“Exercising my ‘reasoned judgement,’ … I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.”
-U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Ann Aiken, November, 2016, in a 54-page opinion and order denying the U.S. federal government’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit, filed against the federal government by 21 kids currently ranging in age from 11 to 22, asserting that the federal government has “known for more than fifty years that the carbon dioxide … produced by burning fossil fuels was destabilizing the climate system in a way that would ‘significantly endanger plaintiffs, with the damage persisting for millenia’,” and demanding that the government desist from subsidizing the fossil fuel industry and begin regulating carbon dioxide emissions
The lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, was recently highlighted on 60 Minutes:
- Watch the 60 Minutes report here.
- Read here about the 36,000 pages of documentary evidence gathered by the plaintiffs for the case, much of it the government’s own documents spanning 50 years and 10 presidencies.
- Visit the plantiffs’ web page here.
Since 2016, the Trump Administration has appealed Judge Aiken’s decision three times to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and twice to the Supreme Court. All 5 appeals failed.
The next oral arguments in Juliana v. United States are scheduled for June in Portland, Oregon.
#rescuethatfrog