproved.  Thus, belief in "climate change" is more like a religion than a scientific movement; if we are going to make public policy based on this new religion, let's at least admit that we are doing so.