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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

#131

Post by flangola7 »

supernova87a wrote: post #73
voisin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is sad that this kind of language would never be approved in today’s political climate. The GOP passed some historic environmental bills in the past and today it is unthinkable that they would even consider it.

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…

Except it literally was just tested.

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

#132

Post by BaseballPhysics »

asynchronous wrote: post #99
edgyquant wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

People seem to forget hunters and fishers are still the biggest funding source for conservationism and are almost overwhelmingly conservative voters. But no, the people who live deep in urban jungles have the audacity to call them “environment haters”.

Conservation to enable ongoing future exploitation. That's a very different brand of conservation.

There's a reason those same groups refuse to support policies that would stave off climate change: it would require less exploitation of natural resources, and thus there's no money in it.

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

#134

Post by Supermancho »

hash872 wrote: post #59
Supermancho wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At a minimum it should take a supermajority of a panel of judges to find a law 'unconstitutional'. Legal or moral correctness, is not usually limited to a single judicial decision. When it is, it's remarkable enough that we learn about it early in schooling. Just because a Judge ruled to strike down a law, does not impact democracy in any way. It's a legal maneuver that will be challenged both in another legal aren…

>It's a legal maneuver that will be challenged both in another legal arena and in the court of public opinion It will not be meaningfully challenged in the court of public opinion, which is completely irrelevant to judicial decisions. If it'll be challenged in an appellate court.... why not limit decisions blocking the democratically elected legislature to a full appeals court of 15 judges, as opposed to just 1? One…

> It will not be meaningfully challenged in the court of public opinion, which is completely irrelevant to judicial decisions.

Dismissing public opinion because you do not see a direct mechanism to affect change, is a misunderstanding of the inherent social power of Democracy. It is not irrelevant at all. Democracy is about policy being affected by public opinion through representation. A mechanism that doesn't suit an agenda in the short term is not toothless, just less swift than someone who is raging against a perceived injustice.

The concepts surrounding judicial review is taught in US high schools consistently. Even in the smallest of schools the hand wavy basics are described as:

1. congress makes laws

2. judicial interprets laws

3. executive enacts laws

> I do not agree, and you are not considering that the judges themselves may be making ideological policy decisions as opposed to 'the best public interest'.

Let's just dispense with the 'gotcha' retorts. Ofc I consider this. Judges are people and they have values that tend to align with their communities. The pessimistic view that they should all be considered bad actors is at odds with reality, as I know it.

> It may interest you to learn that several other developed countries do not have judicial review whatsoever- whatever the legislature passes is the law, full stop. (In Netherlands that's literally in their constitution!)

There will always have to be interpretation. Language (be it English or Dutch) is imperfect. Worse, it gets less precise as ideas become referential. The US and Netherlands are never going to use identical legal frameworks. Wishing that things were different has no utility for any possible future. Only the breakup of the US into another set of social contracts will proceed a change of that magnitude.

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

#135

Post by the-printer »

gaganyaan wrote: post #123
phpisthebest wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly not the abstract "harms" asserted in the case, where by one plaintiff has a medical aliment that was acerbated by COVID and because of that MT did not due enough for climate change. Also the case was largely about individual "extreme weather" events that have no clear, direct link to MT pollution, and there is zero evidence to suggest that should MT suspend all their pollution today, right now, it would chang…

Where does it specify what you claim?

> The legislature shall provide adequate remedies for the protection of the environmental life support system from degradation and provide adequate remedies to prevent unreasonable depletion and degradation of natural resources.

https://leg.mt.gov/bills/mca/Constitution/IX/1.htm#

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

#136

Post by pseudalopex »

phpisthebest wrote: post #119
pseudalopex wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the clear intention of the law?

Clearly not the abstract "harms" asserted in the case, where by one plaintiff has a medical aliment that was acerbated by COVID and because of that MT did not due enough for climate change. Also the case was largely about individual "extreme weather" events that have no clear, direct link to MT pollution, and there is zero evidence to suggest that should MT suspend all their pollution today, right now, it would chang…

The defendant declared Montana air unhealthy or very unhealthy every year since 2020 or before. And people with medical ailments are part of current and future generations.

Was the clear intention of the law to allow dumping DDT into a river contaminated outside Montana?

An author of the constitutional article was a witness. The judge cited the constitutional convention transcripts also. Did you read them?

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

#137

Post by triceratops »

Aerroon wrote: post #27
wunderland wrote: post #2

This is the kind of thing that is inspiring to young people. Not watching a couple of billionaires experience weightlessness for a few minutes.

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.

There's a very old phrase to describe what you're espousing: penny-wise pound-foolish.

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

#138

Post by triceratops »

shadowtree wrote: post #125
breakyerself wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is the #2 largest CO2 emitter and the largest overall historical emitter of CO2 so it would make more sense to declare on the US itself and China, then India if there's still powder left after that, but I don't imagine you're being anythinglre than facetious.

China in 2021 emitted 12,500 Mtons of CO2. The US in 2021 emitted 4,700 Mtons of CO2. The EU in 2021 emitted 2,700 Mtons of CO2. China emitted nearly as much CO2 than the US and EU combined. The US' CO2 output peaked in 2000, with 6000 Mtons, has been steadily declining ever since. https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2022

Good. Now add up all the emissions from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and tell us.

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

#139

Post by phpisthebest »

sophacles wrote: post #37
phpisthebest wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Believe it or not, keeping the planet nice is in their own self interests.

Believe it or not, this lawsuit does nothing to "keep the planet nice"

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

#140

Post by r00fus »

estebarb wrote: post #129
jacquesm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is fairly obvious. The question is whether or not it will happen on a scale large enough to make a difference. These things are global in nature and you can't really solve global problems with local solutions, though you can create global problems with local activities. The level of coordination required is massive otherwise the hold-outs will be able to reap the advantages of not playing nice.

Probably not. See Latin America: most governments recently elected are against environment preservation efforts, and most people seems very happy with their suicidal plans. For example, in Costa Rica the government is reactivating bottom trawling (which apart from destroying ecosystems also releases a lot of CO2), looking to extract natural gas, canceled the electric train plans, increased the maximum lifespan of bus…

Sounds more like corporate-fueld corruption than "people seeming happy with suicidal plans".
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