Children’s Climate Crusade Victory in Montana Likely a Very Hollow One

Children’s Climate Crusade Victory in Montana Likely a Very Hollow One

My Legal Insurrection colleague Terrance Kible provided a superb review of the recent ruling of the Montana judge overseeing the Children’s Climate Trial, who decided in favor of the 16 child plaintiffs who “challenged the constitutionality of the State’s fossil fuel-based state energy system.”

However, that climate cult victory may prove to be a very hollow one.

To begin with, Dr. David Wojick (an expert in science and mathematical logic) notes that Judge Kathy Seeley merely ruled that the Montana law forbidding consideration of greenhouse gs (GHG) emissions in permitting was unconstitutional. Wojick notes that such a restriction is senseless to begin with and has easy workarounds.

How it is considered is up to the agency or legislature. This need not slow down or stop any project.

The Montana constitution says there is a right to a healthful environment. Alarmism says emissions are harmful which all Courts to date have bought, including this one. So given the possible harm, one cannot simply ignore emissions which the law said to do. Hence the decision to kill the law.

I had no idea there was actually a law forbidding agencies from even talking about emissions. That kind of gag order strikes me as preposterous. Killing it merely takes us back to business as usual. For example an agency could simply say that the emissions associated with a project are too small to have a discernible impact.

…To sum up the kid’s lawsuit won a small victory over a strange law based on a wacky constitutional provision. They lost the big one, asking the Court to mandate and enforce emission reductions. Not much to see here.

Another reason that this “victory” is questionable at best and destructive at worst centers on the impact on the children.

Reviewing the reports on the ruling, my biggest concern is related to the psychological manipulation of the children and pressuring them to act on the pseudoscience narratives pushed by adults. Anxiety and depression are becoming more common among children and adolescents, increasing 27 percent and 24 percent respectively from 2016 to 2019.

Climatologist Judith Curry shares my worries about the impact on the children who are constantly bombarded with tales of the upcoming climate apocalypse.

Please, stop scaring and exploiting the kids in an attempt to score political points in the climate/energy debate. If you are concerned about your grandkids, help them to live their best lives, educate them that bad weather has always happened and will continue to, and don’t lead them to think we can control bad weather by eliminating fossil fuel emissions.

Point them in directions to help make a meaningful difference in developing new technologies and protecting the quality of our air, water and soils. And if they are interested in climate change, encourage them to learn geology, oceanography and atmospheric science.

The Issues and Insights Editorial Board mocked the AP story on the ruling, highlighting “perhaps the most asinine sentence ever written about this issue.”

“The ruling following a first-of-its-kind trial in the U.S.,” the AP reported, “adds to a small number of legal decisions around the world that have established a government duty to protect citizens from climate change.”

“A government duty to protect citizens from climate change”?

Think about that for a minute.

Do they mean any sort of climate change, such as the climate change that occurs around the world every year when temperatures can change from sub-zero to 90 degrees in a matter of months?

Or perhaps they mean that the government should protect citizens from things like El Nino, that naturally recurring – but scientifically inexplicable – climate phenomenon that we are currently experiencing, and underwater volcanic eruptions, both of which have driven this summer’s heat waves. [emphasis in original]

Rounding out the analysis is a piece from geologist Dr. Matthew Wielicki, who puts Montana’s carbon emissions into perspective.

Montana’s carbon emissions, like all states, are a function of its economy, population, and energy mix. Given that Montana is a state with a relatively low population but significant coal production and consumption, it appears to have higher per capita emissions than some other states but lower overall emissions.

In fact, according to the US Energy Information Administration, Montana produced just 28.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2021. This is equivalent to approximately 0.6% of the total US carbon dioxide emissions for 2021.

All this ruling did was add to the pot of anxiety our children already have about their futures.

Unfortunately, even more of this kind of judicial climate inanity is being planned for Utah, Hawaii, and Virginia in the near future.

As always, I conclude with the reminder that carbon dioxide is a life-essential gas.

#ClimateScam alert – more junk science. The narrative says CO2 is bad for oceans, but in reality more is better. During the Cambrian Life Explosion era, CO2 levels were more than 15 times greater than today and the oceans never turned acid – and ocean life thrived! https://t.co/qpgmxiLZhB pic.twitter.com/J02xtSTiH1

— John Shewchuk (@_ClimateCraze) July 11, 2023

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