Crystal: I’m Crystal DiMiceli and welcome to the Forces for Nature show.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the doom and gloom you hear of these days? Do you feel like you, as just one person, can’t really make a difference? Forces for Nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I interview somebody who is doing great things for animals and the environment. We talk about the challenge they’re addressing, the solution they have found, what keeps them going, And we’ll leave you with practical action tips so that you too can become a force for nature.

Today’s guest is Elizabeth Rush, author of the book, The 21, which tells the true story of the ongoing landmark case, Juliana versus United States, where 21 young plaintiffs argue that the government’s support of the fossil fuel industry is actively contributing to climate change, which is compromising their constitutional rights.

To life, liberty, and property. It’s been a rollercoaster of a lawsuit, but with this past summer’s positive outcome in another climate case held versus Montana, hopes are high. I hope you’ll be just as inspired as I was hearing about how with their futures on the line. These kids are using their voices to hold the powers that be accountable.

Hi, Elizabeth. Thank you so much for joining me on the Forces for Nature podcast.

Elizabeth: It’s so great to have you. Thank you for having me.

Crystal: So I love this book that you wrote, and it’s a fascinating look behind the scenes at The ongoing case arguing that the U. S. government knowingly violated kids constitutional rights of life, liberty, and property by encouraging and permitting the fossil fuel energy system.

Can you share some of the backstory and how it came to be?

Elizabeth: Yeah. So the case, the ongoing federal court case is called Juliana versus the United States. And it was filed in 2015. In 2016, my youngest actually was in middle school and she and some of her friends road trip down to Eugene, Oregon to listen to one of the very first hearings in this case.

And at the time, so when I heard about it, I thought, Oh, you know, I’m so glad that You know, kids have found another way to speak up about climate change and kind of dismissed it at that. And, you know, that was kind of a similar to what a lot of legal experts thought when they first heard about this case, too, that it really was going to go nowhere.

But it turns out, and as I dug into this case, You know, the past eight years have been a real roller coaster ride of Julia Olson, who is the lawyer behind the case. She’s a small town environmental lawyer. And she thought that, you know, the way we were attacking climate change was kind of looking at fossil fuel projects, like Project by project and that that that wasn’t ever going to get us anywhere because even when they won There would just be another fossil fuel project popping up She was 35 and eight months pregnant at the time that she started thinking about this case She was watching an inconvenient truth and watching all these climate impacts and thinking about how You know, she was bringing kids into this world that has been really destabilized by climate So she started to think about how you know young people Really have the most to lose with climate change and so would really make the best plaintiffs.

So she also decided to look at our US Constitution and say, well, what rights does our US constitution give us? And the Fifth Amendment says that we have a right to life, liberty, and property, and that government can’t do anything. To interfere with those rights without a very good reason. So, you know, she built this, this case around the idea that not only is our government not doing enough about climate change, they’re actually contributing to the problem by permitting Fossil fuel development by subsidizing fossil fuels by permitting pipelines and imports and exports, and that at the very least, getting the government out of the business of supporting the fossil fuel system would make a big, it would be a big step forward on climate change.

So then her next challenge was. Okay, young people are, are being harmed now, will be harmed even more in the future. You know, how do I find plaintiffs who might be willing to join this case? So she started to reach out to some young people locally in Eugene, Oregon. Who were already, you know, setting up recycling in their schools and, you know, leading climate marches.

And then those people reached out to other kids in this kind of climate, climate network. She originally wanted 10 plaintiffs, but ended up, she kind of drew the line at 21. She was overwhelmed with people who were interested in joining the case. And so she got plaintiffs from all over the country, so people like Levi, who was 8 years old when he joined the case, um, he lives in Florida, and he saw a map that showed that his home was going to be underwater in his lifetime from sea level rise.

Um, she, another plaintiff who joined was, um, Jamie, uh, she and her mom. They were living on the Navajo reservation in Arizona, and there was a drought, and they kept having to travel further and further and further and wait in longer and longer lines to get water for their homes and for their livestock, and eventually had to move off of their native lands because of climate change driven drought.

So, these, this incredible group of 21 young activists, You know, presents to the court in their brief, you know, these are all the ways that climate change is impacting us. And then, the evidence also shows that the government knew that climate change was going to have these impacts, and that the government actively supports the fossil fuel energy system by permitting and subsidizing fossil fuels.

So, they make a really compelling case, and it’s turned out to be kind of a legal thriller. I don’t know if you even remember the movie Aaron Brockovich. Oh, yeah. I kind of, yeah, I kind of think about this as like the Aaron Brockovich of climate change. Oh,

Crystal: wow. Okay. And the case has been going on for some time.

What is, what’s the status of the proceedings?

Elizabeth: Yeah. So, um, As I mentioned, it’s been going on for eight years, and it’s really been a rollercoaster ride. They were first in, in federal district court in Eugene, Oregon, where they, they won an initial ruling saying that, yes, the kids should go to trial and should be allowed to make the case that they have a constitutional right to a stable climate.

It was appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals several times, and they have won all but one ruling. It’s been appealed up to the Supreme Court twice. And the Supreme Court ruled in their favor both times. They were in Eugene, Oregon, all set to have a trial on August 29th, 2018, when there was a motion that kind of pulled the rug out from underneath them.

But even when faced with these obstacles, this legal team keeps finding another way forward. And the most recent development is that they, so the 9th District Circuit Court said that they can’t go to trial because The courts wouldn’t have a remedy. Like, they, the courts can’t tell the federal government what to do about climate change.

They can’t, you know, like, impose a plan. So, the kids lawyers changed the complaint and said, Really, all we want the courts to do is to declare that we have a constitutional right to a stable climate and that this behavior is unconstitutional. So, we’re not saying that you have to put in any kind of plan.

We just want you to declare that this is true. So, they had a hearing about that about two years ago and just This June, the judge ruled in their favor, and now they are back on track to trial, which could happen as early as early 2024.

Crystal: Oh goodness, I guess I, I’m not familiar with the, the legal world and how all of that works.

So they actually have to get accepted to go to the next step to like go to the trial step. Is basically

Elizabeth: what you’re saying. Yeah. Interesting. So I, yeah, I don’t have a, I don’t, so I had to learn all this stuff on the fly as, as I was researching the case. But basically there’s a whole process that happens that’s called like pretrial the pretrial motions.

And that’s, you know, a lot of the work in building a case happens before you ever get to trial. That’s where. Both sides are kind of searching for evidence, interviewing witnesses, deposing witnesses, and then they’re having, you know, hearings on kind of legal procedural aspects of the case. And basically, you can’t go to trial unless you can prove that there has been an injury and the courts have said, yes, these kids have been injured.

You have to prove that the defendants The government had at least some impact on that injury. They somewhat caused that injury, and they proved that part of it. The third part of it is before you can even go to trial, you have to show that, that the courts can do something to remedy the injury. So this is what the debate has been about.

Basically, the courts are debating like, Basically, can the courts have any say in climate change, right? So that’s what this debate has been happening. And the government, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, and the Biden administration have all been arguing the same thing, that the youth should not be able to go to trial because it’s up to the legislature and the executive to decide what to do about climate change.

And what the kids are arguing is that they can’t vote. They have no voice. In the legislative and executive branches of government and constitutional rights are at stake that they can’t have life, liberty and property without a stable climate. So they need the courts, the third branch of government to tell the federal government that their actions are unconstitutional.

So they have to lay all that groundwork before they even get a chance to go to trial and testify. And prove that they’re injured and prove that the government contributed to the injury and that they need to stop these actions. So it’s a very complex process, but it’s also quite interesting because it’s where the case gets developed and where they get down to the brass tacks of like what is actually the fundamental issue at stake here?

And in some ways the fundamental issue at stake here is that can governments weigh in on climate change? If climate change is affecting constitutional rights and currently the answer right now is yes, they can weigh in and they are headed to trial.

Crystal: Okay. That’s super exciting. I mean, talk about persistence and resilience and going back and forth and doing this over and over again.

And since 2015 and you said, you just said that. Can the courts have any say in climate change? Well, just this past summer, young climate activists in Montana recently celebrated a big win in the case Held v. Montana. What was different about that case, and how might that win impact Juliana v. United States?

Elizabeth: Yeah, so these cases are really related. So the my book, the 21, talks about the federal case, Juliana versus the United States. So that’s dealing with the federal government and the US Constitution and the plaintiffs are from all over the country. So the Montana case was brought by Our Children’s Trust, which is the same organization supporting the kids in the 21.

So Julia Olsson is kind of the legal mind behind the federal case and also the Montana case. And they’re using very similar kind of legal approach, so there are a lot of similarities. Now, the differences are, the Montana case is only kids from Montana, so it’s 16 youth plaintiffs from Montana. And instead of pointing to the U.

S. Constitution, it points to the Montana State Constitution, which says that all citizens have a right to a clean and healthy environment. So there’s actually, the environment is written into their constitution. And the other difference is that instead of suing the federal government, they’re suing the Montana state government and saying the Montana state government was not even taking into account greenhouse gases when deciding whether to permit fossil fuel energy projects.

Not only were they not taking it into account, there was a law that said they could not take into account greenhouse gases or their. Impact on citizens. So that case went to trial in June. I road tripped out to Helena, Montana for the trial. I saw the kids testify about the climate impacts. I saw the science experts testify about how we know that burning of fossil fuels causes climate change.

They talked about how Montana is actually a really big source of fossil fuels. It has the largest recoverable coal reserves in the country. And they testified, there was an expert who testified about the fact that Montana and actually the whole country could move away from fossil fuels with the technology that we have right now.

And it was an extremely compelling case made in court in Helena. And just recently, the judge ruled in the kids favor and said that yes, in fact, the kids in Montana do have a constitutional right to a stable climate, that the U. S., that the Montana Constitution protects that, and that the state of Montana has to actually take into account greenhouse gases and climate impacts when making permitting decisions.

So it could really change. the face of fossil fuel development in, um, and energy development in Montana. And what it means for the federal case is, is, so they’re in separate courts. There’s a state court system and a federal court system. So in some sense, they’re separate. And it’s not like the federal case has to take into account what happened in Montana.

But they are related, and any ruling in the kids favor kind of gives the court’s judicial courage to say, to, to repeat that yes, kids do have a constitutional right to a stable climate. So, it helps not only the kids in Montana, but it also helps in this whole movement of shifting the legal tide on climate change, and saying that courts have a role here in protecting kids rights.

Crystal: And that’s the only case so far, correct?

Elizabeth: So Julia Olson and our Children’s Trust, when they filed, around the same time they filed the federal case, they actually filed cases in all 50 states. So Montana was the first one to go to trial. There’s another one going to trial in Hawaii in June of next year.

That case includes. Two plaintiffs from West Maui, which is where Lahaina burned to the ground, where 2, 000 homes were destroyed and about 1, 000 lives were lost. So that case is going to trial. That means that those young people are going to be testifying in court about that climate impact. It’s going to be very hard for judges not to take that incredibly seriously.

There are also other state constitutions that actually mention the environment are Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts. And there are currently active cases in Florida, Utah, and Virginia, and our Children’s Trust is, you know, actively developing cases in other states as well.

Crystal: This constitutional line in the state’s constitutions, they’re the Green Amendments?

Is that what they’re called?

Elizabeth: Well, yeah. So that’s kind of another kind of movement that’s going on. So they’re, as I mentioned, Montana and some of these other states have. In their constitutions, they mention kind of a right to a healthy environment, right? So that’s on a handful of state constitutions. So the Green Amendment movement is really to get more states to include environment as part of their state constitution.

And when that’s done, it will make You know, winning these cases easier on a state level, but I would also say that, like the federal case, the U. S. Constitution doesn’t say anything about the environment, but it does say things about life, liberty and property, and, you know, when you can’t breathe. Because of wildfire smoke, when your house is going to be underwater, when your house is flooded, when you’re sickened by the air, when you’re driven off your land from drought and wildfires, like, what’s already there is enough to make these changes.

And those green amendments will just make it easier across the states if those do get passed. I did an

Crystal: interview about the Green Amendments, uh, like a year or two ago. So yeah, that’s why, that’s why I was asking. So the case drew international attention for the young activists in much the same ways as the efforts of Greta Thunberg and the Parkland students did for their social causes.

Do you hope to see even more young people speaking out and holding

Elizabeth: Yeah, so it’s interestingly, the work of the 21 began several years before Greta Thunberg’s first school strike. So they’ve been at this for a long time. The other thing is that the 21 know Greta Thunberg and work with her. They also lead…

climate strikes. They met with Greta to lobby U. S. Congress and they’ve been speaking out on the media. I think what’s important here is that young people are, are doing this important work in lots of different ways, right? They’re marching in the streets, they’re talking to their representatives, they’re talking to the media.

And what the 21 highlights is that there’s another powerful way of speaking up and that’s by asking the courts to protect their rights. And, and interestingly, Greta Thunberg, inspired by the 21, has also been involved in a lawsuit, an international lawsuit, that kind of makes the same case, that a stable climate is actually a human right and that countries need to, to protect those, those human

Crystal: rights.

Unlike many other environmental lawsuits, this one really transcends party lines with the Obama, Biden, and Trump administrations being opposed to the case. Can you tell us

Elizabeth: about that? Yeah, the case was originally filed against the Obama administration, was passed on to the Trump administration, and is now passed on to the Biden administration.

And as you said, all three administrations actively oppose the case. So one of the things that I want to point out is that they don’t have to. oppose the case. There’s nobody telling these administrations that they have to oppose this case. They could say, they could settle, and they could say, yes, young people do have a constitutional right to a stable climate.

And yes, the government should be out of the business of supporting the fossil fuels. But both Republicans and Democrats get a lot of financial support from the fossil fuel industry. So while Democrats say that climate change is a priority, and they have actually done some really important things in terms of supporting renewable energy, both parties allow mining and drilling on federal public lands.

Both parties Permit, um, imports and exports, both parties permit pipelines and subsidize fossil fuels. So currently about 25 percent of U. S. emissions come from federal public lands. So if that stopped, if the federal government actually stopped permitting the, you know, taking out, extracting of fossil fuels, that would make a huge difference.

Basically all three administrations argue the same thing, that the youth don’t deserve a trial. That it’s really up to the executive and legislature to decide what to do about climate change. But kids can’t vote. They don’t have a voice. And with constitutional rights at stake, they’re asking the courts to step in and tell the federal government that their actions supporting fossil fuels are actually unconstitutional and that they have to stop.

Crystal: And what are the long range implications for this case on climate

change

Elizabeth: law? Yeah, so, you know, this, I think this case could really be the Brown versus Board of Education of climate change. So that’s the case that ended segregation in schools. You know, once the court said that segregation was unconstitutional, Everything changed.

So likewise, once courts say that the government’s support of fossil fuels is unconstitutional, that behavior has to stop. So, the other thing is that this federal case is part of a broader movement. So, honestly, the federal case, with these state cases that are moving forward, and international cases that are happening, things could really turn around dramatically and permanently.

Like, I really feel like the legal tide is shifting on climate change. And that courts are kind of our last and best hope to save us all, and what’s really exciting is that young people are leading the way for us through the courts. So what do you

Crystal: think that this case and your book can teach young people about empowerment?

Elizabeth: Well, to me, the 21 are such a ray of light in a rather dark time. Their stories and their work are so hopeful. So kind of delving into this fascinating and nail biting case really changed the way I think about climate change and has really given me hope. We’re always saying that like kids are our future, but the 21 shows that the future is now, and they have the power to change everything right now.

And it’s exactly what we need in these dark times.

Crystal: And that’s what I really like to focus on on this show is that there is hope. There are good things happening out there. There are success stories happening and all you really hear often is the doom and gloom, You know, just dig a little deeper and, and there’s stories like this that show you we could possibly be on the right track and getting this right.

And your book really. Oh,

Elizabeth: go ahead. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. No, no, no, no, no. Not at all. Not at all. Yeah. I mean, I think the other thing is what I hope comes across is how big this is. I mean, these young people have the biggest possible goal of saving our planet, right? And they’re facing an incredibly powerful opponent, the U.

S. government. But they have three things on their side. They have the science, they have the U. S. Constitution, and they have this brilliant, small town environmental lawyer who has created a really compelling case. And the story in this case has the potential to change everything. And I just want people to know about it and, and to, you know, to cheer these kids on this lawyer on because they are doing the good work that we need.

Crystal: Well, that might be one of the things that you, one of the answers to my final question, which is what can the listener do to help?

Elizabeth: Yeah. So I strongly encourage listeners to go to the website of Our Children’s Trust. It’s ourchildrenstrust. org. They have a section called Get Involved where you can sign a wall of support for the various cases.

There’s also a way to tell the Biden administration to stop blocking the case. As I said before, they don’t have to block this case. They could settle the case. And there are a number of other ways to get involved. You can also go to that website to get updates on the state cases that are moving forward and also the federal case.

I will also have updates on the case on my website, which is ElizabethRushRUSCH. com.

Crystal: And I’ll put all of that in the show notes so that people can refer to it. Is there anything else you would like to leave us with before we sign off?

Elizabeth: I think, I think I would just end by saying that sometimes we adults need kids to tell us the obvious.

And to me, the obvious is that all citizens do have a constitutional right to a stable climate, that there is no life, no liberty, and no property without a stable climate. And their government, our government, should not be allowed to continue contributing to the problem. It’s a simple concept, but it’s a powerful concept, and it could really change everything.

Crystal: Thank you, Elizabeth. Congratulations on this book. If you’re listening, go get The 21 by Elizabeth Rush. You’ll read about hope, nail biting suspense, and what we can do for our future. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for everything that you’re doing. You’re making a difference.

From destructive hurricanes to intense droughts to record breaking heatwaves, catastrophic climate events are occurring more frequently and severely than ever before. These events, with their far reaching consequences, impact the lives and futures of all generations, not just the young. But it’s not fair that young people find themselves at the forefront of addressing these challenges, despite having no responsibility for the environmental predicament they inherit.

They may be the best ones to bring forth these cases because of their inability to otherwise have a say in the executive and legislative branches of the government. In a political landscape where neither party has shown sufficient commitment to addressing the climate crisis. Young activists may emerge as some of the most determined champions of change yet.

Don’t forget to go to forcesfornature. com and sign up to receive emailed show notes, action tips, and a free checklist to help you start taking practical actions today. Do you know someone else who would enjoy this episode? I would be. So grateful if you would share it with them. Hit me up on Instagram and Facebook at becoming forces for nature.

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