In a global stunt, a U.S. environmental activist is poised to lodge a $1 billion damages class action lawsuit at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against all world leaders for failing to prevent global warming.
Activist and blogger Dan Bloom says he will sue world leaders for “intent to commit manslaughter against future generations of human beings by allowing murderous amounts of fossil fuels to be harvested, burned and sent into the atmosphere as CO2″.
He intends to lodge the lawsuit in the week starting Sunday, Dec. 6.
The prosecutor’s office at the ICC, the world’s first permanent court (pictured below right) for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, says it is allowed to receive 
information on crimes that may fall within the court’s jurisdiction from any source.
“Such information does not per se trigger a judicial proceeding,” the prosecutor’s office hastened to add.
The question is: will or should the prosecutor take on the case?
One might argue in defence that world leaders are in fact trying to impose climate-saving measures. In Vienna last year, almost all rich nations agreed to consider cuts in greenhouse emissions of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Talks on a new climate treaty will be held in Poznan, Poland, from Dec. 1-12.
Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. Climate Panel, says the cuts are needed to limit temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, an amount seen by the EU, some other nations and many environmentalists as a threshold for “dangerous” climate change.
Granted then that there is growing consensus that climate change poses a real threat, is it not only world leaders who are failing to prevent global warming?
Perhaps the global collective of individuals, governments and industry is to blame and the ICC lawsuit a valid publicity stunt in the constant battle to raise awareness and prompt action?
Because it’s action we need — and now, right?
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It will take several years to approve and fully implement comprehensive new alternative energy policies, however the Obama administration promises a new era of energy and environment policy for the United States. Obama expressed his intention to shift the U.S. away from petroleum as its primary energy source and towards alternative renewable energy sources, advanced biofuels and efficient, low greenhouse-gas-emitting technologies.
The key policy initiatives involve caps on emissions such as carbon dioxide and auctioning of greenhouse gas credits to motivate a fundamental shift from high emitting industries to low-carbon energy alternatives. Obama has stated that the policy would be broader than any other cap and trade system proposed or in place to date in the world.
In order to implement the policy, renewable energy, natural gas, plug-in hybrid vehicles and advanced electricity transmission are expected to receive substantial incentives. Obama has proposed drawing upon $150 billion from the emissions auction to finance low-carbon alternatives over the next several years.
If you want to review a full analysis of global warming, a good source is http://www.onebiosphere.com
The process of reducing emissions would start by targeting the fossil fuel industry. Oil companies are concerned about policies such as windfall profits taxes. Oil industry proponents state that oil companies need to gain access to areas closer to the coastline. Obama has already altered his policy regarding offshore oil and gas drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf due to the recent spike in oil and gas prices.
- Posted by megreenyouSven writes from Brussels: “I’m a Kyoto Protocol consultant, working now with 16 young university students/alumni from the African Diaspora living here. Some are lawyers. I’ve been mentioning a lawsuit preparation just like your lawsuit during our workshops and was happy to read about your actions.”
- Posted by Danny BloomI heard today that “Group to Sue EPA Over Impact of C02 Emissions on Oceans”. The Center for Biological Diversity has announced that it intends to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its failure to use the Clean Water Act to prevent a growing acidification of the ocean resulting from massive absorption of carbon dioxide. The suit would mark the first time that an environmental group attempts to use clean water statutes to control greenhouse gas emissions. Interesting.
- Posted by Danny Bloom[...] Sue world leaders $1 billion for global warming? [...]
- Posted by The Daily Flash: Eco, Space, Science (12/01) - Photo news“And since we know he can’t prove manmade C02 is causing global warming, or even that the Earth is warming, we should look forward to this case with eager anticipation.”
My question to this is……how can we not prove it? have you seen the differances in the polar Caps since teh 80’s? Big differance adn theres nothing to explain these occurances but to man made CO2….or at least thats what all fingers are pointing at.
- Posted by Derek Nasonthe flooding….the deforestation, they ALL link together,
no trees = no air filters. no ice = no cooling of the oceans - which in turn melts more ice, makes more floods. I think this guy should Sue the world leaders, we shoud ALL back him…what do we have to lose, a little time..thats alot better than loseing Earth isnt it?
If your are going to sue the leaders, then add a few others to the list such as the state governments, and the city municipalities………. And take your message to the people; public opinion does count.
Each one of these governments bodies can make changes too. Cleaning our environment begins with our own back yards, our cities and our states.
- Posted by maudyfish“Perhaps the global collective of individuals, governments and industry is to blame”
– yes, but governments play the role of regulating individuals and industry. When independent choices can hurt other individuals in society we ask our governments to make laws to protect us from harmful choices. We need our governments to pass better laws– to ensure that we don’t just hurt the earth/ourselves less and rather we begin to help revive the living systems that we depend on for survival. “sustainability”
- Posted by BlakeWe do need action now. I would personally like to include the corporations, especially those in the energy and car lobbies to be called to account for failing to use of existing technology to make reductions in CO2 emissions.
- Posted by DebraMark, in a positive note, in an email, told me: “Indeed it is all of us who should bring the suit. I often wondered if I could do the paperwork to bring such a suit at the Hague, but ,always, for some silly reason or another, I put it on the back burner, and never got to researching exactly how to file it. You are going forward with one of my many dream ideas I have about combatting global warming. I am in favor of what you are doing ,and often thought myself. You are an excellent person for starting such an undertaking. Thank you for spending your own time and resources on this issue.”
- Posted by Danny Bloom[...] An environmental activist is planning to sue world leaders for global warming via a class action law…. [...]
- Posted by steve cross loves music and scienceActivist, blogger, radical environmentalist, AGW alarmist?
More to the point:
- Posted by WAMisanthrope: a person who hates or distrusts humankind
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionar y/misanthrope
[...] US$1 billion lawsuit against world leaders for global warming Aaron Gray-Block reports from Reuters [...]
- Posted by James Hansen: Tell Obama the Truth on Climate Change | Civilianism NewsA woman in Sweden writes in, too: “I see, the lawsuit is intended as a wake-up call; an alarm bell for the future. Got it! And that is totally something I can get behind. I think it’s a wonderful and audacious (to use a word that has come into our collective consciousness lately, due to Obama) gesture.”
- Posted by Danny BloomAn a retired American living in Sweden says to me: “Publicity stunt? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But I could almost get behind this guy. (I don’t think it’s the answer, though.)”
- Posted by Danny BloomA skeptic who does not believe in manmade global warming, what science calls AGW, tells me in email: “This suit is actually pretty good for us skeptics and denialists. If the ICC prosecutor takes the case, he’s going to have to prove damages, damages caused by human C02 emissions. If he can’t, it’ll be a major blow against the anthropomorphic global warming industry — that’s if the media covers it….
- Posted by Danny BloomAnd since we know he can’t prove manmade C02 is causing global warming, or even that the Earth is warming, we should look forward to this case with eager anticipation.”
PRO AND CON; Says a scientist in Australia who read this blog: “I’m a long way from convinced that ’stunts’ like this will serve any useful purpose. There’s no shortage of awareness of the risks, it what to do about it that’s at issue.”
Let’s hope the 9000 people attending the Poznan talks this week and next make some headway on tackling the problem. I hope it won’t be all talk talk talk. The clock is ticking. Will humanity make it to 2500 AD?
- Posted by Danny BloomThe more I read on this subject, the firmer the conviction grows inside me;
I am surrounded by educated idiots.
RSC
- Posted by Randall, USAalthough improbable i hope this case comes to a trial. i am sure the alarmists will never allow it to happen however. let’s put science into play for once. co2 is a polutant? really? i think we may as well say o2 is one as well. without o2 we couldn’t produce the nasty co2 therefore, eliminate o2 and lovelock gore hansen strong (as in maurice, why dont we ever hear his name?) will be sated by killing off life…..oh no wait, they just want humans to die…read the club of rome nonsense, google the green agenda…get a life pal and do something useful.
- Posted by rumGive him the money only if he cant spend it on anything that uses fuel or was made in a system where fuel was used. aka everything… Without burning fossil fuels there would be no cars, no computers, no electricity, and no dumb lawsuits. Has the man ever enjoyed having a bed to sleep on, or a car to get to the grocery store? Well, then he is part of the problem. The fact is burning fossil fuels might cause global warming but the benefits at this time out weigh the risks. (and comeon, we are working to make things more earth frindly)
- Posted by bradIt is simply obscene to suggest that this is a stunt on the part of Mr. Bloom. The history of this system, its rulers and cultures is a history of genocide, and the ICC Is exactly where this case belongs. Bush and others among the ruling elites have willfully and ongoingly ignored the evidence of mass death. Bush ignored the Pentagon’s own warnings on this matter, which predicted a world characterized by multiple and ongoing resource wars as global warming’s impacts progress. The world’s leaders are as informed - indeed much better informed - about the consequences before the world than we are.
Claiming that they are “trying” in an attempt to spread the blame to the millions of us who have no immediate power to act that in any way compares to that of the heads of governments makes a mockery of the entire concept of “responsible governance” and undercuts any shred of legitimacy these rulers might cling to. If its up to _me_ as much as it is up to them, Mr Block, then, it must also be the case that i have the same armies and police at my disposal as they to enforce my will as they do take the same armies they have to enforce my will. But, really, you know, _I_ am not committing genocide in Iraq. That is Bush’s burden, just as it was and remains the burden of Clinton and Albright before him. And _I_ am not willfully ignoring the evidence on global heating as are global leaders, or promoting phony schemes like the unworkable “cap and trade scam of Kyoto - scams and schemes that protect the profit of the rich- not the Life of the Earth. Those crime are the doing of the rulers Mr. Bloom is rightly suing. This entire _system_ profits at the expense of all Life. It is time they paid their debts. Mr. Gray Block has not succeeded in his attempt to mock Mr. Bloom. He has only managed to make a mockery of his own sense of the moral and ethical. Mr. Bloom, on the other hand, has dared to speak truth to power and to name this for what it is. Genocide. Ecocide. Geocide.
Murder and manslaughter are milder terms and lesser charges, and more moderate than what they global rulers deserve.
Juan Santos
- Posted by Juan Santos