Getting warm

Contrary to what Al Gore, his pals in Hollywood and the uber-liberals say, the global warming issue is far from settled.

Hundreds of scientists contest the notion that industrial emissions are responsible for an imperceptible increase in the Earth’s average temperature over the past 100 years. Recent revisions to NASA temperature calculations have cast serious doubts about the viability of models used to predict humanity’s demise. And even Mr. Gore acknowledges that if Western nations abandoned their automobiles and shut down their economies, China, India and other developing countries would pump more than enough pollution into the sky to make up the difference in the decades ahead.

Such facts make it all the more disturbing that some state government officials are among the truest believers in cataclysmic global warming scenarios. Politicians are increasingly using the power of their offices to bully business. Heretics are drawn and quartered by vindictive regulation, which makes the public pay twice through higher consumer prices and higher taxes.

Last week brought two news stories indicative of the dogmatic global warming policies undertaken by bureaucrats. One offered a glimmer of hope for those who challenge the alarmist rhetoric of doomsayers. The other revealed how far these followers will go to impose their will.

First, the bad news: the New York attorney general’s office subpoenaed Dynegy, a company that is partnering to develop badly needed coal-fired power plants in Nevada and other states, because prosecutors “are concerned that Dynegy has failed to disclose material information about the increased climate risks Dynegy’s business faces,” Special Deputy Attorney General Katherine Kennedy and investor protection bureau chief Matthew Gaul wrote.

Their letter warns that tougher state and the federal regulations on carbon dioxide emissions are on the way, and they will add huge costs to the planned power plants. Dynegy, the letter asserts, is legally obligated to disclose to investors that global warming is real and indisputable, and that energy companies can expect higher production costs and taxes as a result.

The free-speech and economic ramifications of such a policy are staggering. Not only must publicly traded companies subject themselves to indoctrination, they must be able to predict exactly how government will make them squeal like pigs sent to slaughter. What might New York prosecutors do next? Require Dynegy to change its name to “Deniers”?

Now, the good news: U.S. District Judge Martin J. Jenkins threw out a lawsuit brought by California’s attorney general against six major auto manufacturers.

The lawsuit alleged “there is clear scientific consensus that global warming has begun and that most of the current global warming is caused by emissions of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel combustion.” The state also alleged that cars are partly to blame for rising sea levels, reduced snow packs, flooding, hurricanes, etc. “Scientific debate is over,” the lawsuit said in seeking billions of dollars in damages for causing irreparable harm to the environment by warming the atmosphere.

Judge Jenkins correctly ruled that the courts can’t possibly settle the argument over global warming and to what degree cars might be responsible for it. We hope more judges have the common sense to trash the coming wave of ill-conceived lawsuits against heavily regulated, law-abiding industries.

Make no mistake, elected officials will continue to try to use global warming fears to increase their own power. The public must insist that this debate take place in venues of their choosing, not in the back rooms of heavy-handed government bureaucracies.