Can Enviro-Lawsuits Force Carbon Dioxide Controls?

There are currently several lawsuits trying to impose carbon dioxide controls on the federal government and energy producers.  Can these suits win? 

Federal courts in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco heard arguments in two cases last month that challenge the failure of federal agencies to address global warming. One of the suits takes on the Environmental Protection Agency for not regulating carbon dioxide emissions; the other targets the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation for funding fossil-fuel projects without assessing the environmental impact. A third case, brought by eight states last summer against five major electric utilities, argues that the companies' carbon dioxide emissions are a public nuisance because they trigger global warming and attendant effects like heat waves and beach erosion. Finally, the Arctic Inuit have announced plans to challenge the United States over global warming before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an action that could lay the groundwork for a future trip to court.

http://www.slate.com/id/2119312/

Even if these plaintiffs can show causation, they also need to show that the injunctive relief they are seeking is a solution to the problem. I think this is the hardest part of their challenge.

For one, the cost of the controls must be commensurate with the gains. If the United States reduces Carbon Dioxide levels to the 1979 output while increasing in population by almost 25% during that period (which is what I think is the effect of Kyoto when fully implemented), we will have less available affordable power, and it will necessarily mean that we are not investing resources in other areas that could be more efficient uses of capital for global problems. I think Plaintiffs will have to show that the injunction is a better use for resources than whatever the government in doing with those resources. I don't think simply reducing carbon dioxide is an effective solution given the cost (and even Greenpeace seems to argue that a full implementation of Kyoto will only delay global warming by about 5 years, not solve it).

Another thing we know for sure is that when we regulate our environment, we export the damage we cause to other countries. The plaintiffs should have to show that the regulation won't simply move the harm out of the US, because the global problem is not solved by exporting it.

Normally, the environmental hazard we export has minimal impact on the US, because it stays more or less where it was made. In the case of Carbon Dioxide, however, we do feel the impact of it because it effects the entire globe. The cheap goods we buy from China were produced from power made in coal fired plants with no controls at all. Exporting global warming is not a solution that should pass the court.

I think there has to be a rational balance in our regulation to ensure that we protect our people and our environment, but not at the expense of other people and places. Carbon dioxide is a good place to start, because exporting the production does not really protect our people at all.

So instead of simply exporting our harm, the plaintiffs should find a better use for the investment dollars.

I think an example of a better solution to global warming would be population control rather than controlling carbon dioxide directly.

The number one pollution issue on earth is the sheer number of people living. We need to control this growth and reduce numbers if we are to survive on this planet.

All green issues, from green house gasses, fossil fuel availability, depletion of fisheries, destruction of the rain forest, to the need for GM foods are due to the growing population on earth. We need to push our leaders to control populations, starting here at home, and then as part of foreign policy everywhere. We need to find a way to step away from the "tragedy of the commons" and make individual parents feel the price of their decisions to have kids.

The cost of controlling population would probably be cheaper than direct controls on carbon dioxide, would solve more problems than just global warming, and might actually be effective.