“Why isn’t this debate on the floor of the Senate, instead of in a courtroom in front of a panel of unelected judges?”, Judge Thomas Griffith asked.

He and nine of his colleagues, who sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, were hearing arguments about whether the Obama administration’s signature domestic climate policy passes muster under the Clean Air Act and the Constitution. No one doubted the reality of the science, and they recognized their decision meant more than just a change to federal administrative law.

“The earth is warming. Humans are contributing,” said Judge Brett Kavanaugh, another George W. Bush appointee. “There is a moral imperative. There is a huge policy imperative. The pope’s involved.”

The enormity of global warming, they seemed to say—should it really be fixed by us, sitting in this puny room?