
Make a healthy climate a legal right that extends to future generations - sohkamyung
https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/09/17/make-a-healthy-climate-a-legal-right-that-extends-to-future-generations
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headmelted
I was going to say this will never work, but actually I think it might with a
couple of additions.

You'd need this signed into international law. Mass protests could probably
help with that, but you'd also need an international election drive towards
green parties among the youth to get a critical mass of supporters at the UN
level.

You'd also need to handle enforcement and compliance, which is where these
agreements have fallen down in the past. Some nations, and a lot of people,
just don't care about climate change, so you'd need _hard_ consequences for
polluters.

You'd also be parting oil-rich states and agricultural beef businesses from
the source of their income. The farmers won't do much but the oil states would
probably go to war over it.

On that topic I'll say this: electric cars. Yes they still need energy, no
that doesn't make it "the same as driving a gasoline car" as the EV energy
doesn't _have_ to come from fossil fuels (and increasingly is not), which
means you can move at a macro level _away_ from oil and coal over time. If you
remove the demand for fossil fuels you don't need to ban them.

I'm still not convinced it's impossible if we take the problem seriously and
stop pretending it doesn't need a global response.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Going on what I see of youth I think a significant shift toward green
politics, and away from "the usual suspects" is coming. Whether it is soon
enough is another question.

Perhaps the climate requirement needs to get incorporated in WTO and World
Bank rules. Then sanction those who don't meet them...

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
Future generations having rights is a weird concept. If we cut science
spending, can someone sue on behalf of future generations that they are being
deprived of a better world. Is advocating for negative population growth a
hate crime against future generations since you are trying to ensure fewer
will be born?

The real issue with climate change is that it is not electorally popular to do
anything other than a few token gestures. The increased gas taxes contributed
to the yellow vest protests in France. The Australian election upset was also
spurred by concern that one of the parties would try to cut fossil fuels.

I do not know that trying to do an end around the electorate and appealing to
the judiciary on a novel legal theory is going to work in the long term.

~~~
headmelted
Ultimately you're right if course. The real problem is that half of the people
on the planet either just don't care about climate change or believe in
science, and a lot of the other half are largely unmotivated.

We need to tackle the hardest problem, which is changing hearts and minds. I
don't have a suggestion here, just pointing out that we need to be honest
about the real problem.

It's like complaining about Brexit and/or Trump. Your problem isn't the
situation itself, it's that half the population looked at an option utterly
abhorrent to you and said "sounds good to me".

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pdamoc
The best idea I found around this topic is
[https://www.ethicalsystems.org/](https://www.ethicalsystems.org/)

If there is a move from shareholder primacy to stakeholder primacy, the
environment can be one of the stakeholders and there could be laws preventing
businesses abusing this stakeholder.

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SamReidHughes
What a nonsensical idea. You can't have judges writing environmental law on
the basis of legal rights.

And there is no such thing as a healthy climate -- an unhealthy environment is
caused by local pollution, not greenhouse gases.

~~~
polotics
I beg to differ: there is such a thing as killer heatwaves. Unhealthy climate!

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Theodores
The thing about rights is that we don't have any. We can make laws that give
us rights to education, equal opportunities and a whole raft of things but
society can be corrupt or fall to pieces. The wars we have had in recent years
are proof of this, the UN rules on selling weapons are not enforced and it is
the security council members that are doing all the preparations for war. For
this reason we need to be discussing the climate without using the 'rights'
word.

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dgudkov
How is it more reasonable than making healthy food a legal right? Yet, I
haven't heard about anyone of The Economist's scale seriously suggesting
making healthy food a legal right. Maybe because it's too idealistic.

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draugadrotten
Sometimes the right thing to do is just the right thing to do. It doesn't need
to be justified by artificial rights to people who do not yet exist.

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mrhappyunhappy
Yang proposed a constitutional amendment to ensure climate is a priority for
federal and state govts. beyond a single administration:
[https://www.yang2020.com/blog/climate-
change/](https://www.yang2020.com/blog/climate-change/)

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King-Aaron
I seem to recall the Jetsons once coming back to sue the Earth for destroying
the climate, they didn't win the case however.

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JMTQp8lwXL
We can be mindful of the climate, but inevitably the sun is going to explode
in roughly 5 billion years (note: the earth is 4.5 billion years old, so we're
roughly half way through the sun soaked portion of Earth's existence). The
Earth will continue to possibly exist, but sunlight does seem critical to
supporting the food chain, and more broadly, life.

We can legislatively protect the Earth for the future --and it should be
welcomed-- but the future is coming for us. Over extremely long horizons, no
law will save us. And modern humans have only existed for 200,000 years --
would such a law protect generations that are no longer Homo Sapiens, but are
our descendants? If we do indeed succeed in protecting our planet, with enough
time (short by geological standards) we won't even exist in our current form.

~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
Wrap it up folks, no use doing anything at all because in 5 billion years the
sun wil explode.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
I am supportive of us do something about climate change. It's just isn't a
panacea to all our problems.

It seems counterintuitive to be worried about climate change, to protect
future generations, but then ignore planetary death because that's "too far
out", when the whole premise of stopping climate change is to give future
humans a shot at continuing the species.

