01 Feb 2004 When They Call Themselves Greens, They’re Apparently Referring to Their Love of Money
Environmentalists are making plans to sue energy companies over perceived global warming.
My thoughts:
* “Global warming,” in colloquial usage, refers a theory predicting certain things about the future. The future has not occurred. Imagine the court testimony: “Your Honor, in the future, we expect to be injured… but we want the money now.”
* Energy companies sell nothing without customers, so if it genuinely cares about the environment more than deep-pockets plaintiffs, Friends of the Earth should sue these customers, who often actually (gasp!) are the ones who burn the oil. (Of course, it would have to sue itself, and Greenpeace, and the Sierra Club, and Al Gore, but the environmentalist war on capitalism is serious business, and some collateral damage is inevitable.)
* Friends if the Earth thanks a European outfit called the “Minor Foundation for Major Challenges” for paying for their work on this. That’s a new wrinkle on the global warming debate, which previously had been funded by major foundations chasing a minor challenge.
* As a defensive legal strategy, energy companies should stop selling to anyone planning to sue them. After a week or two, prospective plaintiffs will recall that energy has its uses, and want to use some more. (It should take less than a week in regions affected by the current uncommonly cold “global warming” weather, or, during summer, when it is over 78 Fahrenheit in France.)
* Friends of the Earth’s director boasts their “global warming report should send shivers through the boardrooms.” Anyone using the term “shivers” in connection with “warming” is not to be feared.
* Evidence of shivering in a boardroom may be used in court as evidence against global warming.
* Friends of the Earth says it singles out ExxonMobil because it “has repeatedly attempted to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change and actively resisted attempts to limit carbon dioxide emissions through law.” In other words, it has disagreed with Friends of the Earth on scientific and legislative issues. Mediating such disagreements is not the purpose of courts.
Note to self: Plan the mother of all lawsuits — one against environmentalists.
First up in the docket: The next-of-kin of millions of Third Worlders, very many of them children, who have died needlessly from malaria because environmentalists won’t admit they are wrong about DDT.
Second up: The half million kids who go blind in the Third World due to a Vitamin A deficiency that could have been addressed with agricultural biotechnology — technology opposed by wealthy First World environmentalists.
Third up: The next-of-kin of the 2,000 extra people killed in the U.S. every year since 1975 (National Academies of Science 2002 estimate) because environmentalist-supported fuel economy standards reduced the safety of passenger vehicles.
Fourth up: Any American who lost someone or something in forest fire because the environmentalist belief that land should be left untouched by humanity stopped forest thinning projects and other sane fire control measures. (Governor Schwarzenegger, call your office.)
I could go on. Anyone know a good lawyer? Humanitarians should apply.