Best wishes to all from the Ontario Landowners. 2016 has been an interesting year of ups and downs, with promising wins in court that we hope will lead to more confidence for others to stand up. We have also had many mayors and councillors talking to the county groups and asking for more information about what legislation really says when it is broken down to its basic parts by Liz Marshall.
On the political front it has been a very disappointing year as it would seem that all three parties are clamoring for the attention of the liberal elite who look down their noses at those who work in any job or industry that uses fossil fuels in their daily jobs.
That brings me to ‘climate change’ and how dangerous it can be to admit that you believe that people are responsible for it. It seems a group of young people between the ages of eight and nineteen, calling themselves “Earth Guardians”, an association of young environmental activists, are taking President Obama to court for not stopping the production of CO2 when he knew that it was causing the climate to warm up and the oceans to rise, putting the future of these young people in jeopardy. The plaintiffs argued that despite knowing for fifty years that CO2 was destabilizing the climate system, the defendants “The United States, President Barack Obama, and numerous executive agencies” having sovereign authority over the country’s atmosphere and fossil fuel resources,.. “permitted, encouraged, and otherwise enabled continued exploitation, production and combustion of fossil fuels”. The young plaintiffs further argue that the “defendant’s actions violate their substantive due process rights to life, liberty, and property, and that the defendants have violated their obligation to hold certain natural resources in trust for the people and for future generations”.
Now at first glance this would seem to be frivolous at least and unlawful at worst because we mostly think you cannot charge a politician for making decisions even if they seem to be wrong, as the traditional law seems to protect them. However, in this case they said that it was not necessary to prove that CO2 was responsible for climate change. You see, for the purpose of this law suit, the court accepted the President’s own words, when he stated in the 2015 State of the Union address that “no challenge…poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change”.
Three intervenors, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and the America Petroleum Institute moved to dismiss the case, but were denied by United States District Judge Ann Aiken. So this case will go forward. What kind of message will this send to politicians here in Canada? I don’t think these young people will accept carbon credit trading as a fix to reduce CO2 since it only shifts the CO2 production from western civilizations to other parts of the earth, where the people still have to work for a living and don’t have time to hide their heads in the sand while others do the dirty work of manufacturing. Climate, good or bad, is a feature of this planet and moving production to some other country obviously does not help in any logical argument. So, following this logic, Prime Minister Trudeau, Kathleen Wynne and Patrick Brown should be prepared to be charged in the future with not fixing what they admitted to the people, was a problem.
To reference this court case: filed Nov. 10, 2016
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON
EUGENE DIVISION
KELSEY CASCADIA ROSE JULIANA,
et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al,
Defendants.
AIKEN, Judge: 1
Case No. 6:15-cv-01517-TC
OPINION AND ORDER