Last Monday, Judge Hollis Hill of the Washington Superior Court in Seattle issued another powerful climate justice decision in the Washington State climate lawsuit filed by Zoe and Stella Foster, and their fellow plaintiffs against the state’s Department of Ecology.
As the team at Our Children’s Trust writes:
“Amplifying the urgency of the youths’ claims, the court found “emergent need for coordinated science based action by the state of Washington to address climate change.”
Articulating that “it is time for these youth to have the opportunity to address their concerns in a court of law, concerns raised under statute and under the state and federal constitution,” the Judge gave the youth permission to add claims against the state and its Governor to advance their case.
It’s time for Rhode Island to follow suit with youth suing the Raimondo administration and the legislature for violating Article 1 Section 17 of the RI Constitution,
… the duty of the general assembly to provide for the conservation of the air, land, water, …
Let youth sue the director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management for hiding behind an imaginary firewall on the Energy Facility Siting Board, as it decides fate of the Invenergy power plant planned in Burrillville. The director is has relinquished her job to those she should be supervising; here is her job description :
(14) To establish minimum standards for the establishment and maintenance of salutary environmental conditions, including standards and methods for the assessment and the consideration of the cumulative effects on the environment …
“Cumulative effects” could that possibly refer to the possibility that it would not be a good idea to add pollution to the air of Woonsocket, which already is the Asthma Capital of Rhode Island?
From The burden of asthma in Rhode Island
From the RI Department of Health: The burden of asthma in Rhode Island
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
Facebook40TwitterRedditGoogle+EmailShare
Posted in Activism, Climate, Corporate Greed, Energy, Environmental Racism, Featured, Inequality, Infrastructure, Youth | Tagged climate.
Peter Nightingale is a theoretical physicist and teaches at the University of Rhode Island. He strives to leave behind a more just and peaceful, sustainable post-capitalist world for future generations, and his children and grandchildren in particular.
http://www.phys.uri.edu/nigh/
@Peter_Night
https://www.facebook.com/nighster
Underground Scholar Association 