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'Our Voices Are Actually Being Heard': Historic Youth Climate Trial Begins in Montana [View all]
"I think a victory for the Montana youth would really set the stage, provide a strong foundation for many of these other youth climate cases," said one law professor in the state.https://www.commondreams.org/news/youth-climate-trial-montana
Jessica Corbett Jun 12, 2023
The first-ever constitutional climate trial in the United States—the result of 16 youth suing the Montana government for promoting and supporting fossil fuels that dangerously warm up the planet—kicked off in Helena on Monday.
"Going to trial means a chance for me and my fellow plaintiffs to have our climate injuries recognized and a solution realized. It means our voices are actually being heard by the courts, the government, the people who serve to protect us as citizens, and Montana's youth," Grace, one of the 16 young people behind Held v. State of Montana, said in a statement earlier this year.
The plaintiffs' complaint shares the "ways the 16 youth have spent their childhoods watching the world burn," Gristnoted Friday:
A rancher's daughter recalls the sadness and stress of seeing a river cycle through droughts and floods, endangering and even killing her family's cattle. Two brothers who love to hunt and fish recount how the forest they rely upon for food is deteriorating around them. A toddler struggles to breathe as wildfire smoke aggravates his asthma. A young Indigenous woman worries that inexorable changes to the seasons will cause her tribe to lose the ancient cultural traditions that have seen them through seasons of war, genocide, and dispossession.
Plaintiff Mica Kantor recalls first hearing about climate change as a 4-year-old, when his parents took him to see the 2012 documentary Chasing Ice, the 14-year-old recently told the Montana Free Press. In the years since, smoke from surrounding wildfires—worsened by global heating significantly driven by fossil fuels—has impacted his athletic outlet: running outdoors.
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"Going to trial means a chance for me and my fellow plaintiffs to have our climate injuries recognized and a solution realized. It means our voices are actually being heard by the courts, the government, the people who serve to protect us as citizens, and Montana's youth," Grace, one of the 16 young people behind Held v. State of Montana, said in a statement earlier this year.
The plaintiffs' complaint shares the "ways the 16 youth have spent their childhoods watching the world burn," Gristnoted Friday:
A rancher's daughter recalls the sadness and stress of seeing a river cycle through droughts and floods, endangering and even killing her family's cattle. Two brothers who love to hunt and fish recount how the forest they rely upon for food is deteriorating around them. A toddler struggles to breathe as wildfire smoke aggravates his asthma. A young Indigenous woman worries that inexorable changes to the seasons will cause her tribe to lose the ancient cultural traditions that have seen them through seasons of war, genocide, and dispossession.
Plaintiff Mica Kantor recalls first hearing about climate change as a 4-year-old, when his parents took him to see the 2012 documentary Chasing Ice, the 14-year-old recently told the Montana Free Press. In the years since, smoke from surrounding wildfires—worsened by global heating significantly driven by fossil fuels—has impacted his athletic outlet: running outdoors.
SNIP
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Wishing them 100% success!!
6 replies
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