Criminal Climate

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

NASA’s climate expert, James Hansen, was arrested the other day. He committed the kind of crime a defense lawyer just loves to defend: a crime against a crime without a corresponding statute.

Mr. Hansen trespassed at the Goals Coal plant, in West Virginia. They’re taking the top off a mountain there, using a mining practice which not only sort of messes with the natural skyline, but pumps enough carbon dioxide into the air that someday we’ll be able to enjoy a year-round tropical paradise anywhere on earth.

And while I like skimpy bathing suits as much as the next guy or gal, some of the other effects of global warming constitute an environmental crime worth committing a crime against, a crime worth defending.