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Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision

washingtonpost.com

41–50 of 173 posts

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

#41
I am very interested to see how this may play out and whether it gets upheld (note this is just a district judge writing a single ruling). Or whether the remedy is either toothless, or unenforceable.

Because the major barrier I see is, with the climate change problem in general, no one is able to concretely and incrementally connect someone's (tiny) polluting action to actual harm to someone far down the line. (for legal liability purposes -- not saying the link doesn't exist in scientific proof)

Let me phrase it this way. For someone to have an actionable legal cause, doesn't it require that the person/entity causing some claimed harm have a particularized, concrete, connected relationship to the harm? And that their cessation of the claimed causative action would remedy the issue? this is the important thing

The kids claim that climate detrimental action is causing them harm. In most cases (some gas guzzling vehicle, coal burning plant) etc. the thing they claim is harming them, even if it were to be completely shut down, would not solve the climate problem. They would still be experiencing the harm.

So how would a law be enforceable if anyone could be sued for something that minutely adds to climate change, and their stopping their activity would produce no measurable effect on the claimant's outcome? Heck, the kids' own existence could be said to be linked to climate change.

Or, how about this -- wind farms could be sued for minutely adding to the environment / climate change problem. Or big box retail stores for causing traffic and wasteful packaging. The list could go on and on. We have opened a can of worms like if you said that denial of "the pursuit of happiness" is something that people can sue over.

What legal principle is being promulgated here? I suspect this will be subject to significant review if more cases accumulate.

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

#42

AFAICT without being an expert: 1. The state constitution says it's got to provide a clean environment https://leg.mt.gov/bills/mca/Constitution/IX/1.htm (so short I won't provide a quote) 2. The Montana Environmental Policy Act in Montana has some exceptions written into it and in subsequent revisions https://leg.mt.gov/content/Publications/Environmental/2021-m... 3. One of these exceptions is that it limits the sco…

>> things that's used to stop windmills Why do you hate whales and birds? The environmental impact if windmills are pretty large >The article is that it's over fossil fuels, which sounds like the right target, MT has the largest coal reserves. Pretty sure that is target. The problem here like most of these things is the unintended consequences of these policies. Often they are only concerned with stopping the thing t…

> The environmental impact if windmills are pretty large.

Do you have any citation for this? Any source that hasn't been debunked thoroughly? Has anyone not currently under multiple indictments for fraud ever suggested this in a serious way?

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

#43
post #27

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.

Lower prices themselves have a price.

You could steal everything for free, why don't you?

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

#45
post #27

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.

Carbon externalities not being reflected in the price of a good is a bug, not a feature.

It’s a market failure that needs to be rectified.

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

#46

I didn't realize how explicit the Montana state constitution was on this [1], which was rewritten in 1972: Part IX. ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES Section 1. Protection and improvement. (1) The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations. (2) The legislature shall provide for the administration and enforcement of this duty. (3) Th…

What's crazy to me is how common this line of thinking was from way back. Thomas Jefferson was borderline obsessed with basically this same concept. There's a really excellent letter from Jefferson to Madison from 1789 describing the importance of usufruct. [1]

My favorite chunk of this thing / the meat of the argument:

> I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, ‘that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living’: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.

> ...

> For if [a man], during his own life, eat[s] up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, & then the lands would belong to the dead, & not to the living, which would be the reverse of our principle.

[1] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-12-02-024...

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

#48

What is next? Old people suing young people if they fail to work enough to keep their pensions afloat? Absolutely banana republic level decision. Courts going beyond their customary boundaries is a bad idea for a democratic system stability.

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

#50
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when conservatism was synonymous with being conservative wrt the environment. Such a different place today's conservatives are at.

I believe the word you're looking for is "conservationism". The definition of conservatism has not changed. In fact, the wikipedia article for conservation calls out the ambiguity, right at the top: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_movement

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.
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