Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[Josquius]

I don't think anyone, even Brits, give a damn about field hockey.

It's not a massively popular sport as the failure of the national hockey stadium shows.
But hockey is definitely more well known and played at some point by more people than ice hockey. Its pretty standard in school PE lessons.

[grumbler]

Do you also have something useful to add for a change?

If he didn't make you question the idea that freshwater fishes inhabit the ocean, then it is not useful to try to make you question anything.

[crazy canuck]

Do you also have something useful to add for a change?

If he didn't make you question the idea that freshwater fishes inhabit the ocean, then it is not useful to try to make you question anything.

It is pretty funny how sloppy that reporting is - and how badly they screwed up what the report actually said.  The point of the report was to protect rivers, lakes and wetlands as habitats for freshwater fish species.

Here is a better version of the stat CBS mangled:

https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/freshwater_practice/the_world_s_forgotten_fishes/

51% of all known species of fish live in freshwater - 18,075 species.

[viper37]

Where Greenland's toes dip into the sea, ice is melting

That's where the results of a six-year NASA campaign to study the influence of warming ocean waters on the melting of Greenland's glaciers have some unsettling news.

Make Greenland green again?

[viper37]

Apparently, the Earth's axis has changed due to polar ice melting:
https://www.ign.com/articles/climate-change-has-shifted-earths-axis-scientists-explain-in-new-study

[Syt]

https://www.ft.com/content/6be3ea51-653d-47c2-8ef9-96ebc6064e0b

Constitutional court strikes down German climate law

Ruling is setback for Angela Merkel and will force government to rewrite legislation by end of year

Germany's top court has demanded changes to Germany's climate law, saying it places too much of a burden on future generations to reduce carbon emissions, in a key victory for young climate campaigners.

The court said the law "violate(s) the freedoms of the complainants, some of whom are still very young" because it "irreversibly offload(s) major emission reduction burdens on to periods after 2030".

The measures the government had set out for the post-2030 period were "not sufficient to ensure that the necessary transition to climate neutrality is achieved in time", it said, and demanded authorities set out clear goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions after 2030.

Luisa Neubauer, the climate activist behind Germany's Fridays for Future demonstrations, called the decision a "huge win for the climate movement".

"Today, the German constitutional court has decided that climate justice is a fundamental right," she tweeted. "Today's inaction mustn't harm our freedom & rights in the future."

The verdict is a setback for Angela Merkel, who had touted the 2019 law as a turning point in Germany's efforts to battle climate change. It requires the country to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030, relative to 1990 levels, and to have virtually no emissions by 2050. It also sets out how much CO2 certain sectors such as transport, agriculture or buildings are allowed to emit per year.

The complainants against the law included Sophie Backsen, whose family live on the island of Pellworm in the North Sea, not far from Hamburg. She had argued the island was threatened by rising sea levels caused by global warming, and the German government's failure to address the problem adequately amounted to a violation of her fundamental rights.

Ministers welcomed the court's decision, which requires the government to rewrite the law by the end of the year. Peter Altmaier, economy minister, described it as a "great, historic ruling, of crucial importance for the rights of young people and the younger generation as a whole". He said it was also good for business because it helped them "plan long-term for the future".

That comment triggered a swift response from Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat finance minister, who blamed Altmaier's centre-right CDU/CSU bloc for the weaknesses in the original climate change law. "As far as I can remember it was you and the CDU/CSU who prevented us doing what the constitutional court has now advised us to do," he tweeted, addressing Altmaier. "But we can correct that quickly. Are you with us?"

Experts said the court's ruling could have a profound impact on government policy. Germany might, they said, be forced to bring forward its planned phaseout of the use of coal by 2038. "A simple calculator shows that this will be necessary," said Roda Verheyen, a lawyer for Sophie Backsen and her brothers and sisters.

The court said the German climate law in effect backloaded Germany's carbon reductions, saying "the reductions still necessary after 2030 will have to be achieved with ever greater speed and urgency".

"These future obligations to reduce emissions have an impact on practically every type of freedom, because virtually all aspects of human life still involve the emission of greenhouse gases and are thus potentially threatened by drastic restrictions after 2030," the judges said.

In their ruling they said the authorities should avoid a situation in which one generation gets off relatively lightly and the "radical burden" of reducing emissions is placed on future generations, who are also "exposed to a loss of freedoms that affect their whole lives".

The government had an obligation to leave the natural foundations of life "in such condition that future generations who wish to continue preserving these foundations are not forced to engage in radical abstinence".

[Zanza]

Good decision. 

[Eddie Teach]

Ok, but what can the court do if the government doesn't meet their conditions? Write their own law?

[crazy canuck]

Ok, but what can the court do if the government doesn't meet their conditions? Write their own law?

Germany has elections.  Presumably this will be a pressing issue for the current government to address before the next one.

[Maladict]

Ok, but what can the court do if the government doesn't meet their conditions? Write their own law?

We had something similar. The court ordered the Dutch government to do more to tackle climate change, as they are directly endangering the safety of future generations by dragging their feet. Obviously, things like sea level rise carry some weight here.
But technically the court can order the government to whatever is needed to meet the Paris accord agreement, for example, even though it is non-binding in itself.

[Zanza]

Ok, but what can the court do if the government doesn't meet their conditions? Write their own law?

The idea of our constitution, I guess just like in every rule of law jurisdiction, is that the executive implements the decision of the judiciary. So far, that was always the case. I think it is the same in the US.

[grumbler]

Ok, but what can the court do if the government doesn't meet their conditions? Write their own law?

The idea of our constitution, I guess just like in every rule of law jurisdiction, is that the executive implements the decision of the judiciary. So far, that was always the case. I think it is the same in the US.

That's not quite how it works in the US.  The executive implements the decisions of the legislature in accordance with the constitution.  The judicial branch simply resolves disputes over what the law or constitution actually say relative to a given issue.  The judiciary makes (at least in theory) no decisions except relative to the constitution and legislation.

In the German case, the judiciary was interpreting the German constitution to include an individual right to "climate justice," if I am reading the reports correctly.  So the government is being tasked to obey the constitution, not the judiciary per se.

[Zanza]

Well yes, that's what I meant. But I read the decision in more detail now and the executive was not even a party in the proceedings.

In the current case, the opponent of the constitutional complaint was not the executive, but the legislature. The simple statute they passed for climate protection in 2019 was insufficient to fulfill the requirements of the constitution (which had been amended by parliament some years back to include an obligation for the state to protect the basic necessities of life, i.e. our environment). So the statute was partially voided by the court and the court ordered parliament to pass a law that actually fulfills the constitutional obligation. How that law looks in detail is of course up to parliament, but the court indicated how the constitution should be read.

[grumbler]

Well yes, that's what I meant. But I read the decision in more detail now and the executive was not even a party in the proceedings.

In the current case, the opponent of the constitutional complaint was not the executive, but the legislature. The simple statute they passed for climate protection in 2019 was insufficient to fulfill the requirements of the constitution (which had been amended by parliament some years back to include an obligation for the state to protect the basic necessities of life, i.e. our environment). So the statute was partially voided by the court and the court ordered parliament to pass a law that actually fulfills the constitutional obligation. How that law looks in detail is of course up to parliament, but the court indicated how the constitution should be read.

  I appreciate the clarification.

[The Larch]

Wyoming stands up for coal with threat to sue states that refuse to buy it
Republican governor says measure sends message that Wyoming is 'prepared to bring litigation to protect our interests'

Wyoming is faced by a transition to renewable energy that's gathering pace across America, but it has now come up with a novel and controversial plan to protect its mining industry – sue other states that refuse to take its coal.

A new state law has created a $1.2m fund to be used by Wyoming's governor to take legal action against other states that opt to power themselves with clean energy such as solar and wind, in order to meet targets to tackle the climate crisis, rather than burn Wyoming's coal.

Wyoming is America's largest coal-producing state, digging up nearly 40% of the coal produced nationally each year. The state is heavily dependent upon revenues from mining to run basic services and as it produces 14 times more energy than it consumes, selling coal to other states is a vital source of income.

The measure sends a message that Wyoming is "prepared to bring litigation to protect her interests," said a spokesman for Mark Gordon, the Republican governor of the deeply conservative state, which strongly backed Donald Trump in the last two presidential elections.
(...)
"We have seen a spike in states trying to block Wyoming's access to consumer markets to advance their political agenda," said Jeremy Haroldson, a Republican state legislator who introduced the new law.

Fellow Republicans previously proposed banning the closure of any coal plants in the state. Haroldson said phasing out coal would risk the sort of disastrous power blackouts suffered by Texas in February. "It is time we start truly caring about the future," he said.

Legal experts have said the new strategy is on shaky ground.