The Climate Crisis

Looking to the Law

There are several efforts underway to use existing law to force action on restricting greenhouse gas pollution. California is getting headlines for suing car companies, and though it's not strictly a legal matter--at least not yet--the Royal Society in England is demanding that Exxon keeps it promise to stop funding climate crisis deniers.

Meanwhile, the case against the Bush government to force them to apply Clean Air Act enforcement to greenhouse gases has gotten stronger with this brief, which places even more scientific expertise in partnership with law. In particular it counters the Bush attempt to distort the findings of scientists in a report it requested.

When the environmental movement first got into its legal and political phase, it lost a lot of its focus. Getting into that nitty-gritty is necessary of course, but this time a good deal more clarity needs to remain central, or once again the goals and the needs to be addressed can get lost in technicalites and the lifestyle of lawyers, lobbyists and pols.

UPDATE: Patrick Kennedy's summary of the Bush announcement on R&D for future technologies to address the climate crisis. His conclusion: too little, too vague, and certainly no "U-turn" in policy.

UPDATE 2: Richard Branson pledged $3 billion over ten years--corporate profits from Virgin Airlines-- to address the Climate Crisis by investing in biofuels, through President Clinton's Global Initiative. Three billion also happens to be the amount the Bush administration says it has spent on global heating associated R&D in the past six years. $3 billion represents what the US spends on the Iraq war every ten days.