I got my hands on the complaint and accompanying affidavits and boy, howdy, they are a hoot!
As suspected, plaintiffs are attempting to assert standing on the basis of certain provisions in US environmental laws requiring federal agencies to conduct certain environmental impact studies before undertaking certain projects. Plaintiffs are seeking a TRO, preliminary injunction, and permanent injunction pending compliance with the environmental impact study requirements. Plaintiffs want the injunction to remain in effect at least 6 months after publication of the study, to give “the public” appropriate time to read, analyze, and object to the findings. Plaintiffs will certainly and absolutely fail in their application, because there is controlling Supreme Court precedent requiring more than a theoretical or conjectural injury for standing.
It is quite funny, though. Here are some choice exerpts:
Black Holes would be produced at CERN if String Theory, or any of the multiple theories that consider gravity to grow in force at small scales, is certain (super gravity, super-symmetry, etc.). According to Scientific American’s polls, 9 out of 10 physicists believe that Sring Theory is certain. Thus, we can assign a 90% chance to the possible creation of black holes by the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at a rate of 1 per second.
Emphasis in original.
In ethical, moral and hence legal terms (as I believe The Law is the practical expression of human ethics), it is self-evident that even a reduced possibility, as those initially considered by CERN, of a 1-10% chances [sic.] of extinguishing the Earth, would create a “theoretical potential” 6 billion x 1-10% = 60-600 million potential legal holocaust victims, still the biggest genocide in the history of mankind. It would be also the biggest environmental crime of history, far more harmful than Global Warming, as it could mean the destruction of all life forms on this planet.
Emphasis in original.
Yet since the production of Dark Matter is neither necessary for the advancement of science, nor safe to mankind, but a potential environmental crime of global proportions, the LHC should be forbidden to operate - as we close for security reasons Cernobyl-like factories and forbid the reproduction of Ebola virus in an open environment, even if some specialized virologists would like to study it for research purposes.
Emphasis, believe it or not, in original.
Watch the wanton redefinition of concepts by which the author attempts to manipulate the court:
[Allowing LHC to go into operation] has to be judged at best as[a]n act of criminal negligence and irresponsibility, known to its perpetrators, which can harm billions of human being [sic.]; and at worst as[a] potential terrorist act (since terrorism is defined as any concealed event, plotted by a group of people that can harm an enormous number of human beings ).
Italics in original; bold is mine.
Later on…
It is thus not strange that ‘fundamentalist’ scientists behave like fundamentalist ‘religious people’. Both groups seem to believe in their dogmas with such strength that they justify from their points of view acts of collective murder all over the world, to prove such religious and political views.
There’s more. There are a total of 7 affidavits, most from “risk assessment professionals,” in support of the application for TRO and preliminary injunction.
One of the affidavits, by plaintiff Walter L. Wagner, copies large chunks from the Wikipedia article on the LHC.
Talk about things not to do!
If I find more gems, I will share them.
~Q
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:lol:
:o
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