2023-06-21 10:00:39
The young plaintiffs against the State of Montana upon their arrival at the court in Helena, June 20, 2023. THOM BRIDGE / AP
They were sixteen. Sixteen children and young people aged 5 to 22, who came to testify from June 12 to 20 at the Helena court bar, accusing the State of Montana of violating their constitutional right to a “clean and healthy environment”. Because, under the effect of global warming, this paradise of wide open spaces, which shelters the national parks of Yellowstone and Glacier, is no longer what it used to be. Rikki Held, 22, recounted how in the summer of 2021 the heat above 42C made work on her father’s ranch impossible, the burning prairie made the air unbreathable and knocked out the electricity . “We could no longer pump water to water the animals”she says.
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Conversely, Eva Lighthizer, 17, daughter of a carpenter and an environmental activist, had to pile up sandbags in 2022 to protect herself from the floods of the Yellowstone River. Georgianna Fischer, 20, a competitive cross-country skier, has reduced her training due to the shortening of the season. The testimonies are sincere, the facts undeniable: the glaciers of Glacier National Park have almost disappeared. The road to Yellowstone Park has been washed away by floods, while fires ravage forests that are too dry every summer.
This emotion did not prevent the trial from being organized to the millimeter by the activists of “Our Children’s Trust”, who distributed banners for the last day of the hearings and organized a guard of honor for the young plaintiffs under the scorching sun. ‘Helena. Created in 2010 in Eugene, Oregon, this law firm specializing in the environment has attacked all American states and the federal state, in the name of children’s rights. Without success, for lack of sufficient legal basis, until they obtained the organization of a trial in Montana.
“Inalienable Right”
Why venture into this vast state like half of France and populated by a million inhabitants? Because it has a very recent Constitution (1972), which takes the environment into account very precisely. The Constituents begin by saying to each other “grateful to God for the tranquil beauty of our state, the grandeur of our mountains, the vastness of our rolling plains”which they intend to preserve “for future generations”.
The text states a “inalienable right” To “a clean and healthy environment” and above all provides a vade-mecum: “The state and every person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthy environment in Montana for present and future generations”while “the legislator must provide adequate measures to protect the environment (…) and provide adequate remedies to prevent the depletion and degradation of natural resources”. In short, a very modern Constitution which imposes an obligation of result. At the trial, one of the editors of the text explained how the younger generation had pushed in this direction.
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