The Court and the Climate

The TV babbleheads could prattle on about nothing else yesterday but the obscene amounts of money various presidential campaigns accumulated so far, and what those amounts "mean." (Hint: not much.) Of course, most of that money by far ends up paying the salaries of those very same babbleheads, as the millions are poured into TV commercials. That's what the world needs: more TV commercials.

Meanwhile, they largely ignored the news that could make a great deal of difference to the world: the Supreme Court decision that said the Environmental Protection Agency can regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act, because they cause global warming. And despite the fact that the Bushites currently in charge of that agency said they couldn't, and don't want to.

By a 5-4 decision, the Court found the EPA offered "no reasoned explanation" for why it can't regulate these emissions. Just as importantly, the Court sent the matter back to the EPA to prove that these emissions don't contribute to global warming. Otherwise, they not only can regulate them, under the law they MUST regulate them.

That's the next legal step. The significance for the moment is that states like California that have moved to regulate emissions can't be stopped by the feds. But this is important also because it's the first climate crisis decision from the Court, and it sets a precedent that has the Court on record as endorsing the connection between greenhouse gases and global heating.

It's a glimmer of hope in a week of very bad climate news that's likely to get worse, as draft reports for the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report to be issued in May.
But more on that anon.