And...for the final and third strategy...foreign nations and individuals can sue America. There's growing interest in international environmental litigation. And the island of Tuvalu may lead the way. It’s considering lawsuits against the United States and Australia for refusing to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions to prevent global warming.
Europeans are also up in arms after a summer of catastrophic floods, and they're blaming America, reports Paul Martin of the Washington Times. He writes, "Gallus Cadonau, the managing director of the Swiss Greina Foundation for the preservation of Alpine rivers and streams, has urged that a punitive tariff on imports from the United States be imposed to force cooperation on greenhouse gas emissions." That's not a lawsuit or a boycott, but it's coming close to both.
For the first time, Americans are suing our own institutions for causing global warming. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and the city of Boulder, Colorado, filed the suit against the Export Import Bank (ExIm) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), alleging that these taxpayer funded lending institutions illegally provided more than $32 billion in financing and insurance for oil fields, pipelines and coal-fired power plants without assessing their contribution to global warming and their impact on the U.S. environment as required under key provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). It's about time.
Europeans are also up in arms after a summer of catastrophic floods, and they're blaming America, reports Paul Martin of the Washington Times. He writes, "Gallus Cadonau, the managing director of the Swiss Greina Foundation for the preservation of Alpine rivers and streams, has urged that a punitive tariff on imports from the United States be imposed to force cooperation on greenhouse gas emissions." That's not a lawsuit or a boycott, but it's coming close to both.
For the first time, Americans are suing our own institutions for causing global warming. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and the city of Boulder, Colorado, filed the suit against the Export Import Bank (ExIm) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), alleging that these taxpayer funded lending institutions illegally provided more than $32 billion in financing and insurance for oil fields, pipelines and coal-fired power plants without assessing their contribution to global warming and their impact on the U.S. environment as required under key provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). It's about time.