Sunday, April 14, 2024
European Court Rules Government Protection From Climate Change Is a Human Right
The European Court of Human Rights sided with a group of female senior citizens who had sued its government over its perceived failures to sufficiently address climate change on human rights grounds, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A group of more than 2,000 Swiss women over the age of 64 alleged that the Swiss government’s climate change policies were in violation of the right to life and other provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the court ruled in its favor in its first decision pertaining directly to climate change, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The decision sets a new precedent in most of Europe that could encourage similar cases against national governments and corporations.
“Climate campaigners are likely to seize on the conclusion that states have positive obligations under human rights law in relation to climate change, and use it as the basis for future claims against states which they deem to not be moving quickly enough to address the threat of climate change,” Tom Cummins, a partner at a global law firm called Ashurst, told The Wall Street Journal, adding:
Companies and financial institutions will also want to review these cases carefully. Corporate climate litigation often relies on human rights arguments, including in high-profile cases like the Dutch litigation brought by Milieudefensie against Shell. The decision in the case against Switzerland will likely encourage claims of this nature.
The European Court of Human Rights’ Tuesday decision will likely encourage similar lawsuits against national governments in Europe, according to Reuters. The court put a lawsuit against the Norwegian government—alleging that it violated human rights by issuing oil and gas exploration licenses—on hold ahead of issuing the landmark ruling in the Swiss women’s case.
Greta Thunberg, a prominent European climate activist, thinks that the Swiss women’s lawsuit is the start of a barrage of European climate lawsuits to come. A panel for the United Nations has suggested that children should sue their governments for perceived negligence on climate change.
“This is only the beginning of climate litigation,” Thunberg told Reuters. “The results of this can mean in no way that we lean back. This means that we have to fight even more, since this is only the beginning.”
The plaintiffs were senior women specifically because people 55 years old and above, and women especially, face increased risks of death related to heat, giving them standing to sue the Swiss government for its purported failures to stem the effects of climate change, according to Axios. The European Court of Human Rights’ decision in favor of the Swiss women is final, according to The Wall Street Journal.
There were two similar climate cases before the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday, but the court dismissed each of them. One of those cases saw a group of Portuguese youths sue a group of 32 European countries, while a French mayor sued the French national government in the other.
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Tory backlash against European Court of Human Rights climate ruling
The Energy Secretary has led a Tory backlash against the European Court of Human Rights after it issued a landmark ruling that governments have a duty to protect people from climate change.
Claire Coutinho said she was “concerned” that Strasbourg judges were taking over decisions best made by elected politicians.
Senior Tories urged Rishi Sunak to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in the wake of the ruling.
They accused the court of acting in a “profoundly undemocratic” way and being “bent out of shape” by “progressive” activists and politicians.
The row came as an exclusive opinion poll for The Telegraph revealed that half of Conservative voters believe the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
Some 49 per cent of people who backed the party at the 2019 general election wanted to quit the convention, according to Savanta polling, with 35 per cent wanting to stay. In 2022, polling had found that 43 per cent of Tory voters favoured quitting the ECHR.
Last week, Mr Sunak raised the possibility of the UK leaving it if the Strasbourg court continued to block his delayed plans to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda.
On Tuesday, Ms Coutinho said: “I’m concerned by the Strasbourg court decision. How we tackle climate change affects our economic, energy and national security. Elected politicians are best placed to make those decisions.”
She made the comments after – in the first judgment of its kind – Strasbourg judges ruled that the human rights of a group of elderly Swiss women had been violated by the failure of their government to act quickly enough to tackle climate change.
The court found the Swiss state had breached article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the “right to respect for private and family life”.
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D.C. Cherry Blossoms Aren’t Safe Around Climate Activists!
Green/Left ideology is an incredible mess
The National Park Service — the organization supposedly missioned to preserve “unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations”– will, after the 2024 National Cherry Blossom Festival, cut down 300 trees in Washington, D.C., 158 of which will be cherry trees. Their reason? To “fight” “climate change” — the 300 will be disposed of to make room for a reconstructed seawall around the Tidal Basin and Potomac River so D.C. can “withstand about 100 years of future sea level rise.”
At this point, climate change is like the dishrag punchline of a washed-up comedian — predictable and disappointing. As the bit goes, climate change is exacerbated by CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — except that CO2 levels today are the same as they were 3 million years ago. The oceans are going to cataclysmically rise — except that in the last 122 years, the oceans have risen a grand total of eight inches with, at this rate, another 1,800 years before they reach apocalyptic levels. This must be why climate change activists like the Obamas and Neil DeGrasse Tyson keep buying beachfront properties.
The Pravda media are no different, insisting the cherry trees reached their earliest peak bloom in 20 years because of “an abnormally warm winter, consistent with climate change trends.” They scream, “Be afraid! The end is nigh!” while failing to mention the just-as-crazy winters from decades ago. For example, in mid-February of 1930, there was an abnormally warm 10-day period with recorded temperatures including 89 degrees Fahrenheit (Jefferson City, MO), 76 degrees (Burlington, IA), and 82 degrees (Richmond, VA).
What’s more, this “unusually warm winter” was not all that unusual when considering the eruption of the underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in January 2022 followed by the arrival of El Nino in 2023. Under the circumstances, the unusual event would have been having a normal winter in the middle of this convergence.
The truth is, the “common knowledge” that 97 percent of scientists agree climate change is man’s fault is about as reliable as Barack Obama’s autobiography. And the cherry on top is that we could very well be heading for an extended period of cooling caused by diminished solar activity.
The Park Service says it will plant a variety of new trees following the project, but why chop down 300 trees in the first place, just to start over with immature trees and needless walls to the tune of $113 million? Money and power are the surface answers. Climate change is not science, but it is big business, with the federal government doling out billions of dollars a year on the subject and the spending only increasing. The power comes with restrictions on peoples’ travel (in both cars and airplanes), international carbon taxes, attempting to prosecute “ecocide” as an international crime, and shutting up anyone who raises a hand to question “the science.”
But there may also be a more disturbing and painfully ironic reason, both for the cherry tree demolition and the perpetuation of climate change fearmongering: the love of destruction for the sake of destruction.
Maintaining order and enforcing justice are the bare-bones requirements for any civilization. But the real, gold-standard civilizations — the Roman Republic, Victorian Britain, and the United States up to 1963 — go above and beyond the basics by promoting the arts and sciences and encouraging what de Tocqueville called the manly passion for equality — encouraging each individual to be the best he can and reach full, 100 percent capacity.
Look at the feats of architecture or entire artistic movements like Art Deco. Look at the accomplishments of Dickens, Frost, Hemingway, Tennyson, Disney, and Ford in the arts or at the Hoover Dam, the moon landing, and the rebuilding of Europe and Japan after 1945 — a civilization is supposed to create with purpose, and what it creates has to be good and beautiful. It needs to fill and lift the soul. Even dads in their garages were, once upon a time, encouraged to manifest themselves in this way.
Compare that to the regime under which we currently live. Now, works of art are attacked — in some cases completely destroyed — with only a whimper of counter-energy. In fact, when the suggestion is made to make beautiful things again, it’s decried as dangerous and fascist. Our institutions do worse than nothing — they aid and abet this mindset.
Look at the National Endowment on the Arts and Humanities, whose prime job is no longer to inspire and push people to the stars, but to applaud the latest manifestation of the zeitgeist. These include: plays with “Black Lives Matter” themes; Shakespeare performances that showcase an anti-Trump bent; “queer” theatre; mime performances about racism; an art exhibit dedicated to the life of Yuri Kochiyama, who once claimed Osama bin Laden as one of the people she “admired”; and theatre performances that allow people to “commune” with a cactus. The education system does its part by graduating fewer and fewer students who can read and add, meaning fewer students who can differentiate between art and slop.
Of course, most acts of creation involve some destruction; our own Republic was created by destroying the British Empire circa 1763. And, oftentimes, the destruction that does take place will be a compromise to prevent something even worse. But, destruction for the sake of itself — or for the sake of a fiction — threatens what is good, instills fear, and is a sign that a civilization is in decline.
Fear is the antithesis of hope — the mind-killer that eventually dissolves our humanity into a spineless glob, eager to hand over the keys to the algorithm. Whether it’s through skewed warnings about the end of “democracy” or the claim that the planet could burst into flames and floods at any moment, the Borg is determined to control our lives through fear. This is why, in the eyes of the elites, beauty itself is too dangerous. It causes people to dream, to push themselves, and, at its highest, imparts hope — it threatens their ability to wield fear.
Ultimately, beauty — from an Art Deco building to a blossoming cherry tree — makes us human. But that is what the Borg cannot allow, at any cost.
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China leads global coal power surge as capacity hits record
Global coal-power capacity rose to a record last year, led by a surge in new plants in China and a slowdown in retirements around the world, according to a new report from Global Energy Monitor.
The world’s coal fleet grew by 2% to 2,130 gigawatts, with China accounting for about two thirds of the increase followed by Indonesia and India, according to the climate research firm. China also started construction on 70 gigawatts of new coal plants last year, nearly 20 times more than the rest of the world combined.
China’s expansion of what’s already by far the world’s largest coal fleet highlights Beijing’s continued focus on energy security after a series of economy-damaging power shortages in 2021 and 2022. While officials say the plants will primarily be used to balance out intermittent generation from rapidly growing wind and solar farms, the building boom has raised questions about China’s climate commitments and stymied global efforts to phase out use of the dirtiest fossil fuel.
“The recent surge in coal power development in China starkly contrasts with the global trend, putting China’s 2025 climate targets at risk,” said Qi Qin, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which contributed to the report.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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