Alan Shusterman

Can you sue the government to force it to take action on climate change? This question was put to federal magistrate judge Thomas Coffin in Eugene, Oregon in early 2015 in a lawsuit, Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana et al. v. United States of America et al. (“Kids Get Their Day in Court,” Sierra, Sept/Oct 2016 p. 42).

Just to set things up… On one side are the plaintiffs: 21 youths aged 8 to 19. The young people are represented by Our Children’s Trust, and an amicus brief has been filed in support of their position by The Global Catholic Climate Movement, an international network that includes Pope Francis. On the other side is the defendant: the United States government (and its traditional 😉 supporters, the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers). The position taken by the plaintiffs is based on an ancient legal doctrine called the public trust doctrine which holds that “the government has a responsibility to steward for future generations shared resources such as ocean fisheries and navigable rivers.”

To learn more, and/or sign a petition in support of the plaintiffs, follow this link to Our Children’s Trust. The case is supposed to go to trial in early 2017.

(Update: On 11 Oct 2021 the Reed College Board of Trustees announced its decision to divest the college’s endowment from fossil fuels. Read about it here.)

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency raises all sorts of questions about future US policy on greenhouse gases and climate change. An opinion piece by Robert Stavins (“Goodbye to the Climate,” NY Times, 9 Nov 2016) lists the promises that Trump made on the campaign trail: rescinding all actions by the Obama administration, stopping all US funding for all UN climate-related activities (this would include funding for the IPCC?), stopping all work on reducing greenhouse gases (including reversing EPA regulations to date), and restoring the US coal industry.

If this list sounds like a horrific prospect, consider this: the Obama administration’s regulations to date have not brought us anywhere near meeting our obligations under the Paris agreement. A recent analysis published in Nature Climate Change, and reported in Science magazine (26 Sept 2016), states, “Even if the United States implements all current and proposed [Obama administration] policies, it would miss its 2025 target by as much as 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year—roughly 20% of the nation’s total emissions.” 20% is a pretty big ‘miss,’ especially when we remember that it is 20% of the gases emitted by the world’s second largest producer of greenhouse gases. It is certainly not the kind of outcome that anyone who is concerned about climate change can tolerate.

Which raises this question: if a Trump administration fails to act on climate, or rolls back/looks the other way on existing regulations, what responsibility do institutions like Reed College have? Do we just close our eyes (as the Reed trustees have done in the past) and pursue whatever activities and investments the law allows because climate change is a ‘political’ issue? I sincerely hope not. Whether Reed’s trustees like it or not, we may be entering a period when conviction must finally translate into action.

Nov 22, 2016 update – Science magazine (14 Oct 2016, p. 154) reports “401 – Lowest concentration of carbon dioxide, in ppm, measured for 2016 at Mauna Loa in Hawaii in late September, before values climb again. The site may now have passed the 400-ppm marked permanently.”

(Update: On 11 Oct 2021 the Reed College Board of Trustees announced its decision to divest the college’s endowment from fossil fuels. Read about it here.)

In a classic scene from All The President’s Men, the movie about investigative reporters unmasking wrongdoing in the Nixon White House, one reporter, Bob Woodward, meets up with his insider source, Deep Throat, in a DC parking garage. Woodward confesses that he and his partner have hit nothing but dead-ends and need help. Deep Throat tells him, “Follow the money. … You tell me what you know, and I’ll confirm. … Just follow the money.”

Geographer Richard Heede has been following greenhouse gases, and the big money companies behind these gases for years. According to his research, which is described in The Carbon Accountant (D. Starr, Science, 26 Aug 2016, p. 858), “nearly two-thirds of the major industrial greenhouse gas emissions (from fossil fuel use, methane leaks, and cement manufacture) originated in just 90 companies around the world.” One company, ExxonMobil, is estimated to be responsible for roughly 5% of humanity’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions over the past 130 years, but that time span may not be worthy of consideration because Heede’s research shows that 50% of the emissions from the Nasty 90 have been produced since 1988.

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