Kids' climate change suit against government soon to learn its fate
A unique climate change lawsuit brought by kids against the government will face a big test on Monday, Dec. 11, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will decide, after hearing oral arguments, whether it should continue to move ahead.
If the judges greenlight the suit — Juliana v. United States, filed on behalf of 21 concerned young citizens ages 10 to 21 by counsel Phil Gregory and Julia Olson and with support from the environmental activist group Our Children’s Trust — it could force the government to figure out once and for all how to reduce greenhouse gases through a comprehensive plan.
“Your government, under the Constitution, does not have a duty to protect you,” Phil Gregory, one of the co-counsels for the plaintiffs, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “But if the government creates the danger you are in, or is part of the reason you’re being harmed, then the government, under the Constitution’s due process clause, has an obligation to protect you and keep you from being harmed.”
That’s the basis for the argument being raised by the young plaintiffs, who insist that the United States government has failed to heed the scientific evidence — much of it commissioned by its own agencies — on how to reverse climate change.
“My niece Avery is just a regular 12-year-old kid. However, even at 12 she knows there are some pretty messed-up things going on these days. And even at 12 she has a voice,” noted Heather Bartlett, the aunt of one of the 21 plaintiffs, in a Paintsuit Nation post on Facebook that has prompted more than 64K reactions (on the page’s private version).
“Sadly, the Trump administration has appealed and now the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will decide,” she continued. “But here’s the great thing — Avery is fierce. And so are the other kids standing with her to protect this beautiful planet. And she isn’t going to be intimidated. So, I am going to try and find this fabulous girl a Pantsuit as fabulous as she is!!!”
The litigation was first brought in 2015; in 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken upheld a Magistrate Judge’s ruling for the district that the young plaintiffs deserved to have their day in court after the Obama administration had moved to have the case dismissed. This June the Trump administration then filed a writ of mandamus, saying that even having to participate in pretrial discovery would cause harm to the federal government, and requesting that the trial process be halted.
That feels unacceptable to plaintiff Tia Hatton, who first got involved in environmental activism during her senior year of high school in her hometown of Bend, Ore., when record high temperatures yielded a bad ski season, thus impacting the town’s economy and her school’s annual senior ski trip. Through her activism, she came into contact with Our Children’s Trust, which eventually asked her to be a co-plaintiff.
“I grew up in a pretty conservative household, so when we talked about climate change, I always heard, ‘The science isn’t really clear,’” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “The first thing I asked for [when approached to join the suit] was the science behind the suit, to read for myself.”
She adds, “The reason I’m so passionate about climate change isn’t because I know I will have a decreased ability to ski in the future, but more about millions being displaced and our safety and security and cultures being lost. It’s bigger than me. I know climate change is a huge environmental justice issue, and those people in marginalized communities are feeling the effects first and foremost — and those who are benefiting off it continue to benefit off of it. And that’s why we’re going to court.”
Gregory, meanwhile, compares the foundation of the suit to that of the foster care system.
“If the government places a child in a home and then that child is abused, then the government is not liable,” he explains. “But if the government knows that the proposed foster parents have a history of abusing children or the government suspects that a person will somehow abuse a child and the government places the child with that person anyway, then the government has an obligation to that child and a duty to that child under the Constitution. And that’s what our case is about.”
He continues, “For over 50 years, the federal government has known that fossil fuel systems, through the emission of greenhouse gases, will cause cataclysmic climate change. This is known. So just like in the foster care system, the government has known that this fossil fuel system is going to harm these kids, and the government has not only allowed the fossil fuel system to continue but has itself participated in it through leasing lands for coal extraction and through itself being a major polluter. The bottom line is that the government has known it is causing a problem and the government has continued to cause the problem, and as a result these kids are being faced with a future unlike anything we can imagine. And we have stuck them with this problem.”
As the case has wound its way through the legal system over the past two years, Hatton says, she has seen both “some really beautiful moments,” like watching her co-plaintiffs “stand proudly in what they want,” and “some really dark moments,” like “having government lawyers argue against us when we sit next to them in a courtroom.”
She adds, “I look at those lawyers and I wonder if they have children. I wonder why they are doing this.”
But for her part, Hatton says, “It’s important to do something and not just sit around, so you can say to your future children, ‘I tried to do something.’ I just want to know I tried to do something.”
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