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Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#101

Post by frumper »

supernova87a wrote: post #72
quercusa wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(The state and) each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations. What is the _duty_ of each Montanan to improve the environment? What is the limit of a state in passing laws requiring action to enforce such duty?

This is the important question. The constitution is very vague on this, how would it be enforced? You might as well invoke the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and ask the courts to rule on this. I am not sure this ruling will withstand scrutiny. (my other comment in this story)

It'd be hard to pass a law that requires individual environmental improvement, but it seems pretty obvious that a law saying to ignore it is the opposite of the state constitution.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#102

Post by asynchronous »

Aachen wrote: post #81
Aerroon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and it will come at the expense of your economy. Eg would the ranch mentioned in the article be able to survive if it had to account for this? What will people's reactions be when you double the price of their food or gasoline? I'd wager one of the reasons why America's economy does so well compared to Europe's is the much cheaper access to energy. For example, Lithuania pays twice the price for gasoline and al…

Why are you so eager to live at the cost of earth's future? Even if food prices were to double (I don't see why it would, unless you measure it only by specific high-impact products such as authentic lamb) to transition away from the destruction of the habitat we depend on (planet A), that seems like a better option than continuing on a path to reversal of what we've achieved in the last century (from 60% in extreme…

Because it’s extremely, EXTREMELY difficult to map Montana’s carbon emissions (mind you, one of the least populated states in the country) to actual real impact on climate change in the future.

Environmentalism used to be about direct impact - contaminating waterways and the like. Moving to these more esoteric issues makes measuring and showing impact near impossible, and also makes people care less.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#103

Post by asynchronous »

wrycoder wrote: post #14

“There are political decisions being made without regard to the best scientific evidence and the effects they will have on our youngest generations,” Yes, there are, indeed.

If you’re implying what I think you’re implying, I agree.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#104

Post by cooper_ganglia »

edgyquant wrote: post #67
kredd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was referring to the political right in the states. Historically speaking, in 70s/80s, even Nixon, passed laws for conserving the nature, protectionism and etc. At some point there was a switch into “nah, screw the environment” to align with the voter base.

There wasn’t a switch. The Republican Party is still very much pro-conservationist. You are spewing talking points from their political enemies. https://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/republicans-deliver...

I would consider myself pretty centrist, but I thought HN was a good place to get away from the thoughtless political vitriol that exists everywhere else. For a forum that's usually very well spoken, it's wild to see how quick people are to make claims about people and things they know nothing about. Political polarization really is going to destroy this country, damn.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#105

Post by asynchronous »

undersuit wrote: post #84
shadowtree wrote: post #19

From a logical perspective, Montana now needs to declare war on China and India. The US' CO2 emissions have been falling for a long time, now at levels of the 1950s. Pritzker's nuclear ban also means Montana invading a fellow state.

Montana can start at home. Our government recently approved Northwest Energy's purchase of a coal plant after Washington and Oregon companies divested because of climate policies from their home states.

And yet almost all of western Montana is still powered by clean hydropower.

Why does the west love to rip ourselves to shreds over non-issues? Our enemies aren’t half as dedicated as we are.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#106

Post by supernova87a »

delecti wrote: post #92
supernova87a wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this law/provision was passed at a time before there was a clear notion of CO2 from burning fossil fuels being connected to climate change, and they were thinking about more traditional pollutants/harms like logging and drilling oil. (In my opinion) This historic law/provision is not specific enough (or it does not create a novel enough kind of cause of action) for the climate change type of problem, to be en…

The connection between atmospheric CO2 and warming was actually identified as early as around the year 1900. I wasn't around then to have a sense of the broad social awareness of things, but I've gotten the impression that the science was fairly obvious before the 1970s.

To me it reads of the kind of Rachel Carson types of environmental damages that were getting much more attention at that time. (Acid rain, pollutants, runoff, etc)

If they had anticipated CO2 (and yes, I agree it was known by some well before this time), they should have / would have made it much more specific to include that kind of slow, "who is responsible" kind of harm.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#107

Post by e93849 »

jwells89 wrote: post #60
justrealist wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking as a given that we've eliminated 99% of natural predators, there's nothing inherently ecologically wrong with humans eating cattle instead of wolves eating bison.

I believe the distinction here is scale. The rate at which natural predators killed bison is only a small fraction of the rate that cattle are killed for food. If human livestock consumption were closely matched to natural grazer consumption, essentially acting as a 1:1 replacement, this argument makes more sense. I don’t think that’s been true for at least a century at this point though.

Citation needed. A quick Google search says the US has about 90 million heads of cattle, while the peak population of wild bison was 60 million and of wild deer was 40 million. That seems pretty close.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#108

Post by unhammer »

satvikpendem wrote: post #66
Aerroon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would future price increases for all your goods be inspiring for young people? That's what you're going to end up with when you increase costs. People don't choose fossil fuels just because, they're chosen largely for economic reasons.

Like you I also believe that the only way to get companies to listen is through money, not idealism, so by making renewables cheaper than fossil fuels (which thankfully is currently happening), companies will naturally use them over fossil fuels.

Though if we keep extracting fossil fuels at the same rate, while electric cars lead to less demand for them, the price of fossil fuels will go down. Then people (corporations) will buy cheap fossil fuel for other stuff (now cruise tickets got even cheaper because electric cars lead to less demand for oil! When it gets really cheap you can heat your outdoor pool in January off a diesel generator.)

Of course, when the price of oil starts dropping, they'll have to extract at a faster rate to keep profits up.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#109

Post by Aerroon »

Aachen wrote: post #81
Aerroon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and it will come at the expense of your economy. Eg would the ranch mentioned in the article be able to survive if it had to account for this? What will people's reactions be when you double the price of their food or gasoline? I'd wager one of the reasons why America's economy does so well compared to Europe's is the much cheaper access to energy. For example, Lithuania pays twice the price for gasoline and al…

Why are you so eager to live at the cost of earth's future? Even if food prices were to double (I don't see why it would, unless you measure it only by specific high-impact products such as authentic lamb) to transition away from the destruction of the habitat we depend on (planet A), that seems like a better option than continuing on a path to reversal of what we've achieved in the last century (from 60% in extreme…

Because I live in a country like Lithuania. I know what basic things being too expensive to afford is like. I also know that whatever Americans adopt they push it onto the rest of the world.

>Change doesn't have to be scary and I only care what people do after having had a chance to learn what impact their choices have

Change is scary when you're talking about increasing living costs by a large amount. Meanwhile Americans still don't have a substantial excise tax on gasoline to discourage its use.

Re: Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

#110

Post by e40 »

phpisthebest wrote: post #82
e40 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, exactly. Nixon created the EPA, after all. Now, that org is the incarnation of evil to the right.

Do you believe there is any justification for believing the EPA has gone far beyond the original intention for the agency created by Nixon? Do you believe the EPA of today is the same EPA that was founded in those days? or has the remit of the EPA like most federal agencies been expanded to the point of totalitarian control where by in many instances they are a detriment to their own stated goals, and certainly seen…

Relatively speaking, the EPA has pushed (in the wrong direction) the boundaries about 1,000,000x less than corporations have. We have PFAS everywhere (a recent HN article). Look at the list of superfund sites in the US. I think the EPA does far too little to protect us from cancer causing chemicals because politicians allow them to pollute. Fracking's 500 chemicals declared a proprietary:

https://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/hydraulic-fracturing....

We know a lot more about cancer and what causes it compared to when the EPA was founded. Look at how little we do with that knowledge.

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