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A federal judge in Boston dealt a major blow this week to environmental activist groups, led by the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), who are suing ExxonMobil for allegedly failing to sufficiently prepare a facility in Everett, Massachusetts, for the effects of climate change, including sea-level rise and more frequent and severe storms.
On September 12, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf partially granted ExxonMobil’s motion to dismiss CLF’s case, ruling CLF was unnecessarily injecting climate change into its complaint, to the detriment of its own argument. Wolf says the case is about whether ExxonMobil violated the terms of a Clean Water Act permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ordering CLF to refile its complaint with all references to climate change removed.
Wolf’s order made it clear for CLF’s claims to move forward, the organization needed to show ExxonMobil had either caused harm to the plaintiffs or that harm was “imminent,” and references to the projected effects of climate change by 2050 or 2100 wouldn’t qualify as such. If the plaintiffs were concerned about the effects of climate change on the facility in 2050, Wolf said, “they should refile their case in 2045.”
And in the sunny land of Australia, a widely published alarmist climate scientist was jailed for fraud in connection with payments he falsely claimed were related to his research on climate change. Australian Institute of Marine Science senior researcher Daniel Michael Alongi has authored or co-authored more than 140 publications, many related to climate change and its impact on the Great Barrier Reef. Over seven years, Alongi submitted 129 fraudulent claims for fictitious purchases totaling $553,420. Commonwealth prosecutor Chris Moore said Alongi, who pleaded guilty to defrauding the federal agency he worked for, “created or modified invoices, receipts and credit card statements, along with drafting fake analysis reports and email trails.” Alongi’s research has been cited 5,861 times, yet based on his fraudulent receipts, it seems he may not have taken some of the trips or conducted the research and analyses many of his papers were based upon.
When the fact that countries like Australia are backing away from renewable energy goals and this their climate commitments, and new research by climate alarmists themselves prove what realists have been arguing for 20 years, that climate models overstate the impact of carbon dioxide on global temperatures, are combined with mounting court losses for climate alarmists, could it be the climate boogeyman will soon be in full retreat? Let’s cross our fingers so the world’s attention can move on to real problems like energy poverty and global hunger.
