A group of young Americans who have spent nearly four years trying to compel the federal government to take action on climate change found themselves back in court on Tuesday, arguing that their unprecedented lawsuit should move forward.
The Trump administration, like the Obama administration before it, was there to argue once again that the lawsuit should be tossed out before it ever goes to trial, both because the plaintiffs do not meet the legal requirements to bring such a suit and because “there is no fundamental constitutional right to a ‘stable climate system.’ ”
The lawsuit, filed in 2015 by 21 young people who argue that the failure of government leaders to combat climate change violates their constitutional right to a clean environment, had been scheduled to go to trial last fall before a district judge in Oregon.
“To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake… We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden (via philosophybits)
