 So a couple of years ago a bunch of children that decided to sue the United States government in order to establish a Constitutional right to a livable planet. That's pretty reasonable if you ask me now when this lawsuit was brought forward Guess who was the president? Nope not Donald Trump It was actually Barack Obama and can you guess what Obama decided to do? Well, he decided to fight these children in the courts His administration fought to dismiss this lawsuit and then when he got out of office Trump came to power and then obviously Trump did the same thing and in a couple of days We're going to learn whether or not this lawsuit can move forward and we have a new administration So the Biden administration is going to have to ask itself Are we going to fight this in court or are we going to allow these children to move forward and Establish the right to a livable planet. So they may one day be able to be as old as I am Well, look, we all know that Biden talked a really tough game when it comes to climate change He said that he would treat this as the emergency that it is and promised to take it seriously So how's he gonna react? Well, right now his administration is gearing up to fight these children in court just as his predecessors did So as Julia rock of the lever explains any day now a federal circuit court is expected to deliver a ruling that would allow a Historic climate change lawsuit to proceed to trial if and when the case moves forward However, it faces a major obstacle President Joe Biden's Justice Department the lawsuit Julian of the United States was brought by 21 young plaintiffs in 2015 and Seeks to establish a federal constitutional right to a livable planet If the case is successful any federal policies that enable more fossil fuel development could be challenged as Unconstitutional but the Obama and Trump Administrations both vehemently fought the lawsuit and now those close to the case say that Biden's Department of Justice has indicated It will also use every procedural tool at its disposal to prevent the lawsuit from ever getting a trial I've asked them very directly if we win this motion and we can move forward with the case Do you intend to go to trial Julia Olson the lead plaintiff's lawyer told the lever their response has always been something along the lines of It is our position that the court doesn't have the jurisdiction and that this case should never go to trial That's the Biden administration. That's who young voters elected to Defend them from climate catastrophe now understand that he is making a legal case his administration to be clear His Department of Justice is making a legal case. They're saying look We're not saying that these kids shouldn't have a habitable planet We're just saying that the court doesn't have jurisdiction. We're making a legal argument You don't have to do that though. You don't have to do this. You can choose to back down and not fight them But they're choosing to fight them Now there's gonna be conservatives who argue that you know, it's preposterous to think that there is a Constitutional right to a livable planet because if that was supposed to be in the Constitution Then the founders would have written it in the Constitution now There are gonna be other individuals more progressive minded people who will argue that this is a right in the Constitution It's just not explicitly enumerated now my position is I don't care Don't care at all if it's there if it's not there what I care is that people have this right I don't give a flying fuck about what the founding fathers intended or didn't intend as they wrote this Constitution using quills while shitting in a hole in the ground. I don't care what I care about is that this Constitution protects its people because if it doesn't do that then it is useless in fact I shouldn't say that it's useless because assuming there is no right to a livable planet in our Constitution Then there are still some uses for the Constitution Perhaps you can lay it on the ground to protect your carpet from paint splatter if you decide to paint perhaps you can use it as Toilet paper wipe your ass with it and then flush it. That's as far as the usefulness goes of this Constitution I have no respect for the founders or the Constitution if there are not these safeguards in place to protect people from a habitable planet because Understand that nothing else matters than having a habitable planet the Constitution cannot exist Without people being able to breathe and write it. So if that's not in the Constitution the Constitution is fucking Worthless, so I don't care about the Biden administration's excuse. I don't care about legal procedure I don't give a flying fuck if a government is not going to protect its people that government is Useless that government is voiding the social contract now the positive news about this story is that These kids have been relatively successful For example, Oregon district court judge and Aiken wrote in a procedural ruling on the case in 2016 I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society That was the first time a federal US judge declared that such a constitutional right existed The case has widespread support from public officials last year six state attorneys general filed an amicus brief in support of the case and 48 Congress people wrote to the Biden Justice Department in support of the plaintiffs The matter is also beginning to capture public attention The lawsuit is the subject of a newly released Netflix documentary youth V gov after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case in 2020 because it concluded that plaintiffs lacked standing the Juliana plaintiffs revised their complaint now Parties are waiting on a ruling from Aiken about whether the revised complaint addresses the Ninth Circuit Court's concerns a ruling that the plaintiffs lawyers expect Will be favorable allowing the case to again proceed So in the event this case does go forward and the Biden administration decides to fight them every single reporter Should be pressing him on this Every single news network should be juxtaposing news that he's fighting this with sound bites of him saying I'm gonna defend Your future I'm going to defend your right to live on a habitable planet Because this is a broken campaign promise if he does this but he's broken many campaign promises already So I don't expect him to bend to public pressure Biden is just basically asleep in the Oval Office So this doesn't really surprise me and I already I already knew that going into office He wasn't going to do jack fucking shit about the planet But what's really important is that we do anything we can to support these kids so I want to play a clip from a 2016 of vice documentary with one of the leaders of this lawsuit and you know, this really shows you how powerful and Inspiring these kids are take a look. My name is Utesca Donatio I'm a 15 year old climate warrior spokesperson for my generation And I'm suing the United States government for violating my constitutional right to a healthy atmosphere when you see a headline of a newspaper that says you suing Obama or kids suing Obama or Teenagers rallying to sue the president for climate change like that'll get a lot of attention. I am the youth director of earth guardians I decided to kind of keep the momentum going as just one small local crew of 15 kids that met Got pesticides out of our parks all in Boulder, Colorado got fracking banned for his last six years here in Boulder County We are working to empower young people to give them the voice being excited and inspired and doing what we're passionate about Whether that's film whether that's hip hop with that sport are using those things to change the world around us The thing that sucks is that the United States we have contributed to climate change We were one of the biggest polluting countries in the world And we are suffering the least There's so much power and there's so much profit to be made out of digging dead decomposed plant and animal matter out of the ground We look around in my backyard. We are the front of a war zone for fossil fuel extraction What happens is when they frack they shoot Millions of gallons of water toxic chemicals and sand mixed together to the fracture the shale beneath the ground and when it comes all back up They got to separate it They take the oil and the gas and they take it off the ship and turn it into energy But the contaminated water that comes back up is considered dead water. There's a well pad right there off to the left that tan Cylinder that's in the ground. That's holding toxic wastewater. It's not like huge. It's not like the tar sands It's not like a huge oil refinery. It's almost it's very hidden They're really good at hiding it a lot of it is underground everything that happens with fracking has happened on the ground There was a fracking well pad here This water would surely be contaminated by all different types of benzene, ethyl benzene, toluene, xylene What we need to do is love water not oil. That's the motto love water not oil because water is life, right? We did a direct action against the county courthouse, and we held the courthouse for about 34 minutes All the kids so the earthguarding crew we started an open mic chant and everybody in the audience was chanting messages about Renewable energy and about banning fracking The county commissioners that were all in their seats talking about fracking they actually laughed They were escorted out by the police and then the youth the earthguarding crew we went up on there actually took all of their seats Which was a really powerful demonstration and we were up there until the police kicked us off Obviously it was very informal, but it worked We have five communities all along this side of the the continental divide that we ban fracking More to come if that's not inspiring then what is these kids took over a city council And they did not leave until they were kicked out and they got fracking banned in their area It makes me feel as if maybe we do have a little bit more power as citizens And these kids are the ones leading the way not the adults. Isn't it amazing now? Some of these kids are old enough to vote now They were old enough to vote in 2020 and I'm assuming they voted for Joe Biden So Joe Biden told these climate activists He was gonna fight for them and be their ally and treat this as an emergency and yet His administration is gearing up to fight them when he doesn't have to do that Despicable Biden is a despicable human being and every future climate death The blood is gonna be on his hands He's partially responsible for that and climate change is already affecting a lot of people in the world It's just not affecting developed countries as much But that's on people like Joe Biden leaders who refuse to act now. You should definitely check out the full documentary I'll link to that down below because it kind of goes through the religious beliefs of that kid in the lawsuit who you know really takes this seriously who believes that The climate deserves to live to the world deserves a right to life too. So, you know, it's really important So these kids are inspiring and you know, as As much courage as they have, you know, they're gonna be fought tooth and nail by the Biden administration And Republicans so, you know in the event this gets to the Supreme Court, of course This farward extremist Supreme Court will strike down this case But either way it is so important that they take this as far as they possibly can go because I think it's important Even if they lose they make public officials Tell them that they don't actually have a right to a livable planet Say it tell them they don't have The right to a livable planet because in doing so you prove how worthless our system of governance and our legal system really is