Montana Supreme Court Upholds Right To 'Stable Climate System' For Youngsters (theguardian.com) 77
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Montana's top court on Wednesday held that the state's constitution guaranteed a right to a stable climate system and invalidated a law barring regulators from considering the effects of greenhouse gas emissions when permitting new fossil fuel projects. The Montana supreme court upheld a landmark trial court decision last August in favor of 16 young people who said their health and futures were being jeopardized by climate change, which the state aggravates through its permitting of energy projects. The 6-1 decision, the first of its kind by a US state supreme court, came in the first lawsuit to go to trial nationwide by young environmental activists challenging state and federal policies they say are exacerbating climate change.
Re:nope (Score:5, Insightful)
this won't stand up under review,
The law suit was about the constitutionality of a State law regarding the parameters under which State officials make decisions about State regulations. The ruling was 6:1 by a full panel of the State supreme court. Whom do you think will review this?
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Re: nope (Score:1)
So then how do we guarantee a stable climate?
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So then how do we guarantee a stable climate?
Presumably by reducing CO2 emissions enough that the atmospheric CO2 concentration doesn't continue climbing; or, alternatively, by somehow removing enough CO2 from the atmosphere to achieve the same effect. Most likely, some of both.
Dunno how Montana could go about doing either of those things unilaterally, but that's the answer to your question.
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Presumably by reducing CO2 emissions
We could always reduce the population which would in turn would reduce CO2 emissions.
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You're in a car careening toward a cliff.
Someone yells "how do we stop this thing?!"
You reply, "You can't- the suspension will always fluctuate based on the contour of the road."
Is that what passes for clever in your neck of the woods?
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You can't; the climate is always changing. Sometimes, like now, it's getting hotter, sometimes it's getting colder like it did during the Little Ice Age. Sometimes it's wetter, sometimes dryer. We may be able to reduce the effect humanity is having on the climate, but we'll never get it to stop changing.
Your fossil fuels lobby talking point is about 15 years too late. We've moved on from idiotic points like that to other equally idiotic fossil fuels lobby talking points by now. Do try to keep up.
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Scroll to the bottom and tell me what's different. https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
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So then how do we guarantee a stable climate?
Allow anyone the ability to up hold the rights of the Earth as a living entity and bring lawsuits on its behalf.
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How would a federal judge judge a case on state law?
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I've definitely been involved in trials where exactly that happens.
This being between citizens of the state and the state i don't think it'd move to federal court, but a civil case candidate be moved to federal court and still have the laws of the state where decisions were made applied and ruled on by the federal judge (this can happen when plaintiff and defendant are in different states).
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Oh, you mean the 5th Circuit. . . .or the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs can probably get Chief Justice Roberts' wife's firm to prepare the case. She has a business getting cases up in front of the Court for "adjudication".
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this won't stand up under review,
Review by who?
This was a ruling by the Montana Supreme Court. For interpretation of Montana law, this is as high as it goes. Their ruling is final.
the State constitution can only apply to localized environmental effects.
The Montana constitution means what the Montana Supreme Court says it means.
Don't like it? Amend the constitution.
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That's not how jurisdiction works.
The jurisdiction covered here is Montana's government, concerning Montana's citizens.
Montana is not free to, for example, stop Alaska from doing something- but then again, you're not trying to.
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Back to school.
Sorry. Review by whom?
Re:Environmental activists: why shit costs more (Score:4, Interesting)
Because the 'beauty' of the suburb needs to be protected. Usually, tree-huggers don't spend this sort of money.
Because it changes the value of someone's house. There are stories of US HOAs banning cell-towers, then all phone-calls into the suburb suffering sound fade or being dropped.
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> There are stories of US HOAs banning cell-towers, then all phone-calls into the suburb suffering sound fade or being dropped.
Use a landline...
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Use a landline.
I don't tell anyone my landline number: In fact, nothing is plugged in, so phoning that number will achieve nothing.
In some houses, the so-called landline is just a 'big' cell-phone on the wall. In that case, a HOA is unlikely to ban cell towers but if it did, nothing would work.
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The solution is simple. Move to a country with no pesky laws or regulations.
Re:Environmental activists: why shit costs more (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yup, and they are all conscientious individuals empowered with justice...and their AK-47s, just like Texas with the AKs swapped for the ARs.
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Haiti is even closer.
Re: Environmental activists: why shit costs more (Score:4, Insightful)
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I thought the same, until I saw how most of them still know little to nothing about bitcoin
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My power bill is now $10. I thought this was a nerds website.
So did I. A typical nerd is usually able to think things through, including recognising that there are great variances in payback periods for solar, differences in legal situations, and different living situations (bet you didn't even consider that you may be talking to someone living in an apartment).
I'm happy for you that your bill is so low. I too could climb on my roof and install solar and maybe after 8 years when I've paid them off after what little sun we get on the roof has done its bit maybe our bi
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> Get up on your roof and install some solar panels
Tsk tsk
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I thought this was a nerds website.
It was, but that was a long time ago, shortly after water was born and before dirt. Now if you don't get off my lawn by the time I find my meds I'm gonna turn on the sprinklers!
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They were probably nerds at one point. But they aged out and adopted the boomer mentality that everything new is scary and young people are the problem.
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My costs are up.
I'm sure India has a lovely little shithole suburb somewhere for you to keep your costs down since you don't seem to want to invest in the concept of living in a nice environment.
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> litigating against the construction of a new power line. Because power lines are bad or something.
Power lines allow humans to use electricity, an energy that is generated with the result being destruction of the environment.
Many think that using wind turbines or solar cells will do the trick, but those also directly destroy the environment, with turbines needing oil and metals to be mined, not to mention they are entirely unrecyclable.
Then Solar Panels require intensive mining resulting in the destruct
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A red state did that? (Score:1)
...Something is off. Check the water for brain-altering pollutants that turn judges blue.
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...Something is off. Check the water for brain-altering pollutants that turn judges blue.
Since it is a fly-over state, I would blame chemtrails :-)
Don't look up?
Barring considering emissions?! (Score:5, Insightful)
"invalidated a law barring regulators from considering the effects of greenhouse gas emissions when permitting new fossil fuel projects"
How much of an asshole do you have to be to implement such a law? The US is full of imbeciles.
Re:Barring considering emissions?! (Score:4, Interesting)
There are many US state laws that outlaw the consideration of climate change for various things. In 2012 North Carolina banned insurance companies from considering the impending rise in sea level for flood insurance. I'm going to hazard a guess that several reps in the state legislature had oceanfront property.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/north-carolina-bans-latest-science-rising-sea-level/story?id=16913782
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And then subsequently this in 2015, a North Carolina town quashed a solar farm because they feared it would take sunlight away from farms. I shit you not.
https://abc11.com/sun-solar-panels-energy/1122081
Re: Barring considering emissions?! (Score:2)
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Regardless of what N. Carolina did, home insurers are fleeing the state. The following article has a nice map, and NC is dead center for the pullback (you can google for non-paywalled sites that have the map)
https://www.nytimes.com/intera... [nytimes.com]
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"invalidated a law barring regulators from considering the effects of greenhouse gas emissions when permitting new fossil fuel projects"
How much of an asshole do you have to be to implement such a law? The US is full of imbeciles.
There are many US state laws that outlaw the consideration of climate change for various things. In 2012 North Carolina banned insurance companies from considering the impending rise in sea level for flood insurance. I'm going to hazard a guess that several reps in the state legislature had oceanfront property.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/north-carolina-bans-latest-science-rising-sea-level/story?id=16913782
Well, if there is any truly conclusive proof of the fact that climate change is real, that the consequences are going to be bad and that climate change deniers know this too, then it is the fact that climate change deniers feel a pressing need to pass laws like that. Particularly laws that insulate themselves from suffering financial consequences from damage done by climate change. The only reason anybody would forbid insurance companies from taking into account potential damage due to climate change is bec
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How much of an asshole do you have to be
Just your average Republican? Because the last good Republican was Eisenhower.
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My city used to have something like this. A council that had to review every municipal building project for environmental impact and that was stacked with green party members who kept delaying or refusing pretty much everything. The council was eventually abolished with the votes of the conservatives and worker party because the city is pretty rundown and desperately in need of something that could give it an economic boost.
Re: the grift that keeps on grifting (Score:3)
Indeed... Sea levels rise because one of the four whales that support the edges of the Earth waves his tail due to an itch.
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Hi, Montanan here (Score:5, Informative)
The Montana state constitution explicitly declares that the right to a clean and healthful environment is Inalienable.
The challenge is that by forbidding the consideration of energy projects impact on greenhouse gasses that could affect and harm that environment that their rights were being violated.
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> The Montana state constitution explicitly declares that the right to a clean and healthful environment is Inalienable
Thats the most legalese brained thing I have ever read, as such a thing is the definitition of impossible.
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There is nothing wrong with declaring an unobtainable right in the Constitution. It means that the State isn't allowed to be the one to take the thing away from you.
For example, it can recognize a right to life, but you'll still die somebody. But it means the State isn't allowed to kill you. Or at least has to try not to.
Lawfare strikes again (Score:3)
In civilised countries like those in Europe, contentious issues are resolved by ordinary politics in the legislatures. Thus abortion, equal marriage and civil rights were achieved by law changes. This is how it should be, surely. The resort to using the courts to achieve what are clearly political objectives but which you can't achieve a legislative majority for is unhealthy. It leads to the imposition of the dominant elite's agenda despite the will of the population. Eventually they get upset enough with you that they subvert the courts - and the elite discovers what it's like to have someone else's beliefs imposed on them.
The USA is stuck with an obsolete constitution that is barely holding together. Using the judiciary to impose your policies is to spend the legitimacy of the courts on this rather than keeping it in reserve for when the wheel falls off...
Ignorance strikes again (Score:2)
This isn't lawfare. No new law was made. No weird precedent was set. This is the courts upholding the existing laws by pointing out what a regulator was doing was against Article IX Section 1 of the Montana state constitution.
You don't like this ruling? Fix the underlying law just like how civilised countries like those in Europe do it. Pro tip: Europe has courts too, and courts there also regularly make rulings against regulators for not following the law of the land.
Using the judiciary to impose your policies is to spend the legitimacy of the courts on this rather than keeping it in reserve for when the wheel falls off...
Are you fine with the government suspen
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There have been several legal actions in Europe seeking to determine that climate change is infringing on people's rights.
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And they would've gotten away with it... (Score:2)
Planning ahead (Score:2)
So, they want to get aheadcof the game and ban the next ice age.
Can they also ban asteroid impacts and supervolacnoes? Those are a bit more worrying, especially the iminent eruption of Yellowstone. If that thing is permitted to erupt in my lifetime I can say bye by to civilisation.
Hubris (Score:1)
The hubris, or abject imbecility, of these youngsters is breathtaking. They think nature can be driven by man. They think one state, Montana, can make a significant difference in the face of China's pollution levels which are supposedly larger than the rest of the planet combined. That's allowed because they are a self declared "developing nation" and get breaks.... Anyway, these youngsters will likely be alive to regret their choices here.
{^_^}
And a pony (Score:1)
Besides lawsuit what are _they_ doing? (Score:2)
The problem isn't the "fossil" fuel acquisition, it's the consumerism, inefficiency, and wastefulness of the student's society.
Are they using Prime? Are they buying fashionable clothing? Are they driving? Are they using air conditioning? All drivers of fossil fuel use and all inefficient and wasteful.
All the lawsuit really says is, "I want to keep doing things just the way I am, but I want to pretend the problem is someone else. Also, look at me, look at me, look at me!"
You can't legislate reality. (Score:2)