“Children’s Climate Trial” in U.S. Set for 2023
The file includes stories about each plaintiff that describes how the climate crisis has impacted them personally.
A lawsuit filed by 16 children against Montana that argues the state’s continuous use of fossil fuels has contributed to the climate crisis will go to trial in June of 2023.
This will be the first children’s climate trial in US history, which will see the young plaintiffs argue how the state is violating their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2020, describes how children are more vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, noting it ‘harms their physical and psychological health and safety, interferes with family and cultural foundations and integrity, and causes economic deprivations.’
It also includes how each child has been personally impacted by the climate crisis such how wildfires pose a threat to the youngest who has respiratory issues and another whose family relies on a river for their business that has dried up in past years.
The children are not looking for a lump sum of money, but, if the court rules in their favor, the group wants defendants to ‘bring the state energy system into constitutional compliance,’ the March 2020 filing states.
Montana’s lawyers have braced for a fight, and a Virginia judge recently nixed a similar case.
A spokesman for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) called Our Children’s Trust a “special interest group that is exploiting well-intentioned kids—including a 4-year old and an 8-year old—to achieve its goal of shutting down responsible energy development in Montana.”
Communications director Kyler Nerison added that “unable to implement their policies through our normal processes of representative government, these out-of-state climate activists are trying to use Montana’s liberal courts to impose their authoritarian climate agenda on us.”
The trial date comes as a judge in Virginia last month rejected a similar lawsuit claiming that the state’s permitting of fossil fuels violates the rights of a group of young people by worsening the effects of climate change.
That case did not make it to trial. Richmond Circuit Court Judge Clarence Jenkins Jr. ruled that under the sovereign immunity doctrine the Virginia Legislature cannot be sued for violating citizens’ rights (Climatewire, Sept. 19).
Just in case you thought this legal insanity was confined to the US, there are several child climate crusader cases worldwide.
Meanwhile, a group of children in Portugal are waiting for their case against to be heard in the European Court of Human Rights.
Their case argues that governments in 33 European countries – including the UK – have not done enough to prevent the impact of climate change.
More and more children are using the legal system to hold governments to account and there have been successes.
The Netherlands, Colombia, and Germany are just some of the places where children and young people won their cases and new climate targets were brought in.
The file includes stories about each plaintiff that describes how the climate crisis has impacted them personally. This excerpt, for example, focuses on a 6-year old and 2-year-old.
Plaintiffs Jeffrey K. and Nathaniel (“Nate”) K. live in Montana City, Montana. Jeffrey is six years old and Nate is two years old. Jeffrey has a pulmonary sequestration. As a result, Jeffrey is uniquely susceptible to respiratory complications, such as infections.
Nate also has respiratory issues and, at the age of two, is sick frequently. Nate has gone to the emergency room twice due to difficulty breathing. Both Jeffrey and Nate, given their
unique lung and health conditions, are especially vulnerable to poor air quality, such as smoke-filled air caused by wildfires.Climate disruption is increasing the length and severity of Montana’s wildfire season which poses a threat to Jeffrey and Nate’s health, especially given their young age and respiratory health conditions.
As a result of Jeffrey and Nate’s unique vulnerabilities and sensitivities to poor air quality and wildfire smoke, their family has been forced to make changes in their daily activities.
Jeffrey and Nate are kept indoors when the air is filled with wildfire smoke and they are unable to go hiking, camping, or participate in other outdoor activities that are central to
their lifestyle, family, and overall well-being. This is difficult because Jeffrey and Nate both enjoy playing outside and being in Montana’s beautiful natural environment.
While it is sad these children struggle, it could be argued that the root cause of the wildfires they are complaining about is poor land management practices that are based on green justice policies the adults associated with this lawsuit embrace.
I look forward to Montana’s successful defense and wish the best for the children.
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Comments
So there is no taxpayer standing. No voter standing. etc. But there is indoctrinated brat / political pawn standing? Our judicial system is such frustrating farce.
I also just saw that Alex Jones is supposed to pay almost a Billion dollars for mere words. History will look back on the modern American judicial system as one of the most pathetically corrupt.
Here’s hoping they get the stereotypical Simpsons’ judge, banging his gavel and shouting, “I will not have this courtroom turned into a circus!”
Actually they do have standing. They have alleged specific harms that they claim are being done to them in particular, not to everyone. So yes, they have standing where taxpayers and voters don’t. What they don’t have is a case. This should have been dismissed, not only on sovereign immunity grounds, but for failure to state a case. Even stipulating that every ridiculous thing they claim is true, the state has no duty to do anything about it.
Their “specific harms” are weather related. Everyone faces the same weather. This is nonsense.
As for the kids who we’re harmed forest fire smoke (again, harm for everyone), most of the smoke in Montana comes from California and the PacNW, including British Columbia.
This should have been quashed immediately.
Everyone faces the same weather, but not everyone faces the same harms these plaintiffs claim to have suffered as a result of it. That gives them standing.
Yes, it should be quashed, but not on the grounds of standing. They’ve successfully cleared that hurdle.
Not everyone faces that harm because these kids fall well outside any definition of “average man” or “normal” where the law would actually provide for remedy.
Since when does the law provide remedies only for normal or average people? On the contrary, the law is that you must take your victim as you find him.
They have no case, for many reasons including the fact that their allegations aren’t true and thus they can’t prove them. But merely making the allegations is enough to give them standing.
It’s a show trial, Soviet style. Just like the Shakty Engineers or other such clown shows in the 1930s.
You have no basis for saying that. Unless you have inside information on the judge, which I doubt.
Using children as political “human shields” is SOP for the Socialist Democrats.
Is this from the Babylon Bee or something? This can’t be real. Right?
The very idea that governments can control the Earth’s climate is crazier than voodoo and sorcery. It’s the biggest fraud perpetrated in all of history.
From a financial point of view it is indeed the biggest fraud in history. Montana should get the court to order the children to spend this winter in Germany, to experience the benefits of a Green solution.
And also make the children and their parents pay the opposing attorney’s fees. Let them know they will be in debt forever thanks to their parents bullschiff.
Unfortunately neither of those things are within the court’s power to order.
Nor are the remedies they’re seeking against the state, even if they could prove everything they claim.
Their parents are not really footing the bill for this. An activist group is, and I hope they get some comeuppance, but I seriously doubt it.
Ok. Require the plaintiffs to provide remedies the CT can impose that have been proven to remediate the conditions and outcomes alleged. Only real world observable data from an original study and a confirmation study that replicated the original. No models, only actual observable data. Both must demonstrate that the actions proposed in a single US State are independently capable of completely offsetting any actions elsewhere.
A silver lining wouldn’t be out of the question.
These are the same irrational cultists who angrily denounce people who point out that you cannot change your sex. Can we just switch out the Constitution for Dianetics at the rate we’re “progressing?”
I don’t know that they’re the same irrational cultists. There’s an endless supply of those, after all, and each cult violently disagrees with all the others.
No, they really don’t. Just on emphasis.
They are ALL Progressives, just different orders. As the Roman Catholics have Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, and more, the Progressives have Greens, Transhumanists, Perverts, etc. But they all are progressives, in the end.
I am sure a 2,4and 8 year old spend 20 hours a day thinking about the climate
Like “Rain, Rain, go away come again another day”
I’m sure those songs being sung by children are causing the drought in Texas
IM GOING TO SUE!!!!!
A sane judge should dismiss with prejudice as there are no proven damages, and order the plaintiffs to pay Montana’s legal fees.
At this point in the case they don’t have to prove damages, just allege them with sufficient specificity, which they have done. If the case ever gets to the point where they have to back up those allegations with facts, it should be fun to watch.
But it shouldn’t get that far, because they have no case.
“We can’t go outside as much as we want to” is a specific damage?
It would be, if they could prove both that it was true, and that it was the defendant’s fault, and that there’s something the court can order the defendant to do that would mitigate it. They can’t prove any of that, but at this point of the process they don’t have to. If it ever gets to where they do, it should be fun to watch them fall flat on their faces.
It sounds to me like they should have let the brats freeze to death while starving, because that is the world they want.
To be more specific, they should cut all utility lines to the children’s homes and let them experience living “green.”
Hope they have proof of climate doing anything caused by humans and not on course from the last few million years.
Ice ages come and they go, where does the earth thermostat set?
Child abuse.
Children, dictating what adults need to do?
Sure thing, kids. We will get on it when your homework and chores are done.
Now if the children had sued the government for the $31 trillion in debt their future is being saddled with, I might have some sympathy.
Salem witch trials redux?
‘… harms their physical and psychological health and safety,…’ No, that’s the lunatics, the so-called adults in this scene, who are inflicting all this terror, panic and chaos (and total illogic) onto these exploited children’s lives. Priming them to use as pawns in their commie green scheme. Whoever said child abuse is 100% spot on.
If they tire of terrorizing their kids over a tenth of a degree, they can always switch to changing their gender on them, or sending them on a guilt trip over their racist past. /s
All that, followed by one of the latest “reproductive rights,” post-natal abortion.
Sorry, but I do not understand what constitutional right these children claim they have that the State is violating.
Right to life, because “they’ll die” if we don’t do what their parents want.
Exactly. That is the point here; even if everything they claim were true, the state has no duty to do anything about it.
There is no constitutional right to life as such; the state has no constitutional duty to prevent your death, whether from natural causes or from outright murder. That’s why states are still allowed to permit abortion if they like. And it’s why a similar suit to force the state to prevent crime — which is its actual job — would fail.
One way to limit carbon emissions, among other Gia stressing problems, would be to limit population. There are 16 names on a legal action that could begin a trend to lessen the stress and lower sea levels.
I always ask the true believers when they’re going to off themselves.
I can’t understand why Biden is mad at the Saudis for cutting oil production. He should be pleased that they are making the weather colder. Apparently Biden wants the Saudis to increase production and make the weather hotter..
They believe that their incredibly cushy lives by current world wide standards and even more so by the standards of all humans up until about 75 years ago is a god given right. Fossil fuels and chemical fertilizer is all that stands between us and a Hobbesian life:
“In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
So well-funded plaintiffs can ram policies down the throats of voters and defeat the valid legislative process? All you need is a few Soros-backed jurists and let the woke plaintiffs call the tune.
If you read up on ‘Concent Decrees’ that is exactly what has been happening for years. Collusion between an AG and an activist plaintiff to implement policy via court settlement with no means of oversight.
Everyone else in the state should have standing to sue to block the implementation of a concent decree and force the initial plaintiffs to court.
Consent decrees against the government are indeed a tool that has been thoroughly abused, but by definition “everyone” can’t have standing. The whole point of standing is that you have to have an articulable reason why whatever it is you’re complaining of is specifically your business, rather than everyone’s.
Where the government has agreed to do something that is outside its powers, there is usually a plaintiff available who can challenge it. Generally these deals consist of the original plaintiff and the government conspiring to screw some specific set of people, so those people have standing to sue over it.
But more generally, I think the remedy to this kind of abuse is that governments should at any time be able to repudiate their predecessors’ consent. If I were a mayor, governor, or president with my hands tied by a decree based on nothing but the fact that 30 years ago my predecessor had consented to it, I would simply inform the relevant judge and plaintiff that the city, state, or USA no longer consents to this decree, and will no longer comply with it, and is ready to proceed with the original litigation that it had settled. It is a fact that governments change, and elections have consequences, and a current government is entitled to say that its predecessor had no right to tie its hands in this manner. A mayor or even a governor might not be able to get away with it, but ought to at least try; a president surely could get away with it.
No kid would have cooked up a scheme like that all on his own. Who are the adults that are engaging in manipulative exploitation? Hit them in the pocketbook good and hard for their part in this frivolous lawsuit.
Furthermore, they are assuming the existence of “climate change” – make them prove it, rather than accept their premises. Science, baby – bring the data, not cooked fake “data” based on computer modeling…actual data that is falsifiable and can be studied by anyone.
If you can’t follow the scientific method, don’t call it “science.”
“Prove it!” To a jury? You are asking to have people who have been inundated with the “anthropogenetic climate change” cult sitting on a jury, listen to a bunch of ‘experts’ feed them lies, and have them force policy on the country?
Hoo boy……
16 arguments in favor of post-partum abortion.
1. CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas (92%).
2. Global warming and its so called effects such as increased brush fires, more drought, worse storms, etc., has never been proven and remains nothing more than a claim by global warming enthusiasts.
3. Global warming has been a product of burning fossil fuels. The purpose for the burning of these materials is to create new medicines, new technologies, consumer products, better and faster transportation, and so very much more. Without the past consumption of these fossil fuels, it is unlikely that the children who are in ill health would either be alive today or living a life anywhere comparable quality to what they have.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that these children benefited far more greatly than any bogus claim of injury. It’s akin to putting a child in an air ambulance and racing them to the hospital where their lives were saved by getting them there in the nick of time only to have them sue you for the motion sickness they endured during the air ambulance ride.
So we – and the judges – are supposed to believe that TWO and FOUR YEAR OLDS are bringing these suits?
This is an egregious abuse of children by fanatical parents who think nothing of terrorizing and exploiting their own children to achieve their political ends.
Horrific and evil.
No, nobody is being asked to believe that. Obviously the parents are bringing the suit on behalf of the children, as is perfectly normal and happens literally every day. It’s no different from what happens when a baby is injured and its parents bring suit on its behalf. The parents don’t have standing but the child does, so it is the plaintiff.
That’s what’s happening here. These plaintiffs were carefully chosen because they have standing — they allege specific harms that they in particular have suffered or expect to suffer as a result of the complained-of behavior. (At this point they don’t yet have to prove those allegations, they just have to make them.) Their parents who are bringing the suit don’t have standing, because they don’t claim to have suffered those alleged harms, so they’re not the plaintiffs.
They are stand-ins for the children, as their guardian. It’s a substitutionary thing.
This like CRT and gender fluidity is brainwashing of kids
This is a complete fraud, of course. Children are selected as the plaintiffs purely for emotional appeal. States are sued even though states don’t generally design energy systems; power companies, car owners, homeowners, etc. are too diffuse and a successful suit against them wouldn’t lead to court-mandated legislation.
If this strategy works, similar suits will be made against states for allowing firearm ownership, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and all other dimensions over which the left prefers mandates over freedom.
No, those suits would not stand any chance, because the states are required to allow all those things. In this suit, the remedies sought, while ridiculous, aren’t actually illegal.
And you think if this suit is successful, the other things won’t eventually be successful, too? You really do have an unerring faith in the judicial system, Milhouse.
I think this suit has no chance of success. But even if it were successful, those other suits could not succeed. You just can’t sue a state for doing something it is legally required to do! No court could possibly entertain such a suit for even a moment.
into constitutional compliance
And there’s the very first bit that should mean – in a sane, just Republic – this thing gets tossed. /smh/
More and more children
And here is (one of) the Progressive evil(s): use of children as, somehow, morally superior claimants. “Do it for the children!” “How dare you say anything bad about children!” “These are our future; how can you deny them?” It’s almost the same as a terrorist holding a child in front of their body so people won’t shoot them.
some of the places where children and young people won their cases
And these places should be thrown out of counting in “Western Civilization” because of it, Worship of youth and children is stupid.
Jeffrey has a pulmonary sequestration.
Nate also has respiratory issues and, at the age of two, is sick frequently.
So what? We aren’t required to order all of society around the sickest or weakest. We cannot eliminate all risk to all people. That’s an inherent flaw in Progressivism. And, pretty sure (though I’m certain Milhouse will correct me if I’m wrong) that the legal principles of “neglect” or “carelessness” do not apply to those outside the bounds of “normal” when we’re talking society-wide application.
Climate disruption is increasing the length and severity of Montana’s wildfire season
Scientifically prove that. Unfortunately, proving it to a jury would be easy, because so many people are stupid.
unique vulnerabilities and sensitivities
Then they don’t really have standing to sue over national policies or society-wide remedies. Sorry, kiddies, suck it up.
Jeffrey and Nate are kept indoors when the air is filled with wildfire smoke
So is everyone else, dingleberry. Trust me. Been there, done that.
This is difficult because Jeffrey and Nate both enjoy playing outside and being in Montana’s beautiful natural environment.
Ain’t that just too bad. Lots of sick kids would love to play outside. Kids in urban cities would love to climb a tree. Some kids want to play with fire. What you want and would like is really irrelevant to this whole question.
I wish the best for the children, too. Up to a point. I wish giant fire ants to crawl into their parents’ clothes and bite them incessantly, until they wish to flay their very own skin from their bodies. Same for the other progressives who abuse these children in this way. This is one of the evils of Progressivism.
“We cannot eliminate all risk to all people. That’s an inherent flaw in Progressivism.”
Feature, not a bug, and only applied when useful to the cause.
Why would Montana even show up to court? This is a civil suit so a default judgement is entered against them. Then what? Order them to change the climate to stop wildfires or go to jail?
So, the over-reach, and over-reaction off over-projected “science” is on trail? That’s good. Prudence and measured responses are called for dealing with complex issues with limited data. (See the evolving anti-rona jab requirements, for example.)
Can we get some similar judgment on AlGore for the impact of the inconvenient non-truths infecting his movie? Perhaps a class-action granting us each a swim in his pool, or flight on his jet? (I don’t have a notion of proper redress for his inventing the internet — maybe make *him* buy twitter?)
We might wanna be a little careful about treating projections as natural laws, and more so about broadly empowering enforcers around things still squishy. They might — just spit-balling here — decide an occasional puddle falls under “navigable waterways” jurisdiction.
Oh wait. This isn’t about that? Nevermind.
There are two claims being made here, neither of which they offer any evidence for, not that “climate change” ever requires evidence of its existence.