Having agreed to hear a different global warming case this term, the Supreme Court has declined to review the dismissal of a case blaming thirty energy companies (via greenhouse gas emissions) for Hurricane Katrina damage. [NOLA.com, earlier here and here] The case had reached a curious procedural posture following the recusal of half the judges on the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. My Cato colleague Ilya Shapiro has details on that and other cases that notably won’t be appearing on the Supreme Court’s docket this term.
2 Comments
Many focus on the ‘forgone conclusion’ points of the case about the so-called global warming crisis, or on questions of whether courts can make decisions on a political issue, but nobody that I can find ever questioned either the validity or the origins of an accusation within the Comer case that a oil association group knew the science was settled and was paying skeptic scientists to ‘reposition global warming as theory rather than fact’.
The tie of that phrase to the American Petroleum Institute cannot be established, and the phrase itself was taken out-of-context from a 1991-era memo that is not seen in its complete context in any of the publications or web sites where it is referred to as “smoking gun” proof of skeptic scientists’ corruption. Further, although another global warming nuisance case, Connecticut v. AEP,does not mention that accusation phrase, the lawyer credited with forming the case has very troubling associations with the enviro-activist group who have exploited the phrase, in what I call the ’96-to-present smear of skeptic scientists. The phrase also appears full screen in Al Gore’s movie, in an unsupported effort to equate skeptic climate scientists with tobacco scientists.
Please see my November 27, 2010 article about this monumental problem, “Global Warming Nuisance Lawsuits Are Based on a Fatal Flaw” http://biggovernment.com/rcook/2010/11/27/global-warming-nuisance-lawsuits-are-based-on-a-fatal-flaw/ and please click on my bio photo there so that you may read my other articles on this otherwise unreported problem. What I’ve found appears to reveal a grave injustice happening to skeptic scientists, to the detriment of us all.
[…] for PrawfsBlawg, Steve Vladeck argues that, assuming Justice Kagan “is recused from all matters Guantanamo,” […]