Dave Griffey brings our attention to a Montana Judge who decided to play God:
I am no lawyer
So I don’t know. But this seems significant. Or at least it is being portrayed as significant by our always objective and reliable news media. Some youths sued the state of Montana because, apparently, fossil fuels exist and proper establishment approved climate change solutions aren’t being implemented in the state. Therefore, that denied them their constitutional right to clean air and water.
Now my thoroughly untrained and ignorant-where-the-law-is-concerned eye sees this and I see something much bigger behind the gibberish going on. I don’t know. Something about it seems on the surface goofy, almost stupid, and yet I get a whiff of maliciousness behind it all. We’ll see. I’m sure others will chime in around the media world. After all, the WaPo says it’s a case the whole world is watching. Therefore I suspect others in the world will have more to say than I do.
Go here to comment. Go here to read about the opinion. The judge based her opinion on a section of the Constitution of the State of Montana:
Constitution of Montana — Article IX — ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES
Section 1. Protection and improvement. (1) The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.
(2) The legislature shall provide for the administration and enforcement of this duty.
(3) The legislature shall provide adequate remedies for the protection of the environmental life support system from degradation and provide adequate remedies to prevent unreasonable depletion and degradation of natural resources.
State constitutions have an unfortunate tendency of “feel good” provisions like the above. What a clean and healthful environment is, is very much in the eye of the beholder. This is a pie in the sky goal that is clearly left up, as it should be, to the people through their elected legislature. Such goal statements masquerading as constitutional duties give much opportunity for rogue judges to work mischief on behalf of causes they personally favor. I doubt if it will stand up on appeal. Whenever a judge decides to play legislature and governor rolled into a black robe, it always brings to my mind the stinging observation of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin: Power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.
There are a lot of farmers and ranchers in Montana. No fuel, no food.
With scant doubt, neither the employees of the lawfare outfit who ginned up this suit nor their post-adolescent straw plaintiffs give any thought to who produces their consumer goods. Some time ago, a wag referred to this as the ‘Skimpole Syndrome’, after the sponge character in Dickens’ Bleak House.Their default idea of where bread comes from doesn’t extend farther back tthan the delivery truck.