It's a nothing article. There's no reason to have ever assumed it was a constitutional right
There's plenty of other, much better reasons to justify the need for stable climate.
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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It's not about justifying the need for a livable climate, but being able to legally enforce the future having one.
The constitution also doesn't deny the right to a stable climate, if that is what you mean.
It just has nothing to do with it.
Justify the existence of national parks then
Not sure why you're here 4 days later...but nothing in the constitution says they can't have national parks.
Again, the issue is just it has nothing to do with it. There's easily other avenues to go about than the constitution.
Why are you here? And if nothing in the constitution says we can't have national parks, nothing in it says we can't regulate a stable climate.
I don't even really disagree with you that there are better ways to go about it. It's just stupid to agree with their claim.
Your right, but this needs to change. In order to stop Billionaires from ensuring there isn't a single functional ecosystem, legal actions will be necessary.
Probably, but it doesn't need to be enshrined in the Constitution. The federal government already has the power to regulate emissions, it doesn't need the Constitution to reiterate that.
Then possibly something needs to change - add a new Amendment or something. But to claim that old laws written with an old understanding of how the world works needs to somehow carry the semantic weight of something it was never written to do seems a bit much.
Why does the Constitution need to be involved? The federal government already has power to regulate emissions, so there's nothing stopping Congress (from a constitutional perspective) from passing laws to do so.
Wouldn't that be the EPA's job? I do wish they had more power or were more strict when it came to climate change measures. I did find this though: https://www.epa.gov/climate-change
Ya, the funding cuts make it tough to do though. The EPA actually just decided to not reevaluate the smog standards showing the inability to do much at all.
The SCOTUS ruled last year that the EPA does not have the authority to do essentially anything real to protect the environment.
I mean, they're right. Nothing in the constitution says anything about the climate.
In this case I don't think "It's not a constitutional right" means "so I guess we're going to do nothing". It's just that some legal groundwork needs to happen.
Well, we have the bill of rights which let us gather, and I guess we can’t gather if the climate does not allow people to actually live
I don't think there is a constitutional right to not get hit by giant meteors either.
I think the need to peg action to constitutional rights is a very uniquely American thing. In most other countries a simple addition to the legislature might suffice, whereas here if it's not in a constitution written many years before climate change became a popularly known thing, suddenly nothing can be done.
nothing can be done
Nothing can be done by the courts. The legislative branch can still pass laws, they just won't.
In case I was unclear, I meant it more as "people think that nothing can be done". I was addressing the overall sentiment of many of these comments that seemed so betrayed that their constitution didn't protect them from climate change.
The courts could do something, but then Congress could either override or impeach them. The Supreme Court shouldn't be the tool to use for this, the legislature is the right path.
As most things go, it's generally easier to get things done in your local state and then get them done federally later. So if you want action now, work with your city, county, and state. Once you have a proven legal framework, work with other states to get it passed, and then work with Congress. Marijuana legalization is a great example of this, and I think we'll see marijuana get legalized or at least rescheduled in the coming years. Healthcare is another good example, where something like the ACA was tried in various states before it got traction at the federal level.
So if you want to effect national change, start at the local level.
I mean, that's correct. There is in fact nothing about a stable climate in the US constitution. The courts need to have at least a pretense of interpreting existing laws rather than dictating what the laws ought to be.
Isn’t that rather obtuse though. Is not life liberty and pursuit of happiness enumerated through the Declaration of Independence?
The Declaration of Independence is not technically a legal document. But even if we ignore that, it would still quite a stretch to go from a general right to life to a right to some particular environmental policy. It's unreasonable to expect the government to always take the course of action that prevents the most deaths (or else the government would be required to ban driving, unhealthy lifestyles, etc.) and once we accept that reasonable tradeoffs between "life" and other policy goals are acceptable then we must (IMO) concede that Congress (and agencies empowered by Congress) have the authority to make these tradeoffs except when there are specific Constitutional directives to the contrary.
I would go even further and argue that a policy intended to reduce global warming is not necessarily the one that best defends the right to life (or rather the American right to life) as opposed to a policy of burning more fossil fuels now in order to build a stronger foundation for American security in a world destabilized by global warming.
Considering the idea that judges are actually using logic. I call bullshit on your argument
The constitution says whatever the heck we want it to mean.
I don’t think your logic is sound is what I’m saying. I don’t have to accept your premises.
The constitution doesn't say whatever you want it to mean; it says whatever the supreme court wants it to mean. IMO they do sometime make decisions which aren't actually based on the constitution (although it's funny that no one can agree about which decisions those are) but they haven't been acting as if the constitution says what you think it does, so it isn't "obtuse" for the DOJ to argue that there's no constitutional right to a specific environmental policy.
No, it's not what the supreme court wants it to mean, it's what the supreme court interprets it to mean, and that needs to either coincide with or directly strike down existing supreme court decisions. And it only decides based on cases that's brought to it.
So today's Supreme Court can't simply device today that the Constitution implies a positive right to a stable climate, they'd first need a court case and then need to justify that position based on existing supreme court decisions.
If the Supreme Court decides something completely nonsensical, Congress can override it. If justices continually act in bad faith, they can be impeached and removed. There's a check on the Supreme Court, so the court won't just go rogue and decide to invalidate or create laws as they see fit.
The supreme court has absolute discretion regarding which cases it takes, and someone is always bringing new cases about pretty much every controversial issue in the hope that the supreme court will decide to take one of them. Then in theory the court rules according to the constitution, but there are enough different interpretations that one can be found to support almost any decision. Congress is too divided to override any decision that isn't literally insane.
I think the supreme court still spends most of its time doing what it is intended to do, but it has also become an instrument for making dramatic changes to the law while congress is too divided to do so. (Or else why would the political affiliation of the president nominating a new judge matter so much?)
But with all that out of the way, the point I'm trying to make is that it isn't unreasonable for the DOJ to argue that the constitution doesn't say anything about the climate when that is literally true. Maybe the court will rule that the constitution implies something related to climate change (although I wouldn't bet on that) but some commenters here are claiming that the DOJ is being ridiculous and I think these commenters are failing to make the is-ought distinction.
The Supreme Court overturned a presidential election, there is no check and balance on the Supreme Court lol
Obtuse would be interpreting that phrase to include a responsibility for the federal government to preserve the global climate as it was in the particular time in which the constitution was written.
Except this case was denied by the Supreme Court in 2018,
Why does it need to be in the US constitution for it to matter?
Many of my countrymen seem to think if it's not a problem written down on some dusty old piece of paper, at least 1-2 centuries old, it isn't a problem now.
Something that isn't in the constitution is, by definition, not a constitutional right.
Do you want a Constitutional Amendment? Because that's how you get a Constitutional Amendment.
There's no chance of that happening. There have been no amendments in over 30 years. And no amendments that weren't a joke in over 50 years. You won't get 3/4 of the states to agree to anything the least bit controversial.
(You won't even get "just" 2/3 of the House and Senate to agree to even propose the amendment.)
Yeah, no, we shouldn't have a constitutional amendment for that. We cannot and should not try to control the climate, we can merely control our contributions to global pollution. And contributing to global pollution isn't Constitution territory, but regulation territory.
Don’t need a constitution when everything is on fire or under water
Which leads directly to the statement "there is no constitutional right that the government will protect the citizens of this country from harm".
Then what the fuck do we need government for?
I mean, they're not wrong, but it shouldn't matter. I don't know why this was brought up when it was assumed to be the case to begin with.
Congress still needs to pass legislation to try and limit climate change as much as possible.
Joe Biden is terrible for this country, the DNC needs to stop pushing 80 year old boomers
i love how you frame this is some how a thing only the dnc does. especially when the republicant party has done the same and part of it is still trying for the 77 year old russain spy.
I don't see anywhere the OP is saying it's unique to the DNC, only that the DNC is doing it and should stop.
The GOP should also stop.
Russia has nothing to do with anything, it's a great scapegoat for the failure of Democrats to actually carry out any of their goals. If the DNC runs Biden then I'm voting third party, I don't want a white trash racist boomer as my President
Ffs, the DNC had nothing to do with Biden winning and Biden has nothing to do with this DOJ opinion.