Supreme Court rules that EPA can regulate carbon dioxide

[tectonite]

The Supreme Court of the US has just ruled 5-4 that the Environmental Protection Agency has the right to regulate CO2 emissions (NY Times storyThis is huge. The four dissenting justices (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito) based their dissent on the standing of Massachusetts (and the other states) to bring the suit; they did not argue against the

Comments

[golden_berry]

While I'm glad that the decision fell the way it did, how scary is it that we are just one crackpot SC Justice away from a permanent (as in, the rest of OUR LIVES anyway) crackpot, wingnut majority of 5?

*shudder*

[tectonite]

Well, yes, but we pretty much knew that was at stake during the last election.

It impresses me that the climate scientists could convince five people who are generally a) not particularly young and b) not scientists. Only Breyer and Ginsburg were appointed by Democrats, so it isn't as if the majority felt some kind of political connection to Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth.