9/22/2006

Global Warming Lawsuit

Every so often something comes along that gets me laughing while at the same time gets me to thinking. In this case it was a verbal diatribe on a radio show about the state of California and its lawsuit against 6 major automakers. What's the basis of the lawsuit?

Global warming.

California is suing the automakers because their vehicles contribute to air pollution even though they have bent over backwards to meet every requirement laid down by the California Air Resources Board. But that wasn't good enough. Now California wants a pound of flesh from DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota, and Nissan because of their products “have contributed to global warming constituting a 'public nuisance' that has cost [California] millions of dollars.” (A PDF of the complaint filed by the Attorney General of California can be found here.)

The lawsuit itself surprises me for a number of reasons, one of them being that human-caused global warming is a theory, not a proven fact, despite the protestations of the It's-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans climatologists and their hangers-on. The fact that California is the plaintiff is no surprise at all. Nothing much coming out of the Left Coast surprises me any more.

What do they think they'll get out of it? Are they expecting a huge windfall like the tobacco lawsuits? Or if they win, will they make it that much more attractive for those six automakers to stop selling their products in the Granola State?

I hope that, should California win the suit, the Court of Appeals will dismiss it out of hand. But one must remember that California is the home of the Ninth Circus...uh..Circuit Court, the most overturned federal court in the nation.

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