2021-11-17

Lust for suing

PXL_20211117_194725826 That nice SR is lusting after a bit more suing. Because the existing suing has gone so well, presumbably. The source of this optimism is the ever-reliable WaPo, Drowning nations disappointed with the outcome of U.N. climate summit may have one move left: Lawsuits. Just to make it clear from the outset how hopeless all this is, the article begins: For the Chagossians, the island of Diego Garcia became a paradise lost. In the late 1960s, Britain began forcibly removing the inhabitants of the Indian Ocean atoll — most of them the descendants of enslaved people and laborers — to make way for a U.S. military base. Suing for restitution to this day, the expelled Chagossians would suffer lives as second-class citizens far from their impossibly turquoise shores. I'm not sure Our Hero has actually relised what he is saying here, but I'll make it explicit: if you can't get restitution for obvious clear direct and undisputed harm, what hope GW?

Just to make it clear that Our Hero really isn't thinking, he continues This much we do know: Sea level rise within the next century could submerge entire Pacific nations... Tuvalu, midway between Hawaii and Australia, has an average land elevation of 6 feet 6 inches above mean sea level, with the water rising at almost 0.2 inches each year. Do the math, and those apocalyptic predictions seem conservative. "Do the math" appears to be shorthand for "please do not do the math", or possibly "I'm a Journalist and Thinker, I can't  number": because 0.2 inches a year is 2 inches a decade is two feet in 120 years.

Meh. The article is non-serious. It fails to actually explore the possible suing options in any kind of depth, for the obvious reason that the author really doesn't know anything other than what he reads in the meeja, which is worthless. Still, it is saying the kind of things that SR wants to hear ("sue the bastards") so gets pushed anyway.

Other stupid ideas

However, Stupid Idea Of The Day goes to Peter Kalmus for "If a genie appeared and said "I can make all fossil fuel and FF infrastructure disappear if you choose" I'd say yes, even knowing the chaos it would sadly cause. Because it would still be far less than the irreversible damage and chaos we're heading toward". Even DmcN is capable of realising this is unhelpful, even if he isn't brave enough to say the obvious: it is fuckwitted. If all FF infrastrucutre disappeared, we would all die. Because civilisation would collapse. PK has other dumb ideas that SR is dumb enough to like.

RS makes a good effort with To Fight Climate Change, Los Angeles Bans Unsolicited Ketchup Packets but can't beat PK.

Biden is also a rich source of stupidity.

Refs

Climate change: Conspiracy theories found on foreign-language Wikipedia.

Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.

Activists take court action against Boris Johnson over climate crisis - yet more shite, this time in the UK from the Graun.

* The Economist on the growth of government by Alberto Mingardi

4 comments:

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

According to Willis Eschenbach, the inundation of atolls is not the fault not of Indopacific fossil fuel exporters , but parrot fish poachers:

"The first and most important fact, discovered by none other than Charles Darwin, is that coral atolls essentially "float" on the surface of the sea… The problems in the low-lying atolls are not from rising sea levels.

They are from coral mining and reef destruction… and killing of the parrotfish that produce the sand required to keep the atolls afloat ... "

https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2021/11/covid-authority-blames-sea-level-rise.html

William M. Connolley said...

I'm not sure I'd trust WE on this or anything else. Yes atolls move up (and down?) cos I remember that from Darwin, but I'm doubtful about the time scale.

Tom said...

Did you actually use the word 'nice' in conjunction with Steven Rahmstorff?

He may be a brilliant scientist. He is not nice.

William M. Connolley said...

Ah, I said "that nice", not "nice", there's a subtle difference that affects the meaning for me if not for anyone else.