Author: Michael Dorstewitz | Published: Newsmax | Date: 6 July 2022

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Biden administration Thursday in a ruling that stated the Environmental Protection Agency had exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act by trying to regulate greenhouse gases.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion in the 6-3 decision.

“Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day,'” Roberts wrote. But only Congress, or an agency with express authority from Congress, can adopt a “decision of such magnitude and consequence.”

Moreover, Gregory Wrightstone, a geologist and the executive director of the CO2 Coalition, said that transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables is a solution in search of a crisis, and that embarking on such a program would be devastating.

When climate evangelists such as former Democrat Vice President Al Gore say “the science is settled,” Wrightstone replies, “that’s just not how science works.” He explained that “science works on controversy, and discussion, and argument.”

Wrightstone told Newsmax that although carbon dioxide levels have been steadily rising, “we view that as a positive. CO2 is providing huge benefits to our ecosystem and humanity.”

The Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA is just one of three climate cases proceeding through the courts at the same time. In one of the others, Louisiana v. Biden, the CO2 Coalition has filed an amicus brief.

“In that case the Biden administration wanted to use the social cost of carbon for making decisions,” Wrightstone said. “And in determining the social cost of carbon they didn’t look at any of the benefits of carbon dioxide.”

Wrightstone explained that had the administration done so, CO2 should be viewed as a “net positive” to society.

The third case involves the Securities and Exchange Commission “advancing environmental and social governance” by proposing that businesses take extraordinary measures to account for climate risks based on the premise that CO2 is bad for the environment, Wrightstone said.

He noted that “all three revolve around an assumption that CO2 is hugely negative and will lead to worldwide disaster.”

“Every metric you look at, ecosystems are thriving” due to a modest warming combined with a gradual increase in CO2 levels, Wrightstone said.

“We’ve seen an average increase of about 0.8 degrees [Celsius] since 1900 – everyone agrees on that,” he said. “And CO2 levels have increased about 130 parts per million since the beginning of the industrial revolution.”

But Wrightstone says that figure must be put in proper context.

“We have some of the lowest levels of carbon dioxide currently in all of Earth’s history,” he said. “We’re at 420 today. The average for all of Earth’s history is 2,600 parts per million. … It’s gotten as high as seven or eight thousand.”

The real danger is excessively low CO2 levels. Wrightstone explained that “we were down to the dangerously low level of 180 parts per million in the recent geological past.”

The reason for the danger is that “at 150 parts per million plant life can’t survive, and that’s the real climate catastrophe.”

Every middle school science student is taught that while members of the animal kingdom – including humans – take in oxygen and release CO2, plant life takes in CO2 and releases oxygen.

But Wrightstone said some members of the Supreme Court and Congress apparently don’t understand this distinction, referring to “misinformation” in Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent in West Virginia v. EPA.

“She claims that the current rate of emissions, children born this year would live to see the Eastern seaboard swallowed up by the ocean,” and that “rising waters, scorching heat, and other severe weather conditions could force mass migration events, rising waters, scorching heat, crop failures – all of these are factually incorrect,” he said.

The Supreme Court opinion also shocked congressional Democrats, who echoed Kagan’s claims in their own statements.

“Our planet is on fire, and this extremist Supreme Court has destroyed the federal government’s ability to fight back,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that “the decades-long fight to protect citizens from corporate polluters is being wiped out by these MAGA extremist justices.”

“Catastrophic” is how New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“A filibuster carve-out is not enough,” she said. “We need to reform or do away with the whole thing, for the sake of the planet.”

Wrightstone, who is the bestselling author of “Inconvenient Facts: The Science that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know,” revealed one of those “inconvenient facts” that climate alarmists don’t seem to want the public to know: “we are in a warming trend, but that warming trend started more than 300 years ago.”

In other words, long before gas-guzzling SUVs and coal-fired electric power plants.

“We really began adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in significant amounts in the mid-20th century,” he said. “So, the first 250 years of that warming trend had to have been entirely naturally driven.”

Wrightstone added that great civilizations rose and thrived during historic warming periods.

“It was the intervening cold periods that were just horrific,” he said.

According to Dr. William Happer, professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University: “There isn’t a climate crisis. There will not be a climate crisis. It is utter nonsense.”

Investors planning for the long run also don’t appear to believe in any of the climate alarmism, either.

“If you look at the Maldives as a great example, the U.N. lists it as the highest risk of where we are that’s going to be underwater at any moment,” Wrightstone said. “Yet there are 17 resort complexes that are either under construction there or are being planned for the Maldives, plus three new airports.”

He asked: “What company would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in new construction” in an area truly at risk? Also, “insurance companies avoid risk like the plague,” yet companies are insuring this new construction.

Early into his administration, Biden set a goal of “reaching net zero emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050.”

Wrightstone said that in such an instance, “we would have to predict societal collapse because of the role that fossil fuels play in our society today.”

He added: “If you want to live cold, dark, and hungry, you would probably encourage going to net zero.”

Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist, executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Va., and author of “Inconvenient Facts: The science that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know.