It was just last fall that I snuck backstage at Bioneers to grab a few minutes with James Hansen. I had one question I just had to ask after his talk about bringing the fight over global warming to the judicial branch. Although the head hanchos weren't allowing press access to the main speakers last year, Hansen ignored the confused glares of Nina and Kenny and their grand dame with the clipboard as I approached him, mini recorder and camera in hand. He must've sensed I had a burning desire to talk to him cause he took my arm and walked with me further back into the shadows.
How could you have any hope in this country's judiciary, I asked, particularly after Citizens United?
Hansen referred back to the role the SCOTUS played in Watergate, referring back to their unanimous decision to uphold Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski's subpoena for Nixon's Oval Office tapes. It was a divided court then, he said, just as it is now. But the 'conservatism' which Hansen was promoting had to do with the public trust, he said. And it had a long history, dating back to Roman law.
After a few minutes answering my questions, Hansen the said he was leaving to fly to Oregon for some meetings with lawyers to discuss filing petitions and initiating legal action on behalf of the children to ensure the world they inherited was suitable for their healthy survival.
Well, yesterday, Hansen's project launched in courtrooms around the world as young people initiated a unique legal experiment called "Guerilla Law." In each case, the documents filed called for mandating public officials to begin work to return atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million. (See Suit Accuses U.S. Government of Failing to Protect Earth for Generations Unborn, NYT 5/4/2011)
Yup, that magic number 350, made universally famous by Bill McKibben, which scientists uniformly agree is as high as atmospheric CO2 can measure to avoid devastating climate change.
"March for a Planet Worth Inheriting."
The 'guerilla law-fare,' organized by Our Children’s Trust in Eugene, Oregon, is part of a larger youth campaign which includes the March 7-14 “iMatter”marches in towns across America. The marches are a project of Earth Island Institute's Kids vs Global Warming .
A global youth march to let the world know that climate change is a moral issue -- not a political or financial one. By marching in the streets, the youth of this world will let the leaders know that we matter and we need our whole society to reduce emissions and live as if our future matters!
Why 16 Year-Old Alec Loorz Is Suing the Government
I am 16 years old. This morning I filed a lawsuit against the United States of America, for allowing money to be more powerful than the survival of my generation, and for making decisions that threaten our right to a safe and healthy planet.
Our parents’ and grandparents’ generations have created a problem. They’ve developed a society that depends on burning fossil fuels, like coal and oil, to survive. They never realized that there were any huge consequences to running our lives with fossil fuels. But now, we do.
(snip)
... as youth, we are the last group of people in the United States who don’t have any official political rights. We can’t vote, and we certainly can’t compete with rich corporate lobbyists, so we are forced to simply trust our government to make good decisions on our behalf.
However, it’s become clear that our government has failed us, by not protecting the resources on this planet we need to survive. Even though scientists overwhelmingly agree that carbon emissions are totally messing up the balance of our atmosphere, our leaders continue to turn their backs on this crisis.
(snip)
Today, I and other fellow young people are suing the government, for handing over our future to unjust fossil fuel industries, and ignoring the right of our children to inherit the planet that has sustained all of civilization. I will join with youth and attorneys in every state to demand that our leaders live and govern as if our future matters.
The government has a legal responsibility to protect the future for our children. So we are demanding that they recognize the atmosphere as a commons that needs to be preserved, and commit to a plan to reduce emissions to a safe level.
The plaintiffs and petitioners on all the cases are young people. (Continue reading)
Protecting The Atmospheric Trust
Mary Christina Wood, a University of Oregon law professor, is currently writing a book which provides a technical explanation of the concept on an atmospheric trust. While the courts cannot instruct the government on how to lower CO2 emissions, she says, they can use their injunctive power to insist that governments meet 'bottom-line' responsibilities to their citizens.
The legal foothold for Atmospheric Trust Litigation (ATL) is the ancient public trust doctrine, which imposes a strict fiduciary obligation on government to protect natural resources in trust for the citizens. As a legal doctrine, the public trust compels protection of those ecological assets necessary for public survival and community welfare.
The judicial branch should hold government to its legal responsibilities. So far, however, though many lawsuits have been filed, none have forced the carbon reduction needed to curb runaway atmospheric heating… Source: Natural Capitalism Solutions: Defending the Atmosphere, Part I.
Repeat after me. James Hansen? You are a rock star!
Sources:
iMatterMarch