Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Ninth Circuit is currently hearing an attempt by the Juliana v. United States plaintiffs to halt all fossil fuel extraction in the United States.
The kids suing the government over climate change want to halt fossil fuel extraction
The plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States say they’ve been denied their right to a safe and stable climate.
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If the injunction is granted, it would lead to a nationwide moratorium on new fossil fuel permitting and leasing on federal lands and waters until the lawsuit is resolved. No small matter. However, existing mining and drilling projects would still proceed.
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Philip Gregory, one of the lead attorneys representing the children filing suit, explained that the injunction request is meant to address the urgency of limiting climate change by reducing emissions from fossil fuels immediately. With the case currently tied up in appeals, the plaintiffs wanted to make sure the current state of affairs with respect to climate change doesn’t get worse as the wheels of justice slowly turn.
“We would have preferred to go to trial, submit our extensive evidence, and have the judge require the defendants to come up with a plan, a national climate recovery plan, for how they’re going to go about doing this,” Gregory said.
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In response, the federal government argued this week that the injunction maneuver is a ploy to bypass proper legal proceedings. “Indeed, Plaintiffs by their present motion are essentially making a bid in this Court for a substitute mini-trial or ‘trial lite’ — which is premature until the pure issues of law now being briefed in this interlocutory appeal are appropriately resolved as a threshold matter,” wrote attorneys for the US Department of Justice. They described the injunction request as an “ambitious attempt to throttle important government functions superintending broad swaths of the national economy.”
The government also noted that the Juliana lawsuit was filed more than three years ago but the plaintiffs hadn’t asked to block fossil fuel leasing until now, which undermines the plaintiffs’ argument that without immediate action, they would suffer irreparable harm.
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Read more: https://www.vox.com/2019/2/23/18234721/childrens-climate-lawsuit-juliana-injunction
A copy of the injunction is available here.
Even President Obama did not support this case – when James Hansen urged Obama to tie President Trump’s hands on climate policy. by settling the case in the plaintiff’s favour, President Obama refused.
I feel sorry for the kids, whom I see as victims of callous green political manipulation. This court case will almost certainly eventually be tossed out, and those poor kids will likely have to live with the crushing disappointment of being tossed aside by their former green friends once they are no longer any immediate use to the green movement.
What makes you guys so sure that the 9th won’t issue the injunction and turn the fossil fuel extraction industry upside down?
When I read how these naive children are being brain washed by adults, my thoughts are directed to a beer garden in the1930s, where two men drank a toast to themselves with wine & a young man began singing. It’s educational! Who remembers this?
29 (once removed).
Aka “58”.
I always used to believe that the idea of law was innocent until proved guilty. Surely before bringing a case for banning something for causing injury it should first be proven in a court that the injury has actually taken place beyond reasonable doubt.
In the case of climate we have a claim by a group with considerable commercial self interest at stake making a claim they say is beyond question and therefore never properly examined by better trained people from outside their clique. A claim that does not even stand what I refer to as the Mystic Meg test for a clairvoyant let alone that of scientific rigour. Is the claim unambiguous , unmodified over the period in question and met in essence if not in detail by the test of hindsight.
Science would also demand the data to be provably accurate to the claimed level and clear cut correlation of claimed cause and effect. This to any engineer requires day to day recording of fossil fuel use, resulting emissions, solar intensity and local temperatures at spacial and time intervals that make averages meaningful at the required accuracy which is probably at least several hundred times the actual level done.
I find it strange how no case has ever been brought to prove climate science which would convince millions who currently feel robbed and despise the scientific fraternity for their arrogance and incompetence every time another doom story is disproved. Do other branches of science not see how they are propping up crooks or idiots with their own reputations laid on the line?
There is a very good axiom of parenting, “To use is to abuse”. These kids are being used.
Good. They can all freeze to death and starve. Or lose their minds when they have no cars to drive, no cell phones and no computers. You just cannot fix stupid.
Natural selection.
If this case was in front of a sane court I would say the court should issue an injunction – not against the fossil fuel industry but against the Children’s Climate Crusaders from using any fossil fuels or fossil fuel derive products until the case is resolved one way or the other. The first freezing cold day without fossil fuel heat or the first blazing hot day without fossil fueled AC and the case will quickly be dropped.