I read with great interest theon the lawsuit filed by Alaskan young people against the Alaska natural gas pipeline. What was even more interesting was reading the entire brief which was embedded in the article.
Today, the argument revolves around how much today’s fuel consumption is adding to that warming. The fatal fallacy in the lawsuit is that blocking the gas line wouldn’t mean even one molecule less CO2 released to the atmosphere. The lawsuit claims that stopping the gas line would prevent “causing at least 2.3 billion metric tons of CO2 of climate pollution.”
I shouldn’t have to say this, but as a matter of basic science, the atmosphere is a universal element of the planet, and reductions anywhere produce benefits everywhere.One of the young people filing the suit lives in Fairbanks. Delivery of clean-burning natural gas to Fairbanks would displace their current sources of energy, which are diesel fuel and coal. It could also reduce the cost of energy to the people of Fairbanks by about 50%.
The primary plaintiff in the lawsuit lives in Unalakleet. Her school’s basketball team won six state championships. How does she think the team got to the tournament? Would she agree with Greta Thunberg that you should never fly on a plane as part of Greta’s “flygskam” or “flight shame” campaign? Try telling that to the Unalakleet basketball team and their parents.