The climate won’t give up. They’ll never give up on forcing Everyone Else to live their cult beliefs

Utah top court skeptical of reviving youth-led climate change case

Utah’s highest court on Wednesday appeared reluctant to revive a lawsuit by young people alleging the state was violating their right to life under the state’s constitution by adopting laws that contribute to climate change by promoting fossil fuel development.

Justices on the Utah Supreme Court questioned a lawyer for youth activists suing the state about whether striking down certain laws governing the permitting of oil, gas and coal mining projects would do anything to remedy the climate harms they are alleging given that new fossil fuel projects could still be approved.

“If we can’t say that granting the relief you seek would change even a single decision, then there wouldn’t be any impact on fossil fuel emissions,” Justice Diana Hagen asked the lawyer, Andrew Welle of the non-profit law firm Our Children’s Trust.

Hagen said even if the laws were stuck down, state regulators would still retain discretion to authorize future projects, which the plaintiffs have not sought an injunction to block.

Hagen and other members of the five-judge court suggested that was one of the many potentially fatal flaws of the young activists’ lawsuit that would warrant upholding a lower court judge’s 2022 decision to toss the case.

That judge, Robert Faust, had concluded the case raised a political question and that nothing in the state’s constitution would authorize a judicial remedy to address global climate change.

Too bad the judges didn’t ask the youts if they had all given up their own use of fossil fuels and made their lives carbon neutral. That should be the standard for anyone filing climate cult lawsuits.