Fighting for the atmosphere

By Envision Magazine on April 22, 2014

 

Story by Sadie Tush
Photos by Sumi Kim
Illustration by Kyle Hanson McKee

  

Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana was born in a small cabin in Fall Creek, Oregon, shortly after the Cascadia Free State political movement successfully put a stop to logging in the area. Her parents were involved in protecting the Cascadia bioregion, explaining their child’s middle name, Cascadia Rose.

“Cascadia Rose is for Cascadia Rising,” Juliana says, “To symbolize the achievements of environmental activists to protect Mother Nature.” Juliana explains she grew up with the principle that one should protect and give back to Mother Nature. From a young girl to a current high school senior, many people have helped Juliana on her path to protect the Earth, and become part of her environmental activist family. One of the latest additions is Mary Wood, the Philip H. Knight Professor of Law at the University of Oregon, and founding director of the Environmental and Natural Law Resources Program. She is also the creator of the Atmospheric Trust.

Based on the Public Trust Doctrine, which protects natural resources for the use and enjoyment of the current and future public, the Atmospheric Trust incites government officials to protect the atmosphere for subsequent generations using novel approaches; namely, instigating litigation by youth all over the nation.

What separates the Atmospheric Trust from previous government attempts to preserve the environment is its “macro approach,” as Wood refers to it. The Public Trust Doctrine that came into practice in 1892, and theClean Air Act of 1963, only provide “micro-regulation of politics.” Micro-regulation does not allow issues to get beyond the political sphere where politicians’ influences, loopholes, and lack of enforcement often halt any actual progress toward limiting emissions, says Wood.

The Atmospheric Trust, however, provides an overhaul of government infrastructure. It involves judiciary action, pressures fiduciary obligations, and works through trustees. Trustees are individuals who are responsible for protecting the atmosphere, and have an obligation to do so for their own health and that of future generations. This includes every person on the planet, and exemplifies the macro-approach of the Atmospheric Trust. In this way, it transcends all boundaries, Wood says, that were previously set by government regulations, and overcomes hindrances posed by political and legal systems. Another one of its innovative approaches is through enlisting the voices of youth who will become the victims of current unsustainable climate management, like Juliana, who is now part of Our Children’s Trust, an organization that supports youth through legal efforts, media outlets and workshops.

Mary Wood was on sabbatical, pregnant with her third child, in Macaw, Idaho, when the news of Hurricane Katrina came hurtling through the calm air. Wood’s realization that atmospheric degradation was her greatest calling was overnight, she says. She felt that climate change was real, drastic, of inclement importance, and needed to be addressed immediately. At the time she was 95 percent done with the Wildlife Trust but after that day she never looked back and devoted herself entirely to combating climate change.

“The legal theory [of the Atmospheric Trust] was not difficult to develop at all,” Wood says. “It was actually pretty simple.” Wood faced challenges, though, the moment she began creating the Trust, and the greatest impediment presented itself with its absence: the “missing component,” as Wood describes it. This component was a number, not an amount, or wordy approximation, but an absolute dependable number of how many ppm (parts per million) of emissions must be reduced to prevent irreversible climate change. She called Jim Hansen, a leading climatologist, at his farm and he began to assemble a team of scientists to find this “missing component,” and with that the Atmospheric Trust was under way.

Meanwhile, Juliana was continuing to advocate for environmental protection and spending her summers in the Sierra Student Coalition program learning how to become a better leader, organizer, and manager of campaigns. With her experience, it is no surprise that during her freshman year of high school at South Eugene High School, she received a phone call from Mary Wood asking if she would like to become part of the Atmospheric Trust Litigation lawsuit. (Wood herself is not involved in any part of the litigation.)

Wood was not surprised that young people answered her call to address the violations of the atmosphere. “Youth represent the generation with most at stake,” she says. While this is true, often times people do not believe young people have the level of maturity or authority to assert themselves in successful legal proceedings. But Wood says young people have a secret weapon: moral authority.

Juliana’s inspirational sense of moral authority combined with the novel ideas and reasoning of Wood’s Atmospheric Trust are making this case difficult for government officials to ignore. However, this is still the biggest problem that Juliana and Wood are facing: inaction of the legislature. The lack of movement in the legislative body, though, is not a matter of inability. “The legislature could accomplish it, [limiting emissions] by acting with intent as a political body,” says Wood. “They are gripped with political dysfunction.” The case brief of Alec L., et al. v. Gina McCarthy, et al.  reveals even when the legislature can be motivated to confront the issue of climate change, they are often met by opposition from “Federal courts [that] have rejected local and state legislative attempts to curtail emissions.”

Federal court’s response in the Alec v. McCarthy case was that there are too many political concerns surrounding climate change that make it, according to Alec’s opposition, “inappropriate for judicial remedy.” The legislature thereby bypasses dealing with the issue altogether. These political concerns  arise from the interpretation of obligations of the Constitution on the federal government, which advocates of the Atmospheric Trust believe different than federal courts. The courts imply in Alec v. McCarthy that the decision not to act is not theirs because, as stated in the Alec v. McCarthy brief, the Constitution does not place “affirmative obligations on the federal government to act.” So, it is beyond their duty. The Court encouraged people concerned with the issue of atmospheric damage to continue consulting amongst each other “to seek as much common ground as courage, goodwill and wisdom might allow them to be discovered.”

The urgency of the reducing emissions to stop atmospheric degradation cannot be emphasized enough. “The Public Trust [and subsequently the Atmospheric Trust] is now about habitability of the earth,” Wood says. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect habitability with survivability.” The importance of Juliana’s case is greater than the success of one implementation of Atmospheric Trust Litigation because as Wood points out, “One judicial ruling can send a call around the world.” This would cause a ripple effect of case hearings in the same hatch as Juliana’s to be approved around the United States and worldwide. While Juliana is passionately involved in the litigation efforts of the Atmospheric Trust, she also says, “The court case is not the entire thing.” To her, this trial is merely one of the many tests she has to endure to preserve the environment and it is by far not the only way she has or will continue to do so, no matter the outcome. “It’s a shame on the government if they don’t pass the case,” Juliana says. “But it’s not their decision to stop the fight.”