Held v Montana

At the end of this post where you see in bold “Youth Plaintiffs… ” is a brief synopsis of a lawsuit against the State of Montana alleging the following:

…greenhouse gas emissions [are] “already triggering a host of adverse consequences in Montana, including dangerously increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, increasing droughts and extreme weather events, increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires, increasing glacial melt***, and causing numerous adverse health risks, especially to children …

If it were me, and be thankful it wasn’t, I would simply have put the burden of proof on Our Children’s Trust, the group behind this lawsuit and many others, all tossed out of court. All of the adverse consequences are nonexistent. Even melting glaciers***, while ongoing, has been going on since 1860 or so, the end of the Little Ice Age. If courts of law are a means of discovering truth, which I think only sometimes possible, then this case would be a no-brainer.

However, and I think we all know this, this case would play in the news media in favor of the plaintiffs, and we cannot be sure that the judge has the wherewithal to delve deeply into the issues, which is what it takes to become a “climate change denier”‘ (By the way, Judith Curry, who was called as an expert witness in this case, but who did not testify due to the change in strategy by the legal team, says she is now referred to as a “climate crisis denier.” They keep doubling down.)

Curry has written about this case here. It is a long piece, so that only wonks like me read it, but it is thoughtful and well worth your time if you have a half-hour to kill.

John Kehr, author of The Inconvenient Skeptic, notes on page 115 of that book that for the last four one-thousand year periods in Greenland, each has been cooler than its predecessor, this according to the Greenland Ice Core Project. Kehr does many graphical presentations of our current Holocene interglacial period, comparing it to the Eemian interglacial, the preceding one that took place about 130,000 years ago. The similarities are stunning. It appears, and he maintains, that the Holocene is in autumn, and he knowingly or not invokes Game of Thrones … winter is coming. Warming is coming to an end, and something we all need to grasp and hold on to: Cold, not warmth, is a killer.

If anyone is interested in Kehr’s book, I recommend getting it on Kindle. I have a paper copy, and while loaded with useful graphs, it is extremely difficult on many of them to determine what is what, as all the lines are black. In the Kindle edition, I am told, the graphics are in color.

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*** Most of our northern hemisphere glaciers were formed only in the last 4,000 years, inside our interglacial period. Very little ice survived the early Holocene, which was much warmer than today.  Further, the Hans Tausen Ice Cap (Greenland), Mt. Churchill (Alaska), Mt. Logan (Canada), and the Fremont Glacier (Wyoming) are all young glaciers that are growing. The Fremont Glacier is pictured above. It is only three latitudes removed from halfway to the equator.

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Youth Plaintiffs Filed Climate Lawsuit Against Montana Asserting Violations of State Constitutional Rights. Sixteen young people filed a lawsuit in Montana state court asserting climate change-based claims under the Montana constitution against the State of Montana, its governor, and state agencies. In particular, the case challenges the constitutionality of Montana’s fossil fuel-based State Energy Policy and the “Climate Change Exception” in the Montana Environmental Policy Act. The plaintiffs allege that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions were “already triggering a host of adverse consequences in Montana, including dangerously increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, increasing droughts and extreme weather events, increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires, increasing glacial melt, and causing numerous adverse health risks, especially to children,” and that defendants had continued “to act affirmatively to exacerbate the climate crisis” despite their awareness that the plaintiffs were living under “dangerous climatic conditions that create an unreasonable risk of harm.” The plaintiffs seek a declaration that their right to a clean and healthful environment includes a right a stable climate system, as well as declarations that the State Energy Policy and the Climate Change Exception violate the Public Trust Doctrine and constitutional provisions that protect the right to a clean and healthful environment; the right to seek safety, health, and happiness; and the right to individual dignity and equal protection. They also seek injunctive relief in the form of orders directing the defendants to prepare an accounting of Montana’s greenhouse gas emissions and to develop and implement a remedial plan to reduce emissions “consistent with the best available science and reductions necessary to protect Youth Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights from further infringement … , and to reduce the cumulative risk of harm to those rights.”