In his July 6 Beacon commentary, Dave Skinner accused a number of attorneys and their clients of “criminal frivolity” regarding a petition filed in the Montana Supreme Court. The author doesn’t appear to be well-informed on the petition, science or basic tenets of our constitutional system of government.
It is an odd “crime.” Six busy Montana attorneys agreed to represent these plaintiffs without charge. Contrary to Mr. Skinner’s suggestion, none of us are even environmental attorneys. We are all parents and grandparents who happen to be attorneys. The plaintiffs did not seek any money. The attorneys made no money. So what is the crime? “Fraudulently working for free?”
The “children” plaintiffs, all from Montana, included a Harvard planet science student, an MSU agronomy student, and a UM pre-med student. Is it possible these students know more about the science than Mr. Skinner, and are legitimately concerned about their government’s failure to address this serious threat to their future?
It was expected, when this legal action began, that virulent deniers would personally attack our clients and us, rather than address the science. Virtually every legitimate scientific organization in the world has concluded that man-caused global warming is a serious problem that must be addressed:
U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
NASA (Goddard Institute for Space Studies)
National Academy of Sciences
National Research Council
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Meteorological Society
World Meteorological Society
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Physics
American Chemical Society
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
There is no real scientific controversy about this.
Maybe Mr. Skinner knows more than all the scientists, but some of us believe we owe it to our grandchildren to listen to the scientists. As one physicist said, “The thing about science is, it’s still true even if you don’t believe it.”
The petition sought a declaratory ruling that our Montana Constitution and common law say that the government holds the atmosphere in trust for this and future generations (as our Supreme Court already held with regard to water and land). If the constitution provides that – then the current politically driven legislature is not legally allowed to ignore it. The Supreme Court denied the petition on procedural grounds, ruling that the case will have to be started in a district court (which will result in a delay of perhaps years).
Perhaps Mr. Skinner’s confusion regarding “frivolity” and “crime” stems from not understanding the limits of political-trend rule in our constitutional system. Mr. Skinner’s inflated rhetoric alleges we are “good totalitarian elitists” trying to “subvert the political processes of a free country …” It is true that the “processes” of the current political, legislative branch have effectively stopped the governor and state agencies (executive branch) from continuing the remedial work the governor began, to address this threat to our children’s future. But if our constitution provides that every Montanan is entitled to a “clean and healthful environment” (as it does: Article II, Sec. 3) and provides the government has a trust duty to protect “all surface, underground, flood and atmospheric waters within its boundaries” (as it does: Article IX, Sec. 3), then the current legislature is not at liberty to prevent the Montana government from honoring these constitutional rights and duties. We do not have “freedom” to violate the constitutional rights of others, even those too young to afford lobbyists or junk science propagandists. A basic tenet of our system of government is that there are limits to the excesses of the majority rule of the moment. The limits are set out in the constitution.
Our children deserve to inherit a livable planet, like we did. That won’t be possible if our government continues to ignore its moral obligation to future generations, by letting fossil fuel corporations dump gigatons of pollution into the atmosphere every year, as they now do.
Jim Manley is a Polson attorney, one of the six Montana attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the recent Montana Supreme Court petition in Barhaugh, et al v. State of Montana, Sup. Ct. Case No. OP-0258.