Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social Dec 18, 2024:
Whoa—the Montana Supreme Court holds that its state constitution protects the right to “a stable climate system,” and strikes down a law that barred consideration of greenhouse gas emissions when permitting new fossil fuel projects.
The Montana constitution includes the right to a “clean and healthful environment.” Today the court holds that residents have standing to challenge laws that threaten this right by accelerating climate change and invalidates one such statute. A big decision.
The Montana Supreme Court says the framers who enacted the state’s constitution refused to “grant the State a free pass to pollute the Montana environment just because the rest of the world insisted on doing so.”
A lot here about climate change in Montana.
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I copied the text of Para 29 in snap above because it’s brutally important.
29 Plaintiffs showed at trial—without dispute—that climate change is harming
Montana’s environmental life support system now and with increasing severity for the
foreseeable future. The State and its agencies have previously acknowledged such current
and future impacts to the Montana environment stemming from climate change, many of
which can already be increasingly seen today.3 Plaintiffs showed that climate change does impact the clear, unpolluted air of the Bob Marshall wilderness; it does impact the
availability of clear water and clear air in the Bull Mountains; and it does exacerbate the
wildfire stench in Missoula, along with the rest of the State. The District Court made
extensive, undisputed findings of fact that GHG emissions are drastically altering and
degrading Montana’s climate, rivers, lakes, groundwater, atmospheric waters, forests,
glaciers, fish, wildlife, air quality, and ecosystem: “Anthropogenic climate change is
impacting, degrading, and depleting Montana’s environment and natural resources, including through increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, increasing droughts and aridification, increasing extreme weather events, increasing severity and intensity of wildfires, and increasing glacial melt and loss.”
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This decision is eminently reasonable under the state constitution’s unusually strong protections for the environment. It’s a very different beast from federal climate lawsuits, rooted squarely in the text of Montana law and precedent.
BTW the Montana government retaliated against the young people who brought this lawsuit by attempting to subject them to wildly unnecessary and intrusive psychiatric examinations. The court emphatically blocked that move in today’s decision, too.Nasty douches!
Today’s decision from the Montana Supreme Court is 6–1, with one justice concurring in the judgment and one justice dissenting on standing grounds. It is not reviewable by SCOTUS because it is entirely about state law. This court gets the last word.
Adolf Trump’s handlers (Putin, big oil et al) will never allow this important ruling to stand. First, Trump will order all persons responsible for this ruling and case put in prison or executed, then, he’ll order his Nazi judges on the supremely catholic court of the USA to quash this ruling even if it’s not appealed.
Aleks, no X@aleksnotx.bsky.social:
The bought-and-paid for ideologues on SCOTUS can make whatever decision they want but let’s see them try to enforce it.
@oweknow3.bsky.social:
I mean, to interfere here would be a drastic unmaking of our nation. An insanely blatant move by a “conservative” court to assert absolute dominion over entirely state matters.
It would be the signal that nothing in our nation matters anymore. Officially
@xenusparadox.bsky.social:
They already did that when they said Colorado couldn’t set the rules for its own election.
@lngrs.bsky.social:
But surely this would mean SCOTUS contradicting its own ruling overturning Roe v Wade, and showing them as capricious and self serving in their judgements.
@goodjuju4all.bsky.social:
When Trump decides to build a hotel resort in the middle of pristine Montana, he has complete immunity if he thinks it’s in the country’s best interest, as granted by SCOTUS. Montana elected Trump, so why are they concerned now? Oh wait, it’s probably Democrats that want better for all, not them.
@simplymagnificent.bsky.social:
I don’t think they care. Republicans and their court have no shame, only blind ambition and cruelty.
Refer also to:
2023: Held v Montana: “Unexpectedly wild” climate trial. Trump copycats, Rep. Ryan Zinke and Cowboy State Daily, denigrate the kids as radicals “weaponizing” the legal system. Canada’s disgraced supreme court Justice Russell Brown’s Stockwoods LLP lawyers copied Trump too, calling Judicial Council’s review of complaint about J Brown “weaponization.” Incredibly rude and cruel of those douche politicians and lawyers. I know what it’s like to be publicly denigrated just for daring to try to do a lawsuit and seek justice. For us ordinary citizens, doing a lawsuit is unbearably terrifying, expensive, stressful, time consuming, and heart and soul breaking, win or lose. For kids to do this lawsuit is astounding. I wish there were more adults in the world with 1/10th their courage, integrity, intelligence and fortitude. But then again, in my experience, politicians and lawyers are often disgusting rude inhumane lying bullying cowards, partly why earth’s livability is vanishing fast.
2023: Held v Montana; Kids Climate Lawsuit
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