Texas nationalizes the atmosphere

Soylent Green Jr has linked to an article at Grist with news that seem rather incredible.



Cowboy of Teplice City, a 1995 song by Mr Kamil Střihavka (CZ) that happens to describe the health of a Texas district judge, too.

A group of children (run by adults who aren't ashamed of using children as shields, of course) has filed a lawsuit claiming that the atmosphere is a "public trust". What could a stupid district court judge do with it?




Of course, the stupid district court judge Ms Gisela Triana agreed – for the first time in the history – that the atmosphere is a subject to the "public trust doctrine" which was invented to force a government to protect the natural resources belonging to the people led by this government.

Now, the atmosphere is a natural resource.

The only "tiny problem" with this proclamation is that the atmosphere can't belong to Texas. Within a day, the winds "export" most of the air that was located above Texas to other states (or to the volume above the oceans).

On top of that, there is diffusion which is much faster. When you donate a million of tons of Nature's most vital nutrient, carbon dioxide, to the atmosphere in Denver, this amount of gas will be distributed almost uniformly over the whole surface of the Earth within weeks or earlier.

One can't have laws that force the Texas or U.S. federal officials to "control and preserve the atmosphere" above their lands because this goal is totally beyond their abilities. It is as impossible to realize as preserving a beautiful sunset for 12 more hours.

Children and stupid adults, you will really have to become the world dictators and establish the world government before it will make sense to talk about the "public trust doctrine applied to the atmosphere". Be sure that once the threat that you want to overtake the world will become credible, you will become desirable targets of assassinations.

But even if you managed to win the war for a world government, such a world government will still be unable to change the composition of the atmosphere in a way that significantly deviates from predictions arising from natural processes and man-made contributions tightly linked to the people's prosperity. The reason is that winds and diffusion are not the only two foes of yours. There are lots of other laws of physics you need to violate in order to realize your pathological dreams and it won't be easy.