Have Courts Fallen For The Greatest Hoax?

If Ice Sheets All Melt

Regular readers know that recently Dredd Blog looked into the Navy's approach to global warming (Has The Navy Fallen For The Greatest Hoax?).

That post provided a video filmed at the Pentagon featuring an Admiral who was in command of the Navy's global warming response.

He pointed out that they understand global warming to be man made, and a serious consideration, especially the aspect of ocean level rise.

In today's post we look at a couple of court cases that: 1) mandated that the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") regulate greenhouse gases, and 2) that the regulations that the EPA thereafter enacted are valid, well done, and should be upheld.

The foundational case came from the Supreme Court:

A well-documented rise in global temperatures has coincided with a significant increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Respected scientists believe the two trends are related. For when carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, it acts like the ceiling of a greenhouse, trapping solar energy and retarding the escape of reflected heat. It is therefore a species—the most important species—of a “greenhouse gas.”

Calling global warming “the most pressing environmental challenge of our time,” a group of States, local governments, and private organizations, alleged in a petition for certiorari that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has abdicated its responsibility under the Clean Air Act to regulate the emissions of four greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.

(Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 2007). The court held that the EPA must regulate greenhouse gases.

The EPA complied and drafted regulations pertaining to greenhouse gases, and was then sued for having done so.

The suit was filed in the federal district court in the District of Columbia, which upheld the EPA's regulations.

That decision was affirmed on appeal to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia:

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007)—which clarified that greenhouse gases are an “air pollutant” subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act (CAA)—the Environmental Protection Agency promulgated a series of greenhouse gas-related rules.
...
For the foregoing reasons, we dismiss all petitions for review of the Timing and Tailoring Rules, and deny the remainder of the petitions.

(Coalition For Responsible Regulation v. EPA, #09-1322, decided June 26, 2012). The court unanimously upheld the regulations and rules that the EPA set forth.

Thus, as a matter of law the climate change deniers are advocating disobedience to natural law as well as the law of the United States.