Democratic AGs team up to prosecute global warming skeptics
Fascists: Democratic attorney generals from 16 states announced today that they plan on investigating and prosecuting companies for fraud if they dare express any skepticism about global warming.
“The bottom line is simple: Climate change is real; it is a threat to all the people we represent,” [New York Attorney General Eric] Schneiderman said. “If there are companies, whether they’re utilities, whether they’re fossil fuel companies, committing fraud in an effort to maximize their short-term profits at the expense of the people we represent, we want to find out about it. We want to expose it and want to pursue them to the fullest extent of the law.”
The concept of dissent and debate increasingly appears completely foreign to liberal, leftwing politicians and activists. Disagree with them in any way, and they think that gives them the right to destroy you.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Fascists: Democratic attorney generals from 16 states announced today that they plan on investigating and prosecuting companies for fraud if they dare express any skepticism about global warming.
“The bottom line is simple: Climate change is real; it is a threat to all the people we represent,” [New York Attorney General Eric] Schneiderman said. “If there are companies, whether they’re utilities, whether they’re fossil fuel companies, committing fraud in an effort to maximize their short-term profits at the expense of the people we represent, we want to find out about it. We want to expose it and want to pursue them to the fullest extent of the law.”
The concept of dissent and debate increasingly appears completely foreign to liberal, leftwing politicians and activists. Disagree with them in any way, and they think that gives them the right to destroy you.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
In a sane world they would have to prove with evidence in court one party actually harmed another party.
They can’t do that but they’re perfectly willing to undermine the entire meaning and purpose of justice. Civil society cannot long stand these assaults on justice and Liberty.
Kevin R.:
Well said!
I have looked into this issue for quite some time now, and I have commented here and other places dozens of times, and I will continue to comment as long as this issue is misrepresented as it is currently being misrepresented.
1. The term “Climate Change” itself is an offensive term that deals to the lowest common denominator. There has never been one day since the formation of this planet to the point where water could condense when the climate did not change, not one. The term is inappropriate to the subject and is a manipulation of the general public’s surface and intuitive through media understanding of the complexity that is actual Climate Change. This term has been crafted and settled on after many iterations to create an urgency and panic in the public’s mind so as to create a mode of control through politics and government.
2. The actual honest term might be something more along the lines of “Degree Of Human Influenced Climate Change And Pollution” (not very sexy or motivating). This term indicates and recognizes that the existence of human beings on the planet and their industrial activities must / may have some effect on the weather or climate / environment but it is not known to what degree. An individual could not enter a room and not effect the “climate” in the room.
3. Pollution in general should be the more primary subject of conversation that politicians and the industries that produce it need to be concerned with. Chemical production, soot and particulate, discarded plastics, mine tailing’s, heat pollution due to development, leach from waste dumps, radio active waste etc. etc. etc, water, air and land pollution in general. We all exist in the environment called the earth, we all need to be environmentalists. We all breath essentially the same air, drink the same water and inhabit, along with the many other life forms currently on the planet, on the same land and oceans. How much human activity drives the earths climate over some imaginary critical “climate” edge from my investigations is not knowable to the extent that it is being represented.
4. If it was determined that for some extraordinary reason that the earths temperature needed to be raised by one degree over a 10 year period and to maintain it there for one year for the sake of all life on earth, I very seriously doubt whether the combined efforts of all of the nations on the planet could accomplish one tenth of the task by burning all of their available fossil fuels and any other developed technique. We would make one hell of a Polluted environmental mess, but I seriously doubt whether the temperature would be moved to any predetermine or desired degree, if at all.
5. Our current civilization happens to exist in between the ongoing glacial cycle that has been documented to occur in approximately 100 thousand year cycles. Only until about 14,000 or so thousand years ago the entirety of North America and Europe sat under 2,000 feet or more of solid ice. Massive glaciers that have shaped our current environment, so much weight that the continents are still rebounding from their occupation. The warming of or the cooling of the earth to any significant degree is based on on going natural events in our solar system and our universe that we have little concrete understanding of let alone influence over to the degree being represented by the media and the political class.
6. Current indications may strongly indicate that the earth may be at the end of the current warming cycle and there are indications that the next glacial cycle may be soon (earth time table soon) to appear.
7. Conclusion: The earth as a general rule does not give a crap about what human beings think, say / and / or do. We tend to see these things in terms of OUR time table, the time table that these climate movements and changes happen are on an entirely different time scale. In terms of OUR time table IMO its better to be concerned with things that actually can be demonstrated that we can control, and pollution as a function our activities is what needs to be reigned in and managed properly. In addition, the majority of people “know” about climate what they have been fed / programmed by the media and the political class to “know” and almost none of it is based in reasonable scientific investigation but in a rushed move to control power IMO.
Cotour–
Well said!
Why stop at the burning of coal, oil and natural gas as main causes of global warming, when we all know that ultimately we must ban that dangerous-sounding compound called adenosine triphosphate, commonly know as ATP.
Yes, most life on earth uses oxidative phosphorylation in the metabolic pathways of anaerobic respiration to produce ATP that ultimately leads to the TWO major contributors of global warming: CO2 and H2O!
I say we start banning life on earth….any takers???
Pray that sanity returns and this environ-“mental” inquisition ends.
Jwing:
Well said, as well!
If you can lie about the weather, then you can lie about anything.
Local Fluff:
Well said!
(and they do…)
Cotour wrote: ” The actual honest term might be … ”
You got it wrong. The actual honest phrase is “anthropogenic global warming.” It is still global warming, not regional climate changes, that they are still going on and on about. This is why they are still declaring each year the warmest year on record (despite the next sentence being that the ten hottest years have occurred in the past 18 years in order to hide the fact that each year is cooler than the previous). Last year, they tried to convince us that NASA said that 2014 was the hottest, even though NASA said that they were 62% sure that it wasn’t (by saying that they were only 38% sure that it was).
They also continue to fudge temperature data (proving that the data belies their claims), and they completely ignore variations in actual regional climate (climate change occurs too slowly for us to associate with human CO2 emissions, the only thing that they will say modifies climates).
Further, they tell us that it is all due to human activity and human existence, which is what makes it anthropogenic. However, they fail to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of everyone else, and instead hop into their powered transportation and drive home to use their kitchens, heaters/air contitioners, and washing machines and driers. They drive to the store, where they buy products that produced huge amounts of CO2 to make. They do not believe in the global warming phenomenon, they just say they do, and now they persecute anyone who pays attention to science and reality.
JWing wrote: “I say we start banning life on earth….any takers???”
This could be a good experiment to see if we can prevent or start the next glacial period of the ice age. After all, without life, there would be no source of CO2.
On the other hand, human activity provides only about 2% of the CO2 emissions. All the rest of life on Earth provides most of the other 98% (volcanic and other non-life-based activity provides some). All the other life on Earth also consumes the CO2 emissions produced by all the life on Earth (including humans). It seems that some people — including Al Gore — are trying to tell us that the Earth’s climate system is so unstable that a little extra CO2 can cause huge imbalances that adversely affect the planet.
However, it is Al Gore’s movie which simultaneously tells us that CO2 levels have widely varied in the past AND that we are heading for our own tipping point where it will be too late to change the runaway destruction of all that we know. That tipping point, according to Gore’s movie, happened earlier this year.
Fortunately, the CO2/global warming relationship has been proved false, as anthropogenic CO2 emissions have continued unabated — and even have increased — over the past two decades, yet the temperature has not increased in more than 18 years. Clearly, anthropogenic CO2 emissions are minor compared to some unexplored cause of global temperature control.
The only reason for government’s persecutors to go against reason and science to prosecute global warming skeptics is the same reason to mandate that we Americans purchase healthcare insurance, whether or not we can afford it. Governmental control of the actions of the population. Plus, it is so much easier to control the populace if it, the populace, believes some silly, easily disproved lie about the conditions in which they live.
– First global cooling was going to end civilization as we know it.
– Then global warming would, when it became clear that the next ice age was not coming.
– Then climate change would, when it became clear that the global temperature was stable.
– Now denying climate change/global warming/global cooling is said to be the end of civilization, because it became clear that the end was not coming, after all was said and little was done.
Because the government has been unable to scare us into submission, they are now going to persecute us into submission.
If HRC gets to nominate another liberal Supreme Court justice, and this person is confirmed, the Dems will press forward with their nutty agenda unchecked. Brave New World and 1984 wrapped into one.
The one positive aspect of this obvious attempt at state-sponsored political intimidation is that it puts the whole premise of anthropogenic global warming up for essentially unlimited discovery demands by the defendants. By asserting that the catastrophic AGW premise is true, the AG’s have opened that whole premise up to complete scrutiny. Given that the Dem AG’s have elected to go after well-heeled oil companies – which can well-afford the platoons of attorneys required to pursue such discovery motions – the outcome of this effort may well be that the whole rotten pack of lies on which this fraudulent “science” is based can finally come out and be unambiguously demonstrated in court. These AG’s are, I think, going to live to regret going after Big Oil instead of a few impecunious dissenting college professors and small public affairs non-profits. Hitler did pretty well for awhile by picking on small fry, but when he went after really big game, he got his ass handed to him. I look forward to a comparable outcome of this ill-considered and totalitarian initiative.
Dick Eagleson:
Well said.
Dick Eagleson wrote: “The one positive aspect of this obvious attempt at state-sponsored political intimidation is that it puts the whole premise of anthropogenic global warming up for essentially unlimited discovery demands by the defendants. By asserting that the catastrophic AGW premise is true, the AG’s have opened that whole premise up to complete scrutiny.”
Even if the “platoons of attorneys” become intimidated into *not* pursuing the discovery investigations that demonstrate the complete lack of evidence that human activity adds to CO2 AND the complete lack of evidence that additional CO2 increases global temperatures, there are plenty of people who can act as friends of the court to volunteer this information — and much, much more.
It will almost certainly come out that the “science” of global warming is bogus, that climatology cannot yet predict the future based upon any given conditions, and that these types of prosecutions are frivolous and waste the court’s time.
As with the British court case against showing to their students Gore’s misleading and lie-filled movie, the lies that are being told about global warming and climate change will become known to the legal community.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/oct/11/climatechange
Additional ‘intimidation lawsuits’ will become harder to persecute.
Considering how much money the energy industry gives to environmental activists and engages with politicians on things like wind farms, I don’t think they have much fight in them. Much easier to just go along, they will make money either way.
Wodun,
If the guy in the embedded video is correct, “the next punch from these attorneys general will be a knockout punch,” then these companies cannot afford to go along to get along. They only make money if they are allowed to continue to sell their product. But, their product is being called a pollutant.
The New York attorney general claims that the atmosphere is being treated as an open sewer.
The problem, of course, is that the products of these energy companies create water and carbon dioxide when used properly; they can’t not.
Both water and carbon dioxide are mandatory for life on Earth. Without CO2, all the plants would die, as this is an airborne fertilizer. Water is required for all life on Earth. Neither of these is a pollutant, as both enhance life’s living conditions.
Additionally, there is a claim of fraud, which is very serious. If the “impact of man-made carbon dioxide emissions” are ruled to be what these attorneys general think they are, then how can these companies be allowed to remain in business in those states? How do they make money?
If these attorneys general are as stupid as they sound, then they could cause very serious problems for these companies, and the unintended consequences could result in very serious problems for these states’ citizens.
They may have been successful at the “go along to get along” philosophy in the past, but it is not working anymore.
I sent a friend who is an environmental lawyer my post. He replied to me and and basically admitted that “climate change” was a fraud this is my reply back:
My reply to his response:
Finally, now we can make some progress.
When you admit that the “climate change” issue is basically a fraud vehicle called “climate change” and it has been created by government only to force the clean up of the real culprit, which is pollution. Pollution I can get behind finding ways to clean up, “climate change” as it is represented by the powers that be is a confabulation designed to
accomplish many things such as controlling the population in so many other ways. What was the initial tip off? When the government contrived to define what all human beings exhale was a form of pollution you know wear are all in trouble.
Part of his reply to my post:
“I have been directly involved environmental regulation for 30 years.
There is no good method of forcing private entities to stop polluting.
The resulting regulations are convoluted and in many cases just plain
absurd. The only other means of discouraging pollution is to make it
uneconomic. The petroleum industry should be prevented from releasing
the vast quantities of CH4 that it is currently releasing into the
atmosphere. It is not necessary to prove that this release is causing
temperature change to justify stopping the pollution.”
Continuing:
His response:
There doesn’t appear to be any substantive difference between preventing
pollution and preventing climate change. Of course the noble objective
of preventing pollution is often hijacked to justify regulation or just
make money e.g., Robert Kennedy, Jr.
It really doesn’t matter whether the hijacker is allegedly fighting
climate change or preventing pollution — the outcome is the same.
Climate change is just a different name for environmental protection —
which is most successfully hijacked by the government to increase taxes
and regulation. At the moment “climate change” sounds better than
“environmental regulation.”
My response:
Pollution is something substantive that can actually be measured and quantified (through scientific method’s) and logically be dealt with by modifying industry through the reevaluation of best practices and developing new technologies and techniques.
“Climate Change” will require the surrendering of individuals and nations sovereignty and rights. “Climate change” is nothing more than a political agenda, lets recognize the raw naked distinction. Two very different things.
But like I said, at least since you have admitted what is really going on we can now have an honest conversation about actual science and not about a fraudulent
manipulation in order to create the so called One World Order / New World Order.
Then there is this essay from climatologist and statistician William Briggs, “Climate Surprise: Why More CO2 is Good for the Earth”:
https://stream.org/climate-surprise-co2-good-earth/
From the essay: “In times past, atmospheric CO2 levels were up to 30 times higher — pause and reflect on the number — than they are now; and indeed we are now in a historic, almost dangerously low, period. Yet even though CO2 was then so much higher than mankind could ever hope now to achieve even if we burn every drop of oil that exists, there was no runaway global warming. Why should we expect it now?”
We should also ask the suing attorneys general what had been the causes of past droughts (e.g. New Mexico), before anthropogenic global warming climate change.
From the essay: “These people do not understand the science, and don’t care to learn, but they surely believe in the “solution” to global warming — which is defined as greater government control over everything.”
Of course, these attorneys general are part of the same governments that want control over everything.
From the essay: “The great thing about professing to ‘Save the Planet’ is that it absolves you of the need to do anything.”
As I said at: March 30, 2016 at 6:00 pm: this is why these attorneys general get into their powered transportation, and drive home to use their kitchens, heaters/air conditioners, and washing machines and driers. They drive to the store, where they buy products that produced huge amounts of CO2 to make. They do not believe in the global warming phenomenon, they just say they do, and now they persecute anyone who pays attention to science and reality.
They don’t need to do anything, themselves, to save the planet, because they already understand that nothing needs to be done. They know that the planet is in no danger. They are smart people who think that the rest of us are stupid and can’t read scientific papers.
As with Al Gore, these attorneys general are using global warming as an excuse to increase their power and social status.
Here is another (long) essay: “Answering A Global Warming True Believer”:
http://wmbriggs.com/post/18332/
Cotour wrote that his attorney friend wrote: “The petroleum industry should be prevented from releasing the vast quantities of CH4 that it is currently releasing into the atmosphere. It is not necessary to prove that this release is causing temperature change to justify stopping the pollution.”
Well, apparently we also need to stop animal life from being flatulent, too.
Plus, the attorney is defining natural emissions from the animal kingdom as pollution. He also is defining natural phenomena such as the emissions from the La Brea Tar Pits as pollution. Not only do we have to eliminate all animal life, we have to eliminate the planet, too.
Cotour wrote: “[Pollution and “Climate Change” are] Two very different things.”
Very true. Pollution need not change the climate, and the climate changed for billions of years before pollution was invented. Indeed, the only pollution that is considered to change the climate is CO2, and it recently had to be redefined from plant food to a pollutant on order to rationalize its regulation.
Of course, now that it is a pollutant, we humans have to stop breathing, as do all of Earth’s animals.
Instead, the anti-pollution crowd protects nature then hops into their powered transportation to drive home to use their kitchens … and you already know the rest of my rant on this.
The important part is that he has now freely admitted the fraud and manipulation. They have created something that they call “settled science” which is a lie in order to apply the necessary controls on industry. A case where the ends justifies the means.
Believe me he surprised the hell out of me when he admitted it. He twists and turns a bit but admits it, he apparently sees it as a non issue. But keep in mind that he is a trained lawyer, besides that he is a very nice guy and a good friend.
Cotour wrote: “The important part is that he has now freely admitted the fraud and manipulation.”
I am not surprised by the hypocrisy. I expect that in a short while he will be proud of it. Please let me know if he ever becomes willing to discuss the science, but I expect that the science (or lack of it for his side of the argument*) is not what he wants to discuss. After all, when he says, “It is not necessary to prove that this release is causing temperature change to justify stopping the pollution,” he especially means the CO2 pollution. He means that anything deemed to be pollution must be stopped, even if it should be considered plant food.
Plus, he does not believe that global warming is a problem that needs to be solved. Let me know when he stops using powered transportation, using his kitchen, etc.
* There is no science associating rising CO2 levels with human activity, but it has been established that CO2 levels rise *after* temperatures rise, as is happening now, perhaps due to CO2 released from thawing permafrost and melting ice.
There is no science associating rising temperatures due to rising CO2 levels, but there is contrary evidence, as I noted in the previous sentence. For his argument to make sense, both have to be true, but it looks more like neither is true, because despite the rate of anthropogenic CO2 production being the greatest ever over the past two decades (and still increasing), the global temperature has not risen in 18 years.
The science also shows that climates change whether or not man is present. His argument requires that we are responsible for changed climates. He does not want to argue the science, because it is against him.
His argument ignores the reality of the situation. We did not stop emitting CO2 in order to stop temperature rise, but his argument requires that without stopping CO2 emissions the climate will still change. He thinks that stopping CO2 emissions (what he calls pollution) stops climate change, no matter what the action is called, “It really doesn’t matter whether the hijacker is allegedly fighting climate change or preventing pollution — the outcome is the same.”
Everyone can relax:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/saudi-arabia-oil_us_56fea15ce4b083f5c60788d7
The age of oil will be over soon enough.
Good points made by all.
Feds are weaseling their way into every nook & cranny of the internal documents of these companies, hoping to find any little inconsistency & extract a sizeable settlement.