Peabody's Outlier Gang Couldn't Shoot Straight In Minnesota Carbon Case, Judge Rebuffs Happer, Lindzen, Spencer, Mendelsohn, Bezdek
By John Mashey • Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - 09:27
Overview
On 04/13/15, Peabody Energy followed other major coal companies i nto bankruptcy, and days later lost a battle in a landmark legal war on Minnesota's Social Cost of Carbon (SCC). The “best” gang1 of climate denial outliers they could hire tried to confuse the court with absurd claims in both science and economics. The Judge was not fooled, and ruled unambiguously, as reported by Bloomberg BNA, University of Minnesota Consortium on Law and Values and MPRNEWS:
Updated climate change costs make coal-fired power less attractive:
“State law already requires Minnesota account for climate change costs when deciding how to generate electricity. But an administrative law judge says the price range Minnesota uses is way too low - by a factor of more than 10 - because it's outdated and doesn't fully account for health problems and other societal costs tied to climate change. If the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission agrees with the judge's view, it could mean wind and solar will look a lot cheaper than burning coal…. On Friday, Administrative Law Judge LauraSue Schlatter mostly agreed the federal government's social cost of carbon figures were the way to go and suggested the state PUC adopt a new price range — from about $11 to $57 per ton of carbon emitted. The previous range was about 50 cents to less than $5.”
Scientist and witness John P. Abraham explained Peabody coal's contrarian scientist witnesses lose their court case.
Dana Nuccitelli followed with more detail in Coal made its best case against climate change, and lost.
These just scratch the surface of a major case with 19 witnesses and ~550 documents. The volume of recorded nonsense is too large to cover in a post, so key testimonies are annotated for any who want to assess witness credibility.
Often citing dubious or mis-used sources in both science and economics, Peabody's fossil gang couldn't shoot straight.
Opposing witness could and did, and the judge saw that.
desmogblog.com |
