August, 14 2018, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Phil LaRue, Earthjustice, (202) 667-4500 x 4317, plarue@earthjustice.org
25 Environmental, Advocacy Organizations Oppose Nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh in New Letter
Groups highlight nominee’s record of favoring big polluters, diminishing access to courts for communities, politicizing federal agency actions
WASHINGTON
In anticipation of the start of hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh will begin on September 4, 25 of the nation's leading environmental, legal, and advocacy organizations sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee announcing their opposition to Judge Kavanaugh's nomination.
In the letter, the organizations contend that Judge Kavanaugh's "lengthy record on the federal bench exposes him as an activist judge who has used cases to effectively rewrite statutes," often stacking the deck in favor of wealthy and powerful corporate polluter interests against communities impacted by toxic wastes, loose emission standards, dangerous petrochemical facilities, and pipelines. The signing organizations also note the historic lack of transparency in the nominating process, with hundreds of thousands of pages relating to Judge Kavanaugh's service in the Bush White House still inaccessible to Senators and the public.
Click here to read the full text of the environmental community's letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing Judge Kavanaugh or continue reading below:
Alaska Wilderness League * Bold Alliance * Center for Biological Diversity
Clean Water Action * Climate Hawks Vote * Defenders of Wildlife * Earthjustice
Endangered Species Coalition * Environmental Working Group * Friends of the Earth
Green For All * GreenLatinos * Greenpeace USA * Hip Hop Caucus
Hoosier Environmental Council * Indivisible * League of Conservation Voters
National Lawyer Guild Environmental Justice Committee * National Lawyers Guild
Oil Change International * Sierra Club * Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
The Wilderness Society * Waterkeeper Alliance * WE ACT for Environmental Justice
August 10, 2018
The Honorable Chuck Grassley, Chairman The Honorable Diane Feinstein, Ranking Member
Senate Committee on the Judiciary Senate Committee on the Judiciary
United States Senate United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
RE: Environmental Groups Oppose the Supreme Court Nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh
Dear Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein:
The undersigned environmental groups write today on behalf of our millions of members and supporters to express our strong opposition to the confirmation of D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to a lifetime seat on the United States Supreme Court. Judge Kavanaugh is an unacceptable choice for the Supreme Court, and we urge the Senate to reject his nomination.
Judge Kavanaugh's lengthy record on the federal bench exposes him as an activist judge who has used cases to effectively rewrite statutes, creating new obstacles for agency regulation and scuttling protective regulatory outcomes. His hundreds of judicial opinions and legal writings reveal a judicial philosophy that is hostile to the power of government (especially agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency), and that values corporate profits over people and the health of the public. Moreover, Judge Kavanaugh's decisions reveal a tendency to limit the public's right to access justice through the courts (such as by adopting obstructive "standing" requirements), while at the same time removing barriers for polluters. As a result, a Supreme Court informed by Judge Kavanaugh's brand of judging would mean that courthouse doors will often be closed to people seeking to protect the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the planet on which they live. At a time when too many communities of color bear a disproportionate impact from toxic wastes, loose emission standards, dangerous petrochemical facilities and pipelines placed in their communities, we need a Supreme Court Justice that will combat environmental racism and fight for environmental justice for all, regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, or income - not someone who will bar the courthouse doors on them.
The stakes for the current Supreme Court vacancy could not be higher. United States Supreme Court Justices do not simply decide cases; they determine whether and how the law works, and for whom. They define what the law means for generations to come, and the lower federal courts are bound to follow the precedent they set. An appointment of a new Justice affects the very nature of our democracy, fundamentally defining the landscape of American law.
Who serves as a Supreme Court Justice is among the most profoundly important choices we make as a nation, and one of the most solemn duties that our constitution entrusts to the U.S. Senate. In carrying out that duty, is it incumbent on the Senate to carefully, and thoroughly, scrutinize every nominee, to thoughtfully consider every aspect of his or her judicial record and legal philosophy, and to ensure a robust, fully informed, and transparent confirmation process. The integrity of our system of laws depends on vetting that is both open and honest. In this regard, we urge the Senate to demand all pertinent records from Judge Kavanaugh's years as a political lawyer in the George W. Bush White House (as provided under the Presidential Records Act), and fully consider these materials before proceeding with confirmation hearings. In the end, a nominee to the Supreme Court should be rejected unless he or she is willing to uphold the values, protect the rights, and serve in the interests of the American people - not just corporations, the wealthy, and the political elites.
I. Judge Kavanaugh's Environmental Record Results in Dirtier Air and Water
In key cases, Judge Kavanaugh has backed the right of corporations to pollute the air and water over the public's right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in safe communities.
As shown in dissents written by Judge Kavanaugh in White Stallion1] and Mingo Logan,[2] he reads burdensome obligations into the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act that the statutes do not include in their text. For example, in White Stallion, he argued that the EPA could not even consider limiting toxic mercury pollution from power plants without first evaluating the cost to the power companies. And in Mingo Logan, he argued that before vetoing a permit that would have allowed coal companies to dump toxic mining wastes into public waterways, EPA should have considered the cost to coal companies. In both of these cases, he invented the requirement to consider costs to industry where Congress did not include that requirement, while at the same time seeking to force the EPA to ignore important real-world benefits - all in order to stack the deck in favor of the outcomes desired by corporate polluters. This tendency to read into a statute the requirement to consider costs to the corporate elites - while ignoring benefits to the environment, and improvements in the health of children, families, and the American public - not only usurps Congressional authority; it puts our health and well-being at risk.
Several of Judge Kavanaugh's decisions would significantly reduce agency power to protect public health, by recrafting statutes to eliminate authority that Congress has given agencies. For example, his narrow interpretation of the Clean Air Act expressed in EME Homer City[3] (an interpretation later overturned by the Supreme Court) would have severely constrained EPA's ability to protect the people in downwind states from pollution emanating from upwind sources. His interpretation in the Mexichem[4] case prevented the EPA from requiring replacement of a harmful chemical substitute for chlorofluorocarbons. His narrow reading of the phrase "air pollutant" in Coalition for Responsible Regulation[5] could undermine the regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
His judicial writings also reveal his anti-regulatory approach to evaluating whether an agency action is appropriate under the relevant statute. In cases that raise questions about whether an agency has acted within the scope of its regulatory authority, Judge Kavanaugh favors a deeply subjective "common sense" test - where the statute means whatever he thinks makes sense. Rather than requiring an agency to fully divulge and explain its interpretation of a law that Congress has entrusted it with administering, requiring notice and opportunity for public comment on such interpretation, and then giving special consideration to the agency's conclusions, Kavanaugh would have judges simply impose their own, "common sense," ad-hoc "best reading of the statute."[6] When Judge Kavanaugh has utilized this approach, his "best reading" has been in service of his inclinations toward limited federal authority to regulate, not in the best interest of achieving Congress' protective aims under the relevant statutory program. For example, in his dissent in US Telecom Ass'n v FCC, [7] Judge Kavanaugh outlined a novel "major questions" doctrine that he would have used to reject the FCC's rational interpretation of legislative language and thereby undermine its "net neutrality" rules that are intended to protect consumers. As a Supreme Court Justice, we could expect more of the same, and such an ad-hoc approach to statutory interpretation could ultimately increase regulatory uncertainty and create a perverse incentive for agencies to under-regulate in the first instance.
II. Judge Kavanaugh Politicizes Agency Decision-Making Processes
Judge Kavanaugh's record demonstrates a belief that federal agencies should be more inherently political, which would compromise both the integrity and continuity of their decision-making. He has argued that all federal agencies should operate directly under the political thumb of the President, and should function merely as political extensions of executive branch policy-making. He believes that any degree of separation from direct presidential control is unconstitutional.
In Free Enter. Fund,[8] Judge Kavanaugh's dissent argued that the establishment of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, an independent agency, violated separation of powers principles because the board's members are insulated from "at will" presidential removal. Application of this legal principle would make all agencies more political, would increase regulatory uncertainty, would undermine policy continuity, and would destabilize decision-making related to important issues of safety, economic stability, consumer protection, public health, and the environment. Part and parcel to this extreme view of separation of powers, Judge Kavanaugh believes that sitting Presidents are all but immune from the legal consequence of their actions while they are in office - effectively rendering them constitutionally above the law.
III. Judge Kavanaugh's Corporate-serving Double Standard Blocks Access to Courts
One of the most troubling judicial philosophies revealed by Judge Kavanaugh's decisions is his limited view of the rights of ordinary people and public interest groups to access our court system, and his contrastingly permissive view of corporations' right to do so. Critical public health and environmental laws would have little power and meaning in practice if the public cannot get into court to enforce them.
For example, in Grocery Mfrs. Ass'n v. EPA[9] Judge Kavanaugh argued in dissent for giving processed-food manufactures standing to challenge EPA's approval of certain ethanol-containing gasoline blends based solely on the mere chance of increased corn prices, even without quantification of the speculative economic injury. Conversely, in Public Citizen, Inc. v. National Highway Traffic Safety Admin,[10] Judge Kavanaugh ruled against the public interest group and its members' right to be in court to challenge the adequacy of vehicle tire-safety standards on behalf of highway drivers. He did so because Public Citizen did not demonstrate "with certainty" that its members would suffer some particularized and currently identifiable harm other than an increased risk from more severe accidents.
Judge Kavanaugh has a troubling pattern of siding with corporations, the wealthy, and the powerful while erecting barriers for those defending the health, safety, and well-being of the American people. It is essential that whoever occupies a seat on the Supreme Court upholds the right of access to the courts for all, and honors the constitutional obligation to provide an impartial check on the power of Congress and the President.
Conclusion
Judge Kavanaugh's approach to the law threatens key elements of environmental and public health protections, and makes it harder for people to hold the government and big corporate polluters accountable. His confirmation to the United States Supreme Court would create a deeply conservative majority that would tip the scales of justice and the law further away from the people's rights and more towards corporate control of our democracy. We strongly oppose Judge Kavanaugh as a nominee and assert that careful scrutiny of his record reveals a predisposition to subordinate the rights of people to the interests of corporate profit making. These qualities in a Supreme Court Justice would threaten the health and well-being of children, families, workers, and communities, and undermine efforts to protect the ecosystems, natural resources, and global climate systems upon which we all rely. Accordingly, we strongly urge you to reject his nomination and vote against his confirmation.
Sincerely,
Alaska Wilderness League |
Bold Alliance |
Center for Biological Diversity |
Clean Water Action |
Climate Hawks Vote |
Defenders of Wildlife |
Earthjustice |
Endangered Species Coalition |
Environmental Working Group |
Friends of the Earth |
Green For All |
GreenLatinos |
Greenpeace USA |
Hip Hop Caucus |
Hoosier Environmental Council |
Indivisible |
League of Conservation Voters |
National Lawyer Guild Environmental Justice Committee |
National Lawyers Guild |
Oil Change International |
Sierra Club |
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance |
The Wilderness Society |
Waterkeeper Alliance |
WE ACT for Environmental Justice |
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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'Too Much Is At Stake': First House Democrat Calls On Biden to Step Aside
"President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2021," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett. "He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024."
Jul 02, 2024
Crediting U.S. President Joe Biden with spearheading "transformational" changes since taking office three-and-a-half years ago, Rep. Lloyd Doggett on Tuesday became the first federal lawmaker to call on the president to withdraw from the 2024 electoral race, warning that a potential victory by former President Donald Trump would "usher America into a long, dark, authoritarian era."
With just four months until Election Day, and weeks until the Democratic Party formally nominates its presidential candidate, Doggett (D-Texas) said in a statement that the party's "overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang."
Doggett spoke out five days after Biden faced Trump in the first debate of the presidential campaign and alarmed viewers, Democratic strategists, and aides with his performance. The president, speaking in a raspy voice and appearing to lose his train of thought several times, struggled to make the case for his achievements and to call out Trump's repeated lies.
The debate reportedly sent a wave of panic through the Democratic Caucus, with one party insider telling Politico that names of potential replacements for Biden were being floated.
In his statement, Doggett noted that Biden's poll numbers compared to Trump's were cause for concern for several months before the debate.
"Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory—too great a risk to assume that what could not be turned around in a year, what could not be turned around in the debate, can be turned around now," said Doggett. "President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2021. He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024."
Doggett's comments came as CNN released a poll showing that Trump is leading Biden by 49% v. 43%, while his lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in a potential matchup is smaller. Trump leads the vice president by two points.
Among Independent voters, Harris has a three-point edge over the former president, while Trump leads Biden by 10 points.
A separate poll released Tuesday by the progressive grassroots group Our Revolution showed that 67% of respondents supported Biden suspending his reelection campaign.
Doggett noted that the days following the debate have made increasingly clear the danger of a potential second Trump term, as the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Trump has "absolute immunity" regarding "official acts" he committed while he was in office—casting doubt on whether he can be held accountable for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and rendering any U.S. president, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, "a king above the law."
"Newly empowered with immunity," said Doggett, Trump would be "unchecked by either the courts or a submissive Republican Congress."
The congressman noted that while Biden has spearheaded some far-reaching legislative reforms, the president signaled earlier in his term that he planned to serve only one term.
"He has the opportunity to encourage a new generation of leaders from whom a nominee can be chosen to unite our country through an open, democratic process," said Doggett. "Recognizing that, unlike Trump, his first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so."
Doggett told Matthew Choi of The Texas Tribune that he had notified the White House of his decision to speak out in favor of Biden stepping aside last Friday, the day after the debate.
"After the debate, the risk of a Trump presidency has grown so much that I felt forced to take this action," Doggett said.
Another survey released Tuesday by Puck News showed alternative candidates including Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer polling ahead of Biden in a potential matchup with Trump.
In light of the the new polling numbers, said former Rhode Island lawmaker and lawyer Aaron Regunberg, Democratic leaders who are "trying to shut down this debate are actively helping Trump."
Regunberg called Doggett's statement "courageous."
"Biden cannot beat Trump," he said. "But another Democrat absolutely can! Whether it's a handoff to VP Harris or an open convention, we don't have to resign ourselves to fascism. It's time for Biden to do the honorable thing and pass the torch."
Also on Tuesday, longtime Democratic National Committee (DNC) member James Zogby wrote to Chairman Jamie Harrison outlining a process through which the party could select its presidential nominee over the next month, ahead of the Democratic National Convention.
Potential candidates could work to secure the endorsements of at least 40 current DNC members and the party could then host two televised events in which the candidates would "make their cases before Democratic voters across the country" before the formal nomination process at the convention starting August 19.
"The excitement generated by this process and the attention it will be given will be a plus for our eventual nominee," said Zogby.
In an interview with The Nation national affairs correspondent John Nichols, Zogby concurred with Doggett's suggestion that Biden's ability to continue serving as president is not what has caused growing concern.
"The focus of this election shouldn't be on the president's age, on his capacity to campaign, on his capacity to govern," said Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute. "It should be on the danger that Donald Trump presents to the country, on the threat that Donald Trump poses."
"We have to face reality here," he said. "Do I think that Joe Biden is capable of governing? I would say 'yes.' Is he capable of forming a team that can govern? Yes. But can he win an election under these circumstances, when these questions about his abilities will be the constant focus? When the Republicans and the media are looking for the next gaffe, waiting for the next time he forgets something, watching his every step to see if he will stumble? This is not what the election should focus on. And, yet, that's where it's headed."
"I would trust Joe Biden on his worst day more than Donald Trump on his best day. But I don't want his last campaign to be one where all people talk about are his weaknesses," Zogby added. "To go out as the gracious warrior, who fought the great battle to defeat Donald Trump in 2020, served four years and then decided to pass the torch, would absolutely solidify his place in history as somebody who thought more about the good of the country than himself."
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'Screaming the Quiet Part': Trump Advisers Say He's Ready to Embrace King-Like Powers
The U.S. Supreme Court's immunity decision has reportedly emboldened the presumptive GOP nominee to pursue his far-right agenda and authoritarian aims "without fear of punishment or restraint."
Jul 02, 2024
Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump—who has pledged to be a dictator on "day one" if elected to another four years in the White House—is reportedly preparing to exploit the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Monday that current and former presidents are entitled to sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution.
Citing unnamed advisers to the former president, Axiosreported Tuesday that if Trump is reelected in November, he "plans to immediately test the boundaries of presidential and governing power, knowing the restraints of Congress and the courts are dramatically looser than during his first term."
"They're screaming the quiet part, and yet Democrats are mostly focused on renominating a sundowning 81-year-old losing to him in key swing state polls," The Lever's David Sirota wrote in response to Axios' reporting, referring to President Joe Biden.
Facing mounting calls to drop his reelection campaign following his disastrous debate performance against Trump last week, Biden said in an address following the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. United States that the ruling means "there are virtually no limits on what a president can do."
"I know I will respect the limits of the presidential power, as I have for three and a half years," said Biden. "But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law."
Among the steps Trump—who celebrated the ruling—intends to take swiftly upon assuming office following a possible November victory, according to Axios, are setting up "vast camps" to "deport millions of people," moving to "fire potentially tens of thousands of civil servants" and replace them with "pre-vetted loyalists," and centralizing "power over the Justice Department," which the former president has repeatedly threatened to wield against his political opponents.
Trump has also pledged to gut environmental rules—which the Supreme Court also targeted in recent rulings—and ram through climate-wrecking drilling projects, moves backed by the powerful oil and gas industry that's helping finance his campaign.
"Thanks to Monday's Supreme Court ruling, Trump could pursue his plans without fear of punishment or restraint," Axios reported.
“It's coming, fast and furious, if he's elected.”
Being a dictator on Day One. Swapping civil servants for “pre-vetted loyalists.” Threatening to “target and even imprison critics.” Pardoning insurrectionists. Jacking up prices with new tariffs. And more: https://t.co/sEiORyvMOt
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 2, 2024
While Trump made his support for such actions clear well before the U.S. Supreme Court's Monday ruling, the decision is likely to embolden the twice-impeached former president who, since leaving office, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on election-subversion charges and convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The high court's ideologically divided 6-3 decision in the immunity case has already impacted both legal proceedings, with Manhattan prosecutors agreeing Tuesday with the former president's request to delay his criminal sentencing on the 34 felony charges as the judge on the case examines whether the Supreme Court's ruling has any bearing on the conviction.
In the separate election-subversion case, the Supreme Court's ruling further pushes back a trial as the judge now has to determine which of the actions described in the indictment qualify as "official" duties that—according to the high court's right-wing supermajority—are entitled to "absolute immunity" from criminal prosecution.
"So, yes, all this will delay Trump's trial. In that sense, he gets what he craved," Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, wrote Monday. "But the implications are far worse for the structure of American self-government."
"We read sonorous language in the majority opinion that 'the president is not above the law,'" Waldman added. "But just in time for Independence Day, the Supreme Court brings us closer to having a king again."
"The Framers of the Constitution, wary of reestablishing the monarchy they overthrew, carefully limited the chief executive's powers. And six justices just crowned him king."
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent against Monday's decision that the Supreme Court's majority has effectively endorsed assassinations of political rivals, orchestration of a military coup to remain in power, and the acceptance of bribes in exchange for pardons as legitimate and unprosecutable uses of presidential authority.
"The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably," Sotomayor wrote. "In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law."
Slate legal journalist Mark Joseph Stern echoed Sotomayor, writing that "it is unclear, after Monday's decision, what constitutional checks remain to stop any president from assuming dangerous and monarchical powers that are anathema to representative government."
"The immediate impact of the court's sweeping decision will be devastating enough, allowing Donald Trump to evade accountability for the most destructive and criminal efforts he took to overturn the 2020 election. But the long-term impact is even more harrowing," Stern wrote. "All future presidents will enter office with the knowledge that they are protected from prosecution for even the most appalling and dangerous abuses of power so long as they insist they were seeking to carry out their duties, as they understood them."
"The Framers of the Constitution, wary of reestablishing the monarchy they overthrew, carefully limited the chief executive's powers," he added. "And six justices just crowned him king."
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'Historic' Category 5 Hurricane Beryl Offers Terrifying View of Future
"Beryl isn't 'unbelievable,'" one expert said. "it's what happens when you heat up the planet with fossil fuel pollution for decades."
Jul 02, 2024
As Hurricane Beryl barreled toward Jamaica on Tuesday after killing at least four people in the Caribbean's Windward Islands, climate scientists warned the record-breaking Category 5 storm is a present-tense example of what's to come on a rapidly heating planet.
Even before the Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an 85% chance of above-normal activity and 17-25 total named storms this year. Matthew Cappucci, a meteorologist for The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang, highlighted some records Beryl has already broken.
"There is a strong, well-documented link between the effects of human-induced climate change and the development of stronger, wetter storms that are more prone to rapidly intensify," he wrote Tuesday. "Beryl sprung from a tropical depression to a Category 4 hurricane in just 48 hours, the fastest any storm on record has strengthened before the month of September."
Beryl is also the earliest Category 4 and 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic, Cappucci pointed out. Previously, the earliest storm to reach the top level of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale was Emily, in mid-July of 2005.
The Capital Weather Gang reported that Beryl "strengthened more Monday night, its peak winds climbing to 165 mph. It has surpassed Emily (2005) as strongest July hurricane on record. It's early July but Atlantic is acting like late August."
Certified consulting meteorologist Chris Gloninger emphasized that "the climate crisis has led to well-above-average ocean water temperatures and helped this storm explode."
As Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Potsdam University explained: "The heat in the upper ocean is the energy source for tropical cyclones. This heat is at record level, mainly caused by emissions from burning fossil fuel. That's why an extreme hurricane season has been predicted for this year. It's off to a bad start!"
Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach on Monday shared graphics showing that "Caribbean ocean heat content today is normally what we get in the middle of September."
While some expressed disbelief over the storm, CNN extreme weather editor Eric Zerkel stressed that "Beryl isn't 'unbelievable' or 'defying all logic,' it's what happens when you heat up the planet with fossil fuel pollution for decades. The oceans store roughly 90% of that excess heat. The ocean is as warm as it typically is... when Category 4 storms form. June is now August."
Acknowledging Beryl's strength, Steve Bowen, a meteorologist who serves as chief science officer at the global reinsurance firm Gallagher Re, concluded that "this is a massive warning sign for the rest of the season."
Looking beyond this hurricane season, which ends in November, University of Hawaii at Mānoa professor and [C]Worthy co-founder David Ho said, "Let's remember that things are just going to get [worse] as we continue to consume nearly 100 million barrels of oil every day."
The "historic" storm is sparking calls for action to phase out fossil fuels across the globe. Noting how Beryl "is breaking records and leaving a trail of destruction throughout the Caribbean," the U.S.-based Sunrise Movement argued that "we must prosecute Big Oil for their role in causing devastation like this."
In response to a climate scientist who shared a photo of some damage Beryl has already caused, Rahmstorf expressed hope that people around the world won't "wait with voting for climate stabilization until extremes hit their homes."
Beryl made landfall Monday as a Category 4 hurricane on Carriacou, a Grenada island, and also affected St. Vincent and Grenadines. According toThe Associated Press, at least four people were killed.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Tuesday afternoon that on its current path, "the center of Beryl will move quickly across the central Caribbean Sea today and is forecast to pass near Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands on Thursday. The center is forecast to approach the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico on Thursday night."
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