21/03/2017

'Biggest Case On The Planet' Pits Kids Vs. Climate Change

National Geographic - Laura Parker

A pioneering lawsuit against the U.S. government on global warming won the right to a trial. Now Trump wants an appeals court to cancel it.
These young people are among the group suing for the right to a stable climate. They are (left to right top) Aji Piper, Levi Draheim, Journey Zephier,  (left to right bottom) Jayden Foytlin, Miko Vergun, Nathan Baring.
Levi Draheim is a nine-year-old science geek. He founded an environmental club as a fourth grader and gives talks about climate change to audiences of grown-ups. His home is on a slender barrier island on Florida’s Atlantic coast, 21 miles south of Cape Canaveral and a five-minute walk from the beach. By mid-century, his sandy childhood playground could be submerged by rising seas. He will be just 42.
Nathan Baring is 17 and a high school junior in Fairbanks, Alaska—120 miles south of the Arctic Circle. He loves cold weather and skis. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Now winter snows that Baring once celebrated as early as August in Fairbanks can hold off until November.
By 2050, Arctic sea ice will have virtually disappeared, and temperatures in the interior, surrounding Fairbanks, will have risen by an additional 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit, altering the boreal forest ecosystem. Nathan will be 50.
“I can deal with a few days of rain in February when it’s supposed to be 40 below,” he says. “But I can’t deal with the idea that what my parents experienced and what I have experienced will not exist for my children. I am a winter person. I won’t sit idly by and watch winter vanish.”
Baring and Draheim so lack confidence that they will inherit a healthy planet that they are suing the United States government for failing to adequately protect the Earth from the effects of climate change. They are among a group of 21 youths who claim the federal government’s promotion of fossil fuel production and its indifference to the risks posed by greenhouse gas emissions have resulted in “a dangerous destabilising climate system” that threatens the survival of future generations. That lapse violates, the court papers argue, their fundamental constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property. The lawsuit also argues that the government violated the public trust doctrine, a legal concept grounded in ancient law that holds the government is responsible for protecting public resources, such as land and water—or in this case, the climate system—for public use.
Plaintiff Nathan Baring, 17, is concerned about melting ice and warmer winters around his home in Fairbanks, Alaska. Photograph by Daniel Cronin (left). Photograph By Ed Kashi, VII, Redux (right).
The kids’ lawsuit was joined by acclaimed NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who began studying climate change in the 1970s and whose granddaughter, Sophie, is among the 21 young plaintiffs.
“In my opinion, this lawsuit is made necessary by the at-best schizophrenic, if not suicidal nature of U.S. climate and energy policy,” he told the court.
Last fall, U.S. District Court Judge Anne Aiken agreed with the youths’ claim. Her sweeping 54-page opinion laid the foundation for what looks to be a groundbreaking trial later this year. In her ruling, Aiken established, in effect, a new right for these children and teens: a right to expect they could live in a stable climate.
“I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society,” Aiken wrote. “Just as marriage is the foundation of the family, a stable climate system is quite literally the foundation of society, without which there would be neither civilisation nor progress.”
She made clear that “this lawsuit is not about proving that climate change is happening or that human activity is driving it. For purposes of this motion, those facts are undisputed.”
And Aikens added: “Federal courts too often have been cautious and overly deferential in the arena of environmental law and the world has suffered for it.”
Miko Vergun, 16, is worried that her home country of the Marshall Islands is destined to slip beneath rising seas. Photograph by Andre Seale, VWPICS, Redux (Left). Photograph by Daniel Cronin (right).
Mary Wood, a University of Oregon environmental law professor who pioneered the concept that the atmosphere should be treated as part of the public trust, calls the lawsuit “the biggest case on the planet.”
“This claim challenges the government’s entire fossil-fuel philosophy. The whole thing,” Wood says. “The scientists, on the other hand, are saying if we continue on our path without drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, we are going to leave a barren planet that will not support broad human survival. You could not get claims more grave than that.”

Two administrations (and industry) respond
The lawsuit originally was filed against the Obama administration, which sought to have the case dismissed because the courts are “ill-suited” to oversee “a phenomenon that spans the globe,” according to court papers.
“Climate change is a very serious problem,” Sean Duffy, a Justice Department lawyer told the court last September. “We do not question the science. Climate change threatens our environment and our ecosystems. It alters our climate systems, and it will only worsen over time. It is the result of man-made emissions. Now where (the parties) disagree is as to who determines how to address climate change in the first instance. Our position is that Congress and the Executive Branch should address climate change in the first instance and should do so by coordinating with other nations.”
Several groups representing the fossil-fuel industry, including the American Petroleum Institute, joined the lawsuit as intervenors, but disagreed “to the extent of climate change, to the emissions that cause it, and to other scientific principles,” Quin Sorenson, a lawyer representing the industry, argued in court.
Levi Draheim, 9, fears that his coastal Florida home will be inundated. Photograph by Daniel Cronin (left). Photograph by Karen Bleier, AFP, Getty Images (right).
The case could prove even more consequential with the change of administration because of President Trump’s efforts to roll back climate regulations put in place by his predecessor. Last week, the Trump administration shifted course on the case and asked that a federal appeals court review Judge Aiken’s decision to proceed to trial.
“Whatever happens next, this is a case to watch,” says Michael Burger, a Columbia University law professor and specialist in climate law. “It’s out there, ahead of the curve. And given the change in administration and President Trump’s views on climate change, this may be a potential hook to keep things moving along the climate change front. It may be the opening salvo in what will be an increasing number of lawsuits that take a rights-based approach to climate change in the United States.”

Building on history
In challenging the government’s role in climate change on constitutional grounds Julia Olson, the plaintiffs’ lead lawyer, harkens to the realm of historic Supreme Court cases that established new constitutional protections in situations when Congress failed to act. Those cases include the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that banned segregation in public schools and the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalised same-sex marriage.
The climate change lawsuit makes essentially a straightforward request. It asks a federal judge to order the government to write a recovery plan to reduce carbon emissions to 350 parts per million by 2100 (down from 400 parts per million) and stabilise the climate system.
The courts are needed to step in, Olson argued, because the government has not—despite knowing for more than 50 years that the burning of fossil fuels causes global warming.
Olson first tuned in to the climate change threat when, eight months pregnant with her youngest child, she watched An Inconvenient Truth, former Vice President Al Gore’s 2006 Oscar-winning climate change documentary at her local moviehouse.
“There is something about carrying life inside your body that is transformative and gives you a different kind of perspective on the world,” she says.
She founded Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit with a mission to protect children from climate change, and now serves as executive director. The trust is assisting in the case. Olson has also filed climate change lawsuits in each of the 50 states, which are proceeding separately. She has won cases in Washington, Massachusetts, and New Mexico.
Aji Piper, 16, of Seattle, believes the future belongs to the next generation. Photograph by Daniel Cronin (left). Photograph by George Rose, Getty Images (right).
Similar lawsuits, brought by other lawyers, are playing out in other nations, including Belgium and New Zealand, and have been won in Pakistan, Austria and South Africa. Last year, a Dutch court ordered the government to reduce carbon emissions by a quarter within the next five years.
Olson’s clients in the federal suit range in age from nine to 20. They are media savvy environmental activists who understand the power of connecting the future effects of climate change to the people who will have to live with them.
Kiran Oommen, 19, a student at Seattle University, says he joined the lawsuit because it gives voice to his generation.
“We have little or no representation in the government, yet the effects of climate change will affect us more than anyone else,” he says. “This is a way we can speak for ourselves and stand up for our future.”
Aji Piper, 16, is a high school student in Seattle who plants trees around the city and is an avid letter-writer to the state’s polluting industries. He adds: “Once you start involving children, people start listening more. My role in the case is to sit there in court.”
The climate kids, as the group is known, also are living the full menu of drought, deluge, heat, and extreme weather events that are rapidly becoming the unnerving norm. Not only has sea-level rise killed any long-term future Levi Draheim might have envisioned on Florida’s Space Coast, but he has to cope with toxic algae blooms like the outbreak that befouled beaches last July and monster storms, such as Hurricane Matthew, which barreled up the Florida coast last October and eroded away much of the sand on his beach.
Journey Zephier, 16, of Kauai is concerned about lasting impacts on the land and sea. Photograph by Deagostini, Getty Images (left). Photograph by Daniel Cronin (right).
Journey Zephier, 16, lives in Kauai, Hawaii, where ocean acidification is killing coral reefs and coastal fisheries. Miko Vergun, 16, who lives in the Portland, Oregon, suburb of Beaverton, fears she may never be able to visit her native Marshall Islands in the remote Pacific Ocean before they disappear beneath the swells. Tidal flooding, she says in court papers, is so frequent now that a fifth of the population has already moved away.
Last August, Jayden Foytlin, 13, awoke one morning to flood waters seeping into her bedroom in Rayne, Louisiana, as a rainstorm that lasted two weeks flooded more than 60,000 homes and killed 13 people. Foytlin’s home was soon awash in sewage. The Foytlins do not live in the flood plain, yet the raging waters destroyed their home and all of their belongings.
“This flood has been called a thousand-year event,” Foytlin told the court. “Yet within the last two years, I have read about eight ‘500-year’ events. In less than two years, there have been nine flood events that are not even supposed to happen in my lifetime. My family and I feel very vulnerable.”

Winning the war?
Despite winning a trial, prevailing ultimately remains an uphill climb. Columbia’s Burger says Judge Aiken’s unprecedented order that the case go to trial “is a great opinion for environmental law.”
But, he warns: “As it moves up on appeal and ultimately to the Supreme Court, the chances get less and less that that opinion survives in its current form.”
To date, courts have never recognised a constitutional right to even a natural environment free of pollutants, let alone to a stable climate.
After Judge Aiken ruled, proponents urged Obama to settle the case before Trump took office. Obama declined. The government also declined to ask for an appellate review of her order; government lawyers instead proceeded toward trial. Seven days before Trump was sworn in as president, government lawyers added a routine brief to the court file that may complicate the Trump administration’s effort to argue the science and halt the trial.
Jayden Foytlin, 13, of Rayne, Louisiana, is worried about the increasing frequency of devastating storms in her region, like the tornado that struck on March 6, 2011. Photograph by Gerald Herbert, AP (left). Photograph by Daniel Cronin (right).
In the brief, government lawyers conceded nearly every point on which the plaintiffs’ case against the government was constructed. These admissions include the government’s role in promoting the development of fossil fuels and its belief that greenhouse gases are at “unprecedentedly high levels compared to the past 800,000 years ... and pose risks to human health and welfare.”
The government went so far as to point out where the plaintiffs had understated the evidence against the government in court papers. They then corrected the figures, raising them upwards.
“They recognised the importance of this case and tried to make sure when the Obama administration left, that the government’s position was clear and the court shouldn’t spend time in trial worrying about facts that should not be contested,” says Phil Gregory, the plaintiffs’ co-counsel.

The Trump team changes tack
Now, the Trump administration appears to have reversed course. Last week, government lawyers asked Judge Aiken to grant their request that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals review her order. Halting the trial, the lawyers wrote, could avoid litigation that “is unprecedented in its scope, in its potential to be protracted, expensive and disruptive to the continuing operation of the United States Government.”
The appellate review is unlikely to be granted because the decision is up to Judge Aiken, the judge who ordered the trial to proceed. In common practice, appeals courts decline to consider appeals until a trial concludes.
In a separate motion, government lawyers are also fighting a request by the youth’s lawyers that the Justice Department preserve all documents relevant to the lawsuit, including information on climate change, energy, and emissions.
Even if a review is granted, it may be difficult for the Trump administration to reverse the government’s statements and acknowledgements about climate change that are already part of the record. Still, the new administration’s position on the subject is becoming increasingly clear. Two days after the government’s motions were filed, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt swept aside established science on the connection between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming and declared that “carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”

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Shed A Tear For The Reefs

New York Times - Editorial Board

Ariel Davis
Reports that the Great Barrier Reef is dying come ever more frequently, ever more urgently. There is no mystery about the reason — it’s global warming, caused by the fossil fuels we burn. If we stopped heating the oceans, parts of the great reef off Australia’s north coast and other spectacular coral reefs around the world could still recover. The alternative is to weep at the loss of one of the most spectacular sights on earth, as the author of the latest report and his students did on examining charts of the damage.
The death of coral reefs is a tragedy on many levels. There is the sheer beauty of the forests of brightly colored corals and the equally kaleidoscopic fish they harbor, a panorama that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. There’s their extraordinary variety and value: Coral reefs are found in shallow waters in only 0.2 percent of the oceans, yet they support a quarter of all marine life and provide protein for millions of people. Finally, there is the role of the coral reefs as the alarm system of the oceans: Highly sensitive to the temperature of water, the reefs can die from an increase of only two or three degrees Fahrenheit. The vast stretches of bleached coral speak to oceans in deep trouble.
Last year was particularly disastrous for the Great Barrier Reef. The periodic heating of the Pacific Ocean known as El Niño, combined with the continuing warming of the seas from climate change, caused mass bleaching along vast stretches of the 1,400-mile-long reef. In theory, the return of cooler waters could restore them, but that’s not what’s happening.
Researchers led by Prof. Terry Hughes of James Cook University in Australia, the lead author of a report on the reef in the current issue of the journal Nature, were surprised at the extent of the damage. “We didn’t expect to see this level of destruction to the Great Barrier Reef for another 30 years,” he told The Times. In the north, he said, two-thirds of the reefs are dead. And Australian government efforts to curtail dredging and pollution were not helping. “The reefs in dirty water were just as fried as those in pristine water,” he said.
To the scientists, there is no mystery as to what needs to be done. There never was. Decades ago they warned that with global warming, coral reefs would not be able to survive natural temperature spikes, like the one brought on by El Niño. Surveys of the Great Barrier Reef conducted by Professor Hughes from low-flying aircraft showed that extensive patches of reef may be beyond saving. These are the surveys that brought him and his students to tears.
There is really only one way to save coral reefs, and by extension the oceans and the world, and that is to fight climate change. At this juncture, that means defending the 2015 Paris agreement to limit the increase in global temperatures. The Obama administration played a major role in fashioning the agreement, which 194 countries have signed. Backsliding now would guarantee more bleached reefs, and worse.

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The White House Doubts Climate Change. Here's Why The Pentagon Does Not

MilitaryTimes - Shawn Snow


WASHINGTON — The contentious debate over climate change is entering a new phase, with skeptics in the Trump administration poised to roll back regulations governing everything from clean-water standards to fracking — convinced that doing so will boost the U.S. economy. But the Pentagon views the issue differently.
For Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, climate change represents a significant national security threat, one that's "impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today," according his written testimony to Congress provided in January ahead of his confirmation. The news site ProPublica was first to publish Mattis' remarks, pitting the retired Marine general's views against those held by the commander in chief and others in his administration.
The topic has renewed relevance as the White House aims to grow defense spending substantially — hoping to add personnel, and buy more ships, aircraft and weapons — while making major reductions to other parts of the federal budget, including at the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which researches climate change and provides weather forecasting data to the military.
It's a tricky predicament for the Pentagon, which has conducted substantial climate-related research, too, dating back at least to the 1990s. Officials continue to factor this data into core military doctrine. In fact, the most recent Quadrennial Defense Review, a 90-page document that outlines the Defense Department's strategic trajectory, includes the phrases "climate change" or "severe weather" at least 10 times. On the one hand, the Defense Department stands to benefit from funding rollbacks at other agencies. But on the other, senior officials see immediate, practical reasons to be worried.
Here are three:

Economic competition
Thawing in the Arctic has opened new maritime routes and revealed new energy sources, creating new competition between the U.S. and Russia. The Pentagon's 2013 Arctic Strategy statement details its plans for safeguarding American interests there and ensuring freedom of navigation. It calls the region a "strategic inflection point," noting that as the ice caps continue to melt, there will be rush to claim the oil, natural gas and other resources there.
The Pentagon views the Arctic as vital for establishing ballistic missile defenses to safeguard the homeland. But  Russia's buildup there has greatly exceeded that of the United States. Its military has established a new Arctic command, added four brigades, 14 airfields, 16 ports, and has 40 operational icebreakers and 11 in production. The U.S. has only one working icebreaker, and it was commissioned in the 1970s.
In the South China Sea, warming waters have forced fish stocks to migrate north, increasing the potential for conflict between China and U.S. allies whose economies depend on that trade, says Frank Femia, who heads the Center for Climate and Security. The non-partisan think tank includes several senior retired military officers concerned about climate change and its impact on national security.
Tensions are particularly high between Vietnam and China, which have competing territorial claims to the Spratly and Parcel islands. The Chinese have harassed several Vietnamese fishing boats, even sinking some of them. One such incident, in 2014, was caught on video. The Chinese maintain the Vietnamese boat ventured too close to one of its oil rigs, an incident documented by The Diplomat. Another confrontation happened in 2015 near the Parcel islands, when armed men boarded the Vietnamese boat and removed navigation equipment, according to Voice of America.
The U.S. Navy has stepped up its presence in response. Tension in the region will only increase as China aggressively defends its claims there.


 Military infrastructure
Rising sea levels threaten several major U.S. installations while prolonged droughts, which can lead to forest fires, put bases and other military infrastructure at risk.
Last summer, the Union of Concerned Scientists published a report indicating a three-foot sea level rise would threaten 128 bases. Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia and 17 other facilities that reside on waterfront property could experience hundreds of floods a year and, in some cases, become mostly submerged by the year 2100. Cleanup or relocation costs could stretch into the tens of billions of dollars.
Drought-fueled wildfires are an equally troublesome threat. In the spring of 2014, a major fire started on Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach in southern California, a facility adjacent to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. It forced the evacuation of nearly a thousand people and destroyed roughly 6,000 acres, according to NBC San Diego.
U.S. Marines and fire crew on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., respond to wildfires ablaze in southern California May 14, 2014. The Tomahawk fire, in the northeast section of Camp Pendleton has burned more than 6,000 acres forcing evacuations of housing areas on base and various schools both on and off base. (Photo credit: Lance Cpl. Anna Albrecht)
Mass migration and instability
The world's most fragile and unstable regions tend to be hit hardest by climate change, Fermia says. In Bangladesh, for instance, a former military leader has warned that rising sea levels could force mass migrations and potentially lead to the radicalization of marginalized people in a region already challenged by violent militant groups. 
Pakistan, a nuclear power also contending with a resurgence in terrorist activity, depends on glacial melt for drinking water. Abrupt changes in the water supply can result in major security shifts there. Pakistan and India have fought several wars over the contested regions of Jammu and Kashmir, where both countries derive most of their fresh water. A deadly terror attack on an Indian base in September set off a major diplomatic row, with India's foreign minister suggesting the two scrap a 56-year-old accord ensuring access to fresh water. 
"The consequences might well be humanitarian devastation in what is already one of the world’s most water-starved countries — an outcome far more harmful and far-reaching than the effects of limited war," analyst Michael Kugelman wrote in Foreign Policy.
An aerial view of a town surrounded by flood water as U.S. Marine pilots from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit begin their landing approach to deliver food supplies in support of the Pakistan flood relief effort in Pano Aqil, Pakistan, Sept. 14. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Wayne Gray)
In parts of North Africa and the Middle East where there is weak governance, climate change is ”acting as an accelerant of instability or as a threat multiplier,” Femia told Military Times. Lake Chad, which borders the African countries of Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon, has been drastically affected by drought. This harms people's livelihoods, making the region fertile ground for groups like Boko-Haram, an Islamist terror group, to recruit.  
Prior to the revolution in Syria, which has led to a six-year civil war, the region was experiencing one of its worst droughts ever recorded. And although it was not a factor in starting the conflict, which has left an estimated 500,000 dead and caused more than 11 million to flee their homes, climate did create the conditions for mass displacement, Femia said. And researchers have predicated that will only get worse, with large swaths of the Middle East and North Africa becoming increasingly uninhabitable. 
So Mattis’ recent comments on climate change represent a "practical view of what the military needs to do," he added. It's an issue that has crossed previous administrations, both Republican and Democratic, and demonstrates the Pentagon has "thought about this in an apolitical way."

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