Children Can Now Sue The US Government Over Climate Change (vice.com)

"America's children have officially won the right to sue their government over global warming," reports Motherboard. An anonymous reader quotes their article: Thursday, a lawsuit filed by 21 youth plaintiffs was ruled valid by U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene, Oregon. A group of citizens, whose ages range from nine to twenty, charged President Obama, the fossil fuel industry, and other federal agencies with violating their constitutional rights by declining to take action against climate change. "Federal courts too often have been cautious and overly deferential in the arena of environmental law, and the world has suffered for it," wrote Judge Aiken in her ruling. [PDF]
Several groups -- including the U.S. government and the American Petroleum Institute -- had asked the judge to throw out the case, but the judge ruled instead that climate change would "threaten plaintiffs' fundamental constitutional rights to life and liberty," calling man-made climate change an "undisputed" fact. In a related story, Slashdot reader devinp shares a new study which suggests "Global changes in temperature due to human-induced climate change have already impacted every aspect of life on Earth from genes to entire ecosystems, with increasingly unpredictable consequences for humans."

Comments

have to prove damage

[phantomfive]

I would think it would be hard for anyone to prove that they've been damaged by global warming.

Also, there is the legal principle of sovereign immunity: The King Can do No Wrong. If memory serves, victims of radiation from nuclear tests in Nevada sued the government, and lost based on that principle. If victims of nuclear fallout can't win the case, I can't imagine these people will.

But anyway the case should be an entertainment. Bring out the popcorn!

Re:have to prove damage

[Orgasmatron]

Sadly, the government can waive immunity. And then there is the sue&settle technique where an agency partners up with an activist group and together they come up with a plan where the activist group sues the agency, then the agency settles. The settlement then becomes a court order to do or not do something that Congress never would have agreed to.

Re:have to prove damage

[JaredOfEuropa]

It's an interesting case. Moreso because the government isn't really "declining to take action against climate change", is it? At least the current administration acknowledges hat AGW is a problem, and they have some policies to address it. The real question is: what should they be doing, and are they doing enough? There was a similar case here in the Netherlands, where an environmental group sued the government and won. In that case the judges simply said: "government must abide by the treaties they signed, including the Kyoto one", noting that the country wasn't meeting the agreed emission goals. But in this case, I don't think a judge could have ordered the government to sign and ratify the treaty in the first place, merely to uphold the agreements therein.

In this case, what could a judge order the government to do? Reduce emissions by X? Build N wind farms? Sign some treaties? I imagine that a settlement would boil down to whatever gets negotiated between gov't and environmentalists, but... wouldn't it be a funny-as-hell joke on the plaintiffs if a judge ordered the government to fund 20 new nuclear power plants to help meet CO2 reduction goals?

The Dutch ruling has similar interesting side effects: it turns out there are many other treaties and agreements not being kept, and apparently we can now have the court force the government to respect those treaties. For example, the rule ("recommendation") in the NATO treaty about military spending, and the subsequent 2014 agreement of the "freeloading countries" to increase spending and at least approach the minimum agreed amount. Not quite what those environmentalists were after...

Re:Constitutional rights

[phantomfive]

.....rights to life and liberty
Those are what the judge was referring to.

Can I sue?

[ScentCone]

I want to sue the government over the existence of a large number of things and people that they are allowing to threaten my life and happiness. Especially that guy that cut me off in traffic today. And the lack of fiber to my door. It's unfair and I want a bunch of money because my feelings are hurt. Maybe I'll go out and burn down somebody's business and smash some windows, since protesting is fashionable.

National Debt

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Do children get to sue over the accumulating National Debt they will be saddled with.

WWon't survive 5the new SCOTUS

Re:National Debt

[penguinoid]

Well, it would certainly be interesting if they passed a law saying that the generation that voted for a bill gets to pay the resulting taxes.

Re:Constitutional rights

[William Baric]

That's an extremely broad interpretation of rights to life and liberty. What's next? Americans suing the US government for not having done enough research to find a cure for cancer?

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[whoever57]

And furthermore, the problem stems mostly with developing nations [wordpress.com] and not the industrialized ones.

How about a graph that shows CO2 emission per person, instead of one that ignored the fact that there are about 4x the number of people in China than the USA?

Also, how about acknowledging that China is already ahead of the USA in investment in renewable energy sources?

So, no the problem isn't actually developing nations, it's the USA. The USA is being left behind and the economy is likely to suffer long term.

Undisputed science?

[elrous0]

calling man-made climate change an "undisputed" fact.

I wasn't aware that there was such a thing in empirical science as "undisputed."

China, the U.S. factory

[tfmg_b]

Your parent also did not say a word about the CO2 produced to make goods in China for our country to consume. http://legal-planet.org/2016/0...

Re:This is the exact reason why Trump won

[SensitiveMale]

No, I'm referring safe spaces.
No, I'm referring 63 genders.
No, I'm referring to people being sick and tired of being called racist if they happen to disagree with Obama.
No, I'm referring to people being sick and tired of being called a homophobe if that don't actively support 100% everything that "the right" gay leaders support.
No, I'm referring to people being called a bigot and every other name in the book if they aren't completely caught up with the PC jargon du jour.
No, I'm referring Democrats paying mentally ill homeless people to start fights at Trump events.
No, I'm referring to yearly proclamations of global warming being irreversible in twenty years for the past forty years.
No, I'm referring that there hasn't been any global warming temperature changes in almost twenty years.
No, I'm referring to rioters who can't handle that their candidate lost an election.
No, I'm referring a business that tells his employees to quit if they voted for Trump.
No, I'm referring to Democrat leadership actively favoring a candidate.
No, I'm referring to the DNC chief being forced to step down because of that unethical behavior and then being immediately being hired by the winning candidate.
No, I'm referring to the next DNC chief caught colluding with journalists by passing on a debate question.
No, I'm referring that DBC lying about it and then having proof that Brazille passed multiple debate question to Hillary.

I can keep going on, but I'll stop.
This is why Trump won.

Re:Carbon dioxide makes food plants more efficient

[Gussington]

Food plants are now 15% more efficient than 30 years ago. Fewer hungry people! Widely known fact. Search youtube for "earth greening".

Food has never been a production issue, it has always been a distribution issue.

Re:Cure now, Gym later

[thegarbz]

And furthermore, the problem stems mostly with developing nations [wordpress.com] and not the industrialized ones.

I notice you linked to a graph that stops at 2010 which conveniently ignores the fact that China has stemmed the rise in emissions in 2011 and actually started reducing their emissions.

So while being dishonest enough to ignore that China has a massively larger population and the emissions per capita are far lower than that of the USA, you additionally cherry pick your data to suit your agenda. You also ignore that China and India are building more clean energy sources than the USA and have signed on to more climate accords faster than the USA has.

All of this leads to your dishonest post being what citizen scientists commonly refer to as a "dick move".

Re:Constitutional rights

[thegarbz]

That's an extremely broad interpretation of rights to life and liberty. What's next? Americans suing the US government for not having done enough research to find a cure for cancer?

Indeed I would hope that if the US government put as little effort into cancer as they did into climate change that they would also get sued for this.

It sounds ridiculous, but this is not the first government to be sued by it's citizens for not doing enough about climate change https://www.theguardian.com/en...

But really I consider climate change secondary now. Climate change hasn't affected me and likely won't directly affect me. However fighting climate change has directly resulted in initiatives that have already made my life better. The air smells cleaner, there's less smog, driving behind cars no longer fills my cabin with horrid smelling fumes, the oil refinery near where I work doesn't smell anywhere near as bad as it used to, there's less diesel dust settling on everything... even to climate deniers I don't see any good reason why we shouldn't continue down this road of stemming pollution.

Re:This is the exact reason why Trump won

[Cederic]

So you choose to prefer harrasing people (or exposing them to harrassment) who're different from you?

Being exposed to facts is not harassment. Being removed from an echo chamber is not harassment. Being asked to justify the bullshit being spouted is not harassment. Hearing other opinions is not harassment.

There are laws against harassment. Safe spaces are not required, and are very much not safe to many of the people made unwelcome in them.

Re:Constitutional rights

[thegarbz]

That's actual pollution, not CO2. I await your reasonable response mentioning that the US Supreme Court had deemed CO2 to be a "pollutant".

Sorry forgive me. I completely forgot the only emission from coal fired and oil fired power plants was CO2, and that the massive increase in fuel efficiency and effective burning of engines has only changed the amount of CO2 emissions.

How stupid of me.