Essay by Eric Worrall
Bye bye Juliana v. United States.
US Supreme Court will not hear novel youth-led climate change case
By Nate Raymond
March 25, 202511:29 AM GMT+10March 24 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid by 21 young people to revive a novel lawsuit claiming the U.S. government’s energy policies violate their rights to be protected from climate change.
The justices denied a request by the youth activists to hear their appeal of a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directing a federal judge in Oregon to dismiss the case after holding they lacked legal standing to sue.
…
“The Supreme Court’s decision today is not the end of the road and the impact of Juliana cannot be measured by the finality of this case alone,” Julia Olson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-will-not-hear-novel-youth-led-climate-change-case-2025-03-24/
…
The US Department of Justice issued the following press release;
Justice Department Statement on Juliana Case
Monday, March 24, 2025
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari by plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States, a case the Justice Department has consistently defended across three presidential administrations.
The case, filed in 2015, sought to have courts force the government to implement more stringent, remedial measures related to climate change. The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon agreed to hear the case. The Justice Department moved to dismiss and sought an interlocutory appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ninth Circuit remanded the case to the district court with instructions to dismiss. The district court accepted an amended complaint, and the circuit court again instructed for the case to be dismissed. The plaintiffs then filed a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court.
“For nearly a decade, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Juliana case have tied up the United States in litigation, persisting even after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals twice instructed the case to be dismissed because the plaintiffs lack Article III standing,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). “The U.S. Supreme Court’s cert denial brings this long saga to a conclusion. Through ENRD’s work, the Justice Department is enforcing our nation’s environmental laws and safeguarding America’s air, water, and natural resources. Cases like Juliana distract from those enforcement efforts.”
Updated March 24, 2025
Read more: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-statement-juliana-case
A Supreme Court Mandamus Denied notice is available here.
This has been a very long running saga.
Obviously it is great news this ridiculous case has finally been quashed, but I feel sorry for the young people.
I can think of few things more despicable than using kids as political pawns, the way I believe these young people have been used.
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Ten years of Lawyering is about a third of most lawyer’s careers.
Just think of all the Michelin dinners and golf rounds it took to litigate this case for nothing.
What a huge waste of time and money.
As always, the only winners are the lawyers.
The US desperately needs some form of Loser Pays rule.
How about a form where the losers’ lawyers also pay half?
75%
Not necessary. If these client losers had to pay, there wouldn’t be enough left over for the lawyers.
Hit each of these kids with a sizeable SLAPP suit.
These types of “global warming” lawsuits would end immediately!
While something needs to be done I don’t agree with loser pays rule. If that was in place the small guy could realistically never afford to sue the big guys.
I think we need a system where cases are put under review after losing in court. If the case was brought isn’t on solid legal ground when filed then the lawyer should have their wallet and law license at personal risk. Maybe a 3 strikes and your out on the law license but the wallet can be hit as many times as possible.
Not true. Loser pays makes it easier for poor people to get assistance collecting from rich people, because that’s where the money is. If anything, loser pays hurts the rich because they don’t stand much chance of collecting from the poor if they win.
If you were a lawyer and had two equally good cases to choose from, would you rather defend the poor man and collect from the rich loser, or defend the rich man and rely on his paying you when you couldn’t collect from the poor loser?
Your solution is just more bureaucracy and more lawyers. What would happen is more lawyers arguing, more appeals, more delays.
I know a person who was seriously injured in a vehicle accident in which they were a passenger. They were then unable to work, and they didn’t have much money. Their case was taken up by a no-win- no- fee lawyer, who got substantial (but not massive) compensation for them. Now they have a life. That incident changed my view of no-win-no-fee lawyers. I realised that without them, the law would be exclusively for the wealthy.
Maybe we need to fix the law so it’s not exclusively for the wealthy.
From a simple logic standpoint, the no-win/no-fee lawyer takes a big percentage as insurance against the losing cases … how many losing cases does he finance this way? How much pain does he cause to the defendants in the losing cases?
Or does he just take the obvious winners … stating that his huge cut is because he is taking on such huge risk. But he is simply ripping off his own client because he knows it is a winner.
I do not know how the judge could determine how people should be protected from climate changes. Climate has always changed ,but it is not man made nor can it be changed by man. All he can do as he has always done is adapt to what it is at the time..There is no crisis however as the changes are well within the variations of the past..
called “forum shopping.”
“young people… claiming the U.S. government’s energy policies violate their rights to be protected from
climate changeboogey man.”At least the judge isn’t falling for the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness. Climate is not real, it’s an arbitrary abstraction; weather is real.
These kids want to be protected from weather.
A little over-protected perhaps?
It’s typical of jihadists to use women and children as human shields in pushing their agenda. In this case the malevolent people call themselves “Our Children’s Trust.” And who are the adults involved in Our Children’s Trust?
The Usual Suspects, including their Aliases
James “Death Trains” Hansen
Ove “Reefer Mad” Hoegh-Guldberg
Jonathan “Water Torture” Overpeck
Camille “The Extincter” Parmeson
Stefan “No Tommorow” Rahmstorf
Kevin “Hidden Heat” Trenberth
And the original judge.
Keeping the case going while her own kids ride the PR from the case for a little profit themselves.
Translation “The money hasn’t run out yet.”
Our Children’s Trust, you’re…
Doge will soon put their search engines looking at that. To be a non profit they have to file funding details somewhere
Keep in mind there is a whole climate tort cabal of greedy law-firms looking for a big payday, like they got against Big Tobacco decades ago.
Regardless of which choice the appeals court took, the 9th Circus knew if they hadn’t ordered the lower court to dismiss, it would’ve been accepted by SCOTUS by an appeal of defendant.
The climate tort lobby understands the implications of a Supreme Court ruling on the lack of standing to sue over climate claims would have been much more adverse to all the on-going nation-wide climate lawfare lawsuits.
Of all the circuit courts, the 9th is the most likely to have been receptive to the plaintiff’s arguments, and they rejected it summarily. Twice.
Its even more interesting than that as the 9th Circuit is so large they more or less have permanent appeals panels sitting in Portland or Seattle.
Southern California- Arizona appeals are heard in Pasadena. San Francisco mainly takes the Northern California, Nevada, Hawaii cases.
I think The 9th appeal case was heard each time in Portland/Seattle.
We have to remember that Juliana v US was filed in August 2015. Democrats and the climate scammers were banking on a Hillary Clinton admin to continue a Leftward tilt of the Supreme Court.
Democrats and their climate crazies didn’t expect a Republican President in 2017, and certainly not a Donald Trump who would put 3 Conservatives on the SCOTUS bench.
The Liberals had accepted the premise that a Republican would never be in the White House again due to US demographics shifting, swing states in turning solid blue, evidenced by how easily Obama beat both Romney and McCain.
The Climate Cabal sponsoring this Juliana lawsuit understood it would eventually get to Supreme Court, but had expected the Supreme Court ideological make-up to continue a strong shift toward all the favorite Democrat and Liberal policies: climate, cultures wars, and rise of the bureaucratic state and its power in the face of a feeble Congress unable to stop it.
Trump of course shifted not just the political landscape but the more Conservative Supreme Court, rather than one tilted toward Liberal’s policies altered the course of US and is putting a dead halt to Democrat’s climate scam in so many ways.
If even the Ninth Circuit thinks you have a bad case, you have a really bad case.
They have a really bad case alright. Of Climadingalingitis.
When you can’t even get a win in the most liberal appeals court in the nation, the 9th circuit, then you know you’re not going to get anywhere. If these people keep filing they need to be ordered to cease and desist and reject their appeal with prejudice, with legal and financial sanctions to be levied on both the attorneys and the plaintiffs if they insist on bringing this up again in another suit as they clearly threatened to do.
“I can think of few things more despicable than using kids as political pawns, the way I believe these young people have been used.”
************
Ditto for me.
And, as I’ve said in the past, manipulating children for political purposes isn’t exactly new.
There was of course the Hitler youth in Nazi Germany. And the Cultural Revolution with Mao in China:
Cultural Revolution – Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help
“Mao formally launched the Cultural Revolution in August 1966 by shutting down China’s schools. The Chinese youth responded to his call with great enthusiasm. They organized themselves into groups known as the Red Guards. They marched through cities and towns attacking anyone they thought was against their leader. Elderly people and scholars were physically assaulted, and many died.”
And in the old USSR:
Young Pioneers (Soviet Union) – Wikipedia
“The Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization,[a] abbreviated as the Young Pioneers, was a youth organization of the Soviet Union for children and adolescents ages 9–14 that existed between 1922 and 1991.”
**********
Seeing youth manipulated today in our schools and the legal system by climate alarmists is as disgusting as it was in history. When will it ever stop?
What about Biden’s Climate Youth Corps?
Forgot about them. I wonder what will happen to them under Trump 2.0.
Killed by Trump.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2025/02/06/la-times-biden-struggled-to-bring-the-american-climate-corps-to-life-then-trump-killed-it/
“In a flurry of first-day executive actions, Trump ordered all activities, programs and operations associated with the corps to be “terminated immediately.” On Monday, the site disappeared entirely.”
It was probably just virtue signaling anyway.
This is good news. And to me, it’s a reminder that the entire slate of “climate” claims needs to be put to rest decisively to successfully turn back the alarmist movement. These suits are a misuse of the justice system just like the climate “consensus” resulted from a misuse of science.
This is a good reason to keep exposing the fundamental unsoundness of attributing any portion of any trend of any climate-related metric to incremental CO2 from fossil fuels. Eventually – in my opinion – it will become more obvious that the physics of the general circulation, especially the concept of energy conversion, overwhelms any tendency for the minor static radiative effect to drive “warming” – most certainly to negate any harmful result.
https://youtu.be/hDurP-4gVrY
I hope the US EPA’s 2009 “Endangerment Finding” can be fully withdrawn soon, as the current administration intends, and that Congress will act decisively to forestall a recurrence. Wishful thinking? Maybe, but worth it to keep pushing.
Oh My! as regards to “Eventually – in my opinion – it will become more obvious that the physics of the general circulation, especially …“
Surely two proofs have to be made. One is that the climate has been affected by US Govt policies; second that an individual child has suffered harm from climate change. If the litigation involves the future, then further proof is needed that oh god I’ve got bored with this.
Previous SC precedent from about 10 years back , unanimously held that ‘future harm’ was a thing.
These clowns coulnt even get on that bandwagon
Of course. How could it end otherwise?
What a lunatic waste of money for Scots – and, more importantly of MY money.
The CAGW crowd are bad people
What were the ultimate expected real-world outcomes of this suit?
Did the children “victims” expect to not need air conditioning in 50 years time or something?
Given the length of time this has been in court(s), I imagine many of these “kids” aren’t kids anymore.
Using these kids in the climate fight is another act of desperation by the eco-alarmists. Just let them attend school and hold part-time jobs during their formative years and never mind conning them into believing that fossil fuel use is robbing them and the rest of the planet of their current lives and futures. All they have to do is look at the facts that all the emissions-reduction targets worldwide are consistently falling well short of their targets, and they’ll realize that the fight to arrest climate change was lost long ago. So they should devote their energies to something that has a chance of succeeding and bringing them some career advancement.
The fight to arrest climate change was lost before it began.
Now if this Exxon knew from Boulder CO could be stopped:
https://www.cpr.org/2025/02/11/boulder-climate-lawsuit-suncor-exxon-colorado-supreme-court/
No one can be protected from climate change (it hasn’t been static at any point in time) anymore than they can be protected from the weather.
That simply not true. With modern technology everyone can be protected from extreme weather events. Unfortunately, it’s too expensive to build homes that are resilient to storms and flooding, and/or too expensive to build more dams, remove all large trees which are close to homes, remove fuel from forest floors, and so on.
Think how common it is for local governments to allow housing construction on known flood plains which have a history of flooding that goes back centuries.
Perhaps someone should sue these local authorities for their incompetence in applying suitable regulations to protect the citizens.
“With modern technology everyone can be protected from extreme weather events.”
That statement might be a bit broad, if you include lightning as an “extreme weather event.”
I experienced something very odd, which I cannot explain, and the phenomenon has been documented by others.
During a storm with multiple lightning strikes nearby, some form of electrical discharge entered my dwelling, presumably along telephone wiring, and exploded an old rotary dial phone. The internal steel chassis was melted in places, as was some internal wiring. The feed lines were properly earthed, and lightning arrestors seemed fine. I was in the same room, and felt nothing apart from surprise at the sudden noise and flying pieces of debris!
The thin gauge feed lines were not damaged, and curiously, in some cases internal copper wire was melted, but the fabric insulation was not charred. Oh, and connecting a new phone showed no interruption to service. Only known damage was at my end.
Go figure – one of life’s little mysteries.
My main point is that building codes should be taylored to suit the historical weather conditions that have occurred at a particular location.
I did a Google search on the frequency of lightning strikes in Australia, and came across the following information.
“Darwin is the most lightning-prone capital city in Australia, experiencing around 54 lightning pulses per square kilometer per year.
Other Capital Cities:
Brisbane (26 pulses), Sydney (18 pulses), Canberra (16 pulses), Melbourne (8 pulses), Perth (4 pulses), Adelaide (3 pulses), and Hobart (1 pulse).”
I also did a search on the cost of installing a lightning protection system for the average house in Australia. The result ranged between A$442 and $2,663, which is not much compared to the total cost of the average house.
The problem being builders are worried about price points and what sells. “This one has lightning rods” doesn’t have the same appeal as say granite counter tops.
EMI inducted current, not a direct strike. Still the magnitude of what you describe places significant doubt on that specutlation.
Well yes, but that has nothing to do with “climate change.” (Which is *objectively* not making the weather worse to begin with.)
That is just intelligent development and building practices. Which of course should not be expected from government.
Yes, might as well bleat on about being “protected” from the ebb and flow of the tides.
Don’t worry, these Krazy Klimate Kids will rise up like the Phoenix, and conjure up another cockamamie, faux grievance in short order.
For instance: Klimate Kids vs. the Health Food Juggernaut
Spokeshuman Karla Karamel announced: “We will sue the bejeezus out of anyone who gives us health food energy bars on Halloween, or fruit, celery stalks, or anything like that.. We want gooey, nutty, rich, high-fat, high-calorie goodies only!
We will sue to be protected from health food. . . at least that one day a year.”
The “young people” for whom the author feels sorry are no longer young. They were never involved in the lawsuit, except for being required to appear for photo opportunities. They were all willing shills for political forces beyond their understanding (though some of them may have wised up by now).
Sadly that is true.
What about our right to be protected from global climate change hysteria? What about the rights of we, the lovers of CO2? What about the rights of the plants and animals that depend on them?
You want that protection? Simple. Declare a climate change hysteria gender identity.
Just for fun, it would be nice to know about the “kids.”
Who involved them and how? Who paid their bills and did they get anything out of this 10-year project?
If you think I haven’t been paying attention to this project, you will be correct.
At this point, how many of the “young people” are still young people?