Landmark Dutch Lawsuit Puts Governments Around the World On Notice - HuffPo

[WillyT]

Landmark Dutch Lawsuit Puts Governments Around the World on Notice
Kelly Rigg - HuffPo
Posted: 04/08/2015 11:09 am EDT Updated: 04/08/2015 11:59 am EDT


AP

<snip>

Since the days of Watergate, the question "What did he know, and when did he know it?" has been a key litmus test for assessing guilt and innocence. Forty years later that question is now being asked in relation to climate change.

Where I live, in the Netherlands, a landmark case will be heard in the Den Haag District Court on Tuesday. The Urgenda Foundation is suing the Dutch government for knowingly endangering its citizens by failing to prevent dangerous climate change.

It comes at a time when an increasing number of legal experts around the world have come to believe that the lack of action represents a gross violation of the rights of those who will suffer the consequences. They also argue that the failure of governments to negotiate international agreements does not absolve them of their legal obligation to do their share in preventing dangerous climate change. These arguments are at the core of the Dutch lawsuit and will undoubtedly be put to the test in other countries before too long.

To adapt the first question: What did governments know and when did they know it?

It's arguable that government leaders were made fully aware of the dangers of climate change when Walter Cronkite warned the public in 1980 that "a coal-burning society may be making things hot for itself." He was introducing a news segment covering the greenhouse effect, including a Senate hearing in which Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas quipped:

If it happens, it means goodbye, Miami; goodbye, Corpus Christi; goodbye, Sacramento; goodbye, Boston (which obviously is much more of a concern); goodbye, New Orleans; goodbye, Charleston, Savannah and Norfolk. On the positive side, it means we could enjoy boating at the foot of the Capitol and fishing on the South Lawn.

Eight years later Margaret Thatcher said much the same:

Recently three changes in atmospheric chemistry have become familiar subjects of concern. The first is the increase in the greenhouse gases -- carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons -- which has led some to fear that we are creating a global heat trap which could lead to climatic instability. We are told that a warming effect of 1°C per decade would greatly exceed the capacity of our natural habitat to cope. Such warming could cause accelerated melting of glacial ice and a consequent increase in the sea level of several feet over the next century. ... It is noteworthy that the five warmest years in a century of records have all been in the 1980s -- though we may not have seen much evidence in Britain!

But governments passed the deniability point of no return in 1990, when they formally adopted the first report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and further in 2009, when they committed themselves to keeping temperature rise below 2 degrees C. Six years later we remain on a collision course with catastrophic climate change.

In 2011 Dutch attorney Roger Cox wrote the book Revolution Justified, laying out the legal case for using existing tort law and human rights laws to force governments into action. The Urgenda Foundation rose to the challenge and began legal proceedings against the Dutch government the following year. Approximately 900 citizens have signed on to the case, a large number of whom are young people whose very survival may ultimately be at stake.

The Dutch case became even more significant last week as...

<snip>

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-rigg/landmark-dutch-lawsuit-pu_b_7025126.html

[Faux pas]

1. Kickin'

[GreatGazoo]

2. "What did governments know and when did they know it?" -- is behind the language bans in FL and WI

The GOPers seem to be setting up a defense for such suits. The Dutch one is far from the first in this area:

Insurance companies vs Chicago:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/19/climate-change-get-ready-or-get-sued/

Kids vs. the USG:
http://billmoyers.com/2014/04/28/young-people-are-taking-the-government-to-court-over-its-failure-to-address-climate-change/

[Ghost Dog]

3. Yes. Rule of (uncorrupted) Law.

I cannot recommend this enough.

[rhett o rick]

4. k & r. Thanks for posting. nm

[WillyT]

5. Anytime rhett o rick ... Anytime...

[Iliyah]

6. Well the GOP party is blaming the Liberals in California for the drought

Gotta blame someone huh.

Kick this thread

[MoreGOPoop]

7. Kick a Million Times!

Just like Big Tobacco, they will deny till the proverbial cows come home, lest they
be held accountable.

[Octafish]

8. We are going to ask Big Oil to court, yes?

We, as in We the People?

Not to forget TEPCO and all its owners.

[WillyT]

11. Wouldn't THAT Be Lovely ???

[They_Live]

9. Hmm

And don't forget about ground water depletion/contamination.

[closeupready]

10. Too many important people make gobs of money selling fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel consumption will stop the day on which it has all been consumed.

[WillyT]

12. And Their Grandchildren... Will Curse Their Names..

Spit on their graves, et. al...

If they're not underwater.

Either the graves or the grandchildren.

[G_j]

13. K&R

[malaise]

14. This is huge

The deniers should be in prison with their corporate owners

[ncjustice80]

15. Exactly!

They need to make clinate change denial a criminal offense like holocaust denial! (Good luck getting either passed in this country though )

[randome]

16. Hell yeah!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[Amishman]

17. good for them, but our courts are too corrupt for this to happen

the rule of law no longer means much to judges in this country, its all about who paid for what and which party appointed them to their seat. And both sides are quite guilty of this.