Kimberly Mok on Treehugger.com discusses one of the most interesting cases to be brought before the Federal courts:
Last week, a group of 21 young people, aged 9 to 20 years, won the right to sue the US government for its actions that cause climate change, when an Oregon federal judge ruled that the plaintiffs’ lawsuit was valid and could proceed to trial.According to Motherboard, the lawsuit, which is being spearheaded by Our Children’s Trust, a civic engagement nonprofit for youth, charges President Obama, the fossil fuel industry, and other federal agencies for violating the plantiffs’ constitutional right to life, liberty, property, and to vital public trust resources, by continuing to use fossil fuels.
It should be fascinating to see how this plays out. Will Congress grant the fossil fuel industry immunity from such suits, as they did for gun manufacturers? Will the suit get national publicity and continue to spark the national discussion concerning what to do about climate change?
In her ruling, US District Judge Ann Aiken wrote that the case is not about “not about proving that climate change is happening or that human activity is driving it”:
This action is of a different order than the typical environmental case. It alleges that defendants’ actions and inactions—whether or not they violate any specific statutory duty—have so profoundly damaged our home planet that they threaten plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights to life and liberty. [..] Federal courts too often have been cautious and overly deferential in the arena of environmental law, and the world has suffered for it.
The plaintiffs counsel has urged President Obama to come to an agreement with a binding court order while he still can, which would certainly give Trump problems. Seeing that Trump was the leader of the shameful SCOTUS blockade, it seems only appropriate to jam a club into his gears. Not to mention it would contribute to species survival.
