Can Legal Action Save Us From the Climate Crisis?

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” This line from William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2 is a widely spread meme on t-shirts and more. Those spreading the meme see lawyers as the enemy. But the original meaning was probably the opposite. The line is stated by “Dick the Butcher” who is part of a gang of thugs trying to seize power. They see the law as an obstacle to their evil plans.

Yes, the courts, the law, the lawyers, and the legal system are often stacked in favor of the rich and powerful. But they are also often the only chance for ordinary people to fight back.

Ralph Nader is a lawyer who famously succeeded in fighting the auto companies for their callous disregard for public safety. He went on to found Public Citizen, which continues to battle for the public interest on many issues.

Lawyers also took on the powerful tobacco lobby. The tobacco lobby won one case after another. They argued that the government regulated them, and they displayed the required warnings on cigarette cartons. By following the law, they were absolved of legal liability. This worked until it didn’t.

The tobacco industry was ultimately forced to pay tens of billions of dollars compensation. And to curtail their predatory marketing to children.

Now, lawyers are taking on the most important issue of our time: The Climate Crisis. In 2015, Our Children’s Trust filed a case called Juliana v. United States on behalf of 21 young Americans. From their site: “Their complaint asserts that, through the government’s affirmative actions that cause climate change, it has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources.”

As with the tobacco industry cases, this has had major successes and major setbacks. That case is still pending. But there are now over 2,000 climate justice cases in the works, mostly in the U.S.

And on August 14, Montana District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled that the state of Montana must consider climate impacts when considering approval of energy projects. The case centered on a section of the Montana constitution that guarantees a “clean and healthful environment.”

Montana officials are vowing to appeal the case. But the state constitution is quite clear. Similar cases are pending in Europe as well as in poor countries bearing the worst effects of the Climate Crisis.

In turn, the states of Colorado, Maryland, California, Hawaii, and Rhode Island are suing fossil fuel companies including ExxonMobil and Shell for monetary damages. Compensation for the real damage caused by fires and floods. And for mitigating future damage. These companies’ own research in the 1970s showed the Climate Crisis was real. Their response was a disinformation campaign. Run by some of the same people who ran the tobacco disinformation campaign.

I am reminded of the situation in the 1980s when Reagan was brutally attacking the poor and defenseless people of Nicaragua. Funding death squads and terrorist attacks. Instead of declaring war on the U.S., the Nicaraguan government took their case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Also known as the World Court.

The Court made 16 rulings against the U.S., including that the U.S. must pay restitution to Nicaragua and to the victims. Reagan lawlessly claimed the U.S. would not recognize the Court’s authority. Even though the U.S. was a signatory to the treaty establishing the Court. And even though the Court has universal jurisdiction.

As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Using the law to achieve justice against the wealthy and powerful is certainly a long, slow process with many setbacks. But it is one tool that can level the playing field.

With the ongoing infernos and powerful storms, we are running out of time in this game.

Chile just hit a winter high temperature of 101 degrees Fahrenheit and Paraguay hit 103. In the depth of winter.

Florida ocean temperatures hit 101 degrees in July. The Coral Restoration Foundation had been working for a decade painstakingly creating a coral nursery for restoration. They lost everything in this heat event. Coral reefs are an essential global ecosystem. If a carefully nurtured nursery can’t survive, what hope is there?

The worst thing we can do is give up hope. We must keep up the fight with every tool available.