Postcards from the Rogue Valley

We stand at the forefront of a consequential lawsuit, driven not only by a commitment to the environment but also by a love for the people and places that make Montana home. We are plaintiffs in Held vs Montana, the first ever constitutional climate case to go to trial. – Georgianna Fischer and Claire Viases, Environmental Health News, June 16, 2023

A landmark youth climate trial is playing out in Montana, as 16 young plaintiffs aged 5 to 22 testify that the impacts of climate change have no age limit. They describe living with the threats of climate-induced wildfires, drought, reduced snowpack, impacts to wildlife, and the insecurity of watching their futures shrink.

The case is historic. Capturing headlines worldwide, Held vs Montana is the first youth climate case to make it to trial in the United States. It began June 12 in Helena, Montana and ends June 23^rd. This past week the plaintiffs took the witness stand; this coming week the state offers its rebuttal.

The nonprofit Our Children’s Trust in Eugene, Oregon, a national collaboration of lawyers and climate scientists, has lent expertise and muscle to the trial. In the past ten years, Our Children’s Trust has filed court cases with young plaintiffs in 50 states. 

On what grounds are the youth suing the state of Montana? The heart of their argument is that Montana’s ongoing development of its coal reserves and other fossil fuels break the state’s constitution, which since 1972 has guaranteed the right to “a clean and healthful environment.” Montana is one of the few states with such an explicit reference to a clean environment enshrined in its state constitution.

“Knowing my health will be in danger for 80 years, my livelihood, my home? That’s a long time to live with that,” says Grace Gibson-Snyder, one of the 12 young people offering testimony.

The plaintiffs are also asking the judge to declare unconstitutional a state law barring officials at Montana’s state agencies from considering the impacts of planet-heating pollution when deciding whether to permit fossil fuel projects.

Attorneys for the state attorney general’s office, meanwhile, argue that climate change is a worldwide problem, Montana’s greenhouse gas emissions are a tiny fraction of overall global emissions, and that the state should not shoulder the blame.

Montana’s relatively small population (1.1 million) is “simply too minuscule to make any difference in climate change,” Montana Assistant Attorney General Michael Russell said in his opening statement, adding climate change “is a global issue that effectively relegates Montana’s role to that of a spectator.”

The first week of the trial has featured personal and oftentimes emotional testimony from twelve of the young plaintiffs, complemented by an equal number of adult “experts” — local and national climate scientists, Montana tribal leaders, a Nobel Laureate, environmental policy analysts, a Montana pediatrician and child psychiatrist.

Twenty-two-year-old plaintiff Rikki Held remembers the 2012 Ash Creek Fire that surrounded her family’s ranch in 40 foot flames. “We feared for our lives.”

Soccer player Grace Snyder, 19, recounts the weeks of wildfire smoke in the summer of 2018 when the smoke was so dense that everyone stayed inside and the local hospital filled with people of all ages who couldn’t breathe. “It was dystopian.”

Plaintiff Sariel Sandoval, 20, a member of the Bitterroot Salish, Upper Pend d’Oreille, and Diné Tribes, tells how drought is “affecting the plants and things that our tribes eat and need to survive.”  “Ultimately, it will change who we are, too,” Sariel says.

Our Children’s Trust

It’s a bold but true claim. Our Children’s Trust, the force behind Held v. Montana, is the world’s only not-for-profit law firm representing young people and their legal right to a healthy atmosphere and safe climate, based on the best available science.

Founded by Eugene, Oregon attorney Julia Olson in 2010, Our Children’s Trust works off the concept of “Atmospheric Trust Litigation,” which urges legal action to hold governments accountable for their role in causing climate change. It seeks not to ask courts to devise a solution to climate change, but to compel the other branches of the government to protect human health and the environment by devising a comprehensive strategy.

One of Olson’s first actions as executive director was to bring together dozens of attorneys from the U.S. and eventually around the world to file legal actions on the same day on behalf of youth seeking governments’ urgent response to the climate crisis. The May 11, 2011 filings  — in the U.S. in all 50 states — were accompanied by the iMatter March, international solidarity youth marches empowering youth to stand up for their future in over 175 marches in 45 countries

“In the effort Our Children’s Trust is leading,” explains Olson, “we’re asking courts to play their constitutional role and step in and act as a check on the illegal actions of our political branches. And those actions include the continued subsidization and authorization of dangerous levels of carbon pollution through the fossil fuel industry.”

“If we look to the civil rights era in the United States, it took courageous judges in the South and ultimately the Supreme Court to say that segregation is a violation of the fundamental rights all Americans hold.”

When it comes to climate action, we need brave judges once again, says Olson.

Perhaps the best known of Our Children’s Trust’s climate lawsuits is Juliana v. United States, filed against the U.S. government in 2015 by 21 Oregon youth. The complaint asserted that the government’s fossil fuel energy system — and its actions causing climate change — violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, property, along with essential public trust resources like air and water. 

Their case eventually reached the Supreme Court, where it was referred back to the Ninth Circuit Court in Oregon. Two weeks ago, Ninth Circuit Judge Ann Aiken granted the young plaintiffs’ motion to amend their complaint, putting their case back on track after a lull of eight years.

As of today, Our Children’s Trust represents and supports young people in active climate cases and legal actions in five U.S. states: Florida, Hawai’i, Utah, and Virginia, along with Montana.

The impossible weight of expectation

“There’s the rage and fear and loss that comes with climate change,” says Montana youth plaintiff Grace,  but also “the impossible weight of expectation” that accompanies placing so much of the fight on the shoulders of youth. She remembers Greta Thunberg’s famous speech at the meeting of the United Nations in New York City in 2019: “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!”

An article in this week’s The Atlantic by Mattie Kahn, author of the new book Young and Restless, chronicles how activism can be one of the few opportunities for political expression for adolescents dissatisfied with the status quo, but excluded from all kinds of formal political processes. She writes: “Minors can’t vote. They also can’t incorporate nonprofits or run for elected office. Yet their protests work.”

For young women, the burden can exact a special toll, Kahn adds. Although all genders joined the civil-rights movement and the anti-war movement, and now battle the climate crisis, girls are uniquely visible. 

“Were the kids all right? Will the girls save us?” Kahn says she is often asked. “The process of writing this book filled me with hope,” she answers.

I am no stranger to this territory. For 25 years, I championed the voices of youth as knowledge creators and change makers through my nonprofit What Kids Can Do. I, too, was often asked “are the kids all right?” and my answer was usually “yes and no.” The accomplishments and vision of young people  — boosted by adult allies — that we shared in books and stories took my breath away. However, the hurdles they faced in a policy climate that more often than not put children last were crippling.

Then as now, there is one thing I know for sure: Young people should not be burdened with compensating for the failures of grown-ups — in this case failures so large that our planet is at risk. Instead of just marveling at their determination and passion, we owe everything we can give.

In their editorial in Environmental Health News, youth plaintiffs Georgianna Fischer and Claire Viases write:

We’re seeing harm now and accelerating harm in the future,” testified Steve Running, Nobel Laureate and University of Montana Emeritus Regents Professor, at the opening of Held v. Montana. ‘We really have to change the trajectory…. We should have done it decades ago. The next-best thing is right now.’

We are working to make that happen.

We aspire to see a Montana that leads by example, inspiring other states to adopt environmentally conscious policies rooted in constitutional accountability. 

Montana should not just be a witness to change, but a catalyst for it. We urge the state to listen to its citizens, especially the youth who will bear the brunt of the climate crisis. As we embark on this legal battle, we carry with us our stories – stories of lives touched by the consequences of unsustainable practices. 

We invite you to join us in this pursuit, to raise our voices and demand that Montana – and all states – honor this sacred obligation to our youth and our future. We must rewrite the narrative. We must protect the wild spaces. We must be the stewards future generations deserve.”

SUBSCRIBE
Add your name to the email “blast” announcing new posts. Please send your name and email address to: postcardsfromtheRV@gmail.com