[✔️] June 27, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Wildfire management, make fires less wild, surviving climate change, DW Smart. 2000 Al Gore platform

Tue Jun 27 08:47:11 EDT 2023

/*June*//*27, 2023*/

/[ Before you decide to live in the forest -- first check the issues 
about the Wildland - Urban Interface = WUI  and the Wildfire Treadmill  ] /
*To prevent devastating wildfires, manage people — not just forests*
/https://kuow.org/stories/to-prevent-devastating-wildfires-manage-people-not-just-forests/*
*Libby Denkmann
Hans Anderson
June 26, 2023

Experts are warning that Washington state will be extra vulnerable to 
wildfire this year, thanks to a combination of a dry spring season and 
buildup of fuels over last summer’s relatively quiet fire season.

Dry conditions helped fuel an 800-acre wildfire in Yakima County earlier 
this month, the largest in Washington so far this year.

The state has begun taking a more active role in trying to curb the 
mega-fires that blot out our blue skies: once again using prescribed 
burns, and enacting plans to thin and treat millions of acres of land 
over the next decades.

Some experts argue it’s not enough, though.

Recent reports from researchers at Headwaters Economics and the 
Sightline Institute point to the need to rethink human development in 
the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), the zone where flammable, unoccupied 
land meets man--made communities.

"With fire, we're constantly in triage mode, but we're not really 
looking at those underlying symptoms that may be causing the illness," 
said Carl Segerstrom, who wrote about these reports for Range Media.

"Both reports recommend a similar mitigation: keeping new housing out of 
the WUI. This can take a lot of different forms, like zoning 
restrictions and land use planning."

Segerstrom added, "We continue to put ourselves more at risk from fires. 
>From 1990 to 2020, there was a 47% increase in homes in the wildland 
urban interface.".
To hear the full KUOW audio:

https://kuow.org/stories/to-prevent-devastating-wildfires-manage-people-not-just-forests 

- -

[ related ]
*How to make fires less wild*
BY CARL SEGERSTROM
JUNE 2, 2023
Local expert offers practical advice and resources to prepare for fire 
season in the Inland Northwest.
https://rangemedia.co/fire-preparation-spokane-inland-northwest-home-tips/

- -

[ more related ]
*Living with [surviving?] climate change*
RANGE talks to Brian G. Henning, the Director of Gonzaga Center for 
Climate, Society, and the Environment, about the role climate change 
plays in driving extreme weather.
BY RANGE JUNE 13, 2023
https://rangemedia.co/living-with-surviving-climate-change-spokane-urban-canopy/

/[ Mother Jones analysis - of the recent court case  ]/
*What to Know About the Groundbreaking Climate Change Lawsuit in Montana*
Climate law expert Michael Gerrard explains the stakes of Held v. Montana.
HENRY CARNELL
June 26, 2023
This was a historic week for climate litigation. Tuesday marked the 
closing arguments in Held v. Montana, a lawsuit brought by sixteen young 
people arguing that the state’s fossil fuel friendly legislation is at 
odds with an environmental rights clause in the Montana constitution. 
It’s only the third climate-related lawsuit to go to trial, and the 
first lawsuit focusing on a state’s constitution.

“There have been hundreds of lawsuits but very few of them go to trial,” 
says Michael Gerrard, the founder and faculty director of the Sabin 
Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

The lawsuit, which was filed in 2020, hinges on a section of the state 
constitution that affirms the right to a clean environment: “The state 
and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful 
environment in Montana for present and future generations.” As the trial 
date neared, lawmakers repealed a 30-year-old pro–fossil fuel law; the 
state Attorney General Austin Knudsen followed up by seeking to dismiss 
the parts of Held that mention it. In the end, the law’s repeal did 
little to stop the case. The Montana Petroleum Executive Director went 
on record saying that the repeal “will not have any effect on energy 
policy moving forward.” And as the lawyers for the plaintiffs, who were 
all under 18 when the lawsuit was filed, pointed out, there are plenty 
of other fossil fuel friendly laws on the books, including one that bars 
climate change considerations in environmental assessments of industry 
projects. The youth plaintiffs are challenging those pieces of 
legislation in particular.

“The world is burning,” testified Claire Vlases, the 20-year-old 
plaintiff from Bozeman, Montana. “That sounds like a dystopian horror 
film, but it’s not a movie. It’s real life. That’s what us kids have to 
deal with.” The plaintiffs’ expert witness Anne Hedge agrees. In her 
testimony, the Montana Environmental Information Center co-director 
accused the state government of “running in the wrong direction to 
address the climate crisis.”

To better understand the strategy behind the lawsuit and how it might 
impact future climate litigation, I talked to Gerrard, a practicing 
environmental lawyer with 40 years of experience and 14 books under his 
belt. You can read our 30-minute conversation, edited and condensed for 
clarity, below.
*
**So this case hinges on Montana having an environmental rights clause 
in the constitution, how common are those?*
Most of them were enacted in the early 1970s, which was the era when 
most of the US environmental laws were enacted. New York just added one 
two years ago, but most of them are very old, and most of them haven’t 
been used much. There was an important decision under Pennsylvania’s 
environmental rights clause around 2013 declaring unconstitutional a 
state law that barred localities from regulating fracking. That decision 
garnered a great deal of attention and revisited interest in state 
constitutional environmental rights. These provisions are still very 
much the exception, not the rule—only a handful of states have 
environmental clauses written into their constitutions. Though as it 
happens, in September, a trial is scheduled in Hawaii based on that 
state’s environmental clause.

*And how are the Montana and Hawaii cases different than past climate 
change lawsuits?*
A much larger number of cases were brought under something called the 
public trust

doctrine. In 1970, a law professor named Joseph Sax from the University 
of Michigan wrote a famous article about how the public trust doctrine 
[which holds that the state has a responsibility to protect natural 
resources for future generation] could be used for environmental 
protection. And a law professor at the University of Oregon, Mary Wood, 
wrote that the public trust doctrine applies to the atmosphere and could 
be used to fight climate change. A nonprofit group formed in Oregon 
called Our Children’s Trust began bringing lawsuits all over the country 
based on the public trust doctrine. These lawsuits were dismissed on 
various legal grounds, except for the Juliana v. US, which advanced 
significantly until it was thrown out by the Ninth Circuit Court of 
Appeals. But, it may now be coming back.

That was a suit brought by 21 young people in Oregon against the federal 
government, seeking an order that the federal government prepare and 
implement a program to passively reduce greenhouse gas emissions and 
draw excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The trial went back and 
forth several times to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But 
ultimately in January 2020, by a two-to-one vote, they dismissed the 
lawsuit on the grounds that it was not the role of the courts to set 
climate policy; it should be left to the elected branches. The court 
accepted the climate science that had been presented by the plaintiffs 
and acknowledged that climate change is a grave threat. But they said 
it’s not their job to address. The plaintiffs then asked the court for 
permission to amend their complaint to ask for more mild relief—just a 
declaration of rights. And about three weeks ago, the court granted that 
motion. We’re now waiting to see what stance the Biden Department of 
Justice takes toward that motion.

Our Children’s Trust also played a central role in the Montana case. 
What’s distinctive about this case in Montana is that it’s brought under 
the environmental rights clause of a state constitution. That has given 
it much more force.

*Wow. There’s a lot going on. In terms of climate law, both the Montana 
case and the Juliana case.*
Let me also mention the degree to live activity internationally. A group 
of young law students in the Pacific persuaded Vanuatu, one of the 
endangered island states, to ask the United Nations General Assembly to 
pose a question about climate change to the International Court of 
Justice in the Hague. That led to a very successful campaign; about two 
months ago, the UN General Assembly voted by consensus to send this 
question to the International Court of Justice. Also, there are several 
climate change cases now pending before the European Court of Human 
Rights in Strasbourg, France, and before the Inter-American Court of 
Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica, and a climate petition pending 
before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. Our center 
maintains a database of all the climate change cases in the world and 
there have been 2200 climate change cases that have been brought, of 
which about 70 percent are in the US. It’s a rapidly growing field.

*Jumping back to the Montana case. There’s been a lot of backlash from 
lawmakers in Montana against this lawsuit. Is the potential outcome of 
this case an inroad into addressing that or is that just a completely 
separate legislative fight?*
That’s a separate legislative and political fight. I don’t know whether 
there will be an effort to repeal the environmental rights clause of the 
constitution. But that sort of thing is often very challenging. No 
environmental rights clause has ever been repealed.

*The defense just wrapped up their evidence, and we’re waiting on the 
ruling. What would be the ramifications of potential rulings?*
Well, as a technical matter, the court would not set a binding 
precedent, because it’s just a trial-level court in Montana. But a 
successful ruling for the plaintiffs could be very energizing to young 
people and climate activists and lawyers around the country and indeed, 
around the world. These cases are being closely followed and success 
here could lead to similar efforts in other places. It could embolden 
other judges to move in similar directions.

*If the judge strikes down on the case, what do you think will happen to 
the larger climate law movement? Do you think that that will affect 
future rulings?**
*It would depend on the grounds that the court used. If the court were 
to reject the lawsuit on fairly narrow issues of Montana procedural law, 
that would be very limited in its impact. If this judge said she didn’t 
believe the climate science that was presented by the plaintiffs, that 
would be more damaging. The state has raised that emissions from Montana 
are so small that it wouldn’t make any difference if they stopped the 
emissions. If the court were to agree with that, it would be harmful 
because most states and most countries have relatively small emissions.

*Do you have any final takeaways from the case?*
One is that I thought that the plaintiff’s lawyers did a wonderful job 
structuring and presenting the case. The young people were very moving 
and convincing when they told their personal stories. And, most of the 
expert witnesses were from Montana and were able to bring the case home. 
They showed the impacts of climate change on Montana. I thought that was 
extremely well done. I was surprised that [the state of] Montana chose 
to withdraw its only scientific witness. They clearly concluded that 
downplaying the impacts of climate change would not be a winning 
strategy in the face of the overwhelming scientific evidence to the 
contrary.

One other thing I would say is that national governments, parliaments, 
and presidents around the world have uniformly failed to act adequately 
on climate change, leading many people to resort to the courts. So I 
think this trend of more climate litigation is going to continue. But no 
one should think that litigation is the silver bullet. It can be one 
important tool in the toolkit.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/06/held-montana-climate-change-lawsuit-constitution/

/[ DW media seems calmly unafraid of examining issues ]/
*The climate crisis: Can smart ideas save the planet? | DW Documentary*
DW Documentary
Jun 13, 2023  #dwdocumentary #documentary #climatechange
Can high-tech solutions help protect the climate? What would be the side 
effects of further human intervention in nature?

Attempts are being made to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere with 
technical solutions. For example, new carbon capture technology that can 
extract CO2 from air and water, even if the amount currently captured is 
minimal and not enough to prevent the climate crisis and its consequences.
Still, there is no shortage of ideas. Adding basalt rock dust to 
agricultural fields not only binds carbon dioxide but keeps the soil 
fertile. Biochar, made from organic waste, has a similar effect.
Some ideas are bolder: A protective screen of particles in the upper 
layers of the atmosphere could filter sunlight, as seen with the 
eruption of the Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in 1991. The 
millions of tons of sulfur dioxide spewed into the stratosphere cooled 
the earth significantly.
Theoretically, aircraft could be used to deliver the particles. But 
experts warn that the consequences for humans and the weather would be 
felt worldwide and could never be fully controlled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afPVy0yiLRw

/[The news archive - looking back - "could'a, would'a, should'a" in 
video record 23 years ago. ]/
/*June 27, 2000*/

June 27, 2000: Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore lays out his 
energy policy at a campaign appearance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

https://www.c-span.org/person/?169/AlGoreJr

http://c-spanvideo.org/program/GoreEne

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