Introduction

• Author: Franklin L. Kury
• Pages: 13-18

xiii

Introduction

“e Right to a Stable Climate Is the Constitutional Que stion of the Twenty-

First Century.” at proclamation was the headline for an article by Ca rolyn

Kormann in e New Yorker magazine of June 15, 2019, describing argu-

ments before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the

Oregon case of Juliana v. United States of America, also k nown as the climate

kids’ lawsuit. In this ca se, twenty-one people between the ages of nine and

twenty-one from all parts of the country led a lawsuit in the United States

District Court in Oregon aga inst the United States for failure to protect

them from the damages c aused by climate change in violation of their right

to a healthy environment under the Fifth Amendment of the United States

Constitution.

e Fifth Amendment provides that no person may be “deprived of life,

liberty, or property without due process of law.” e Juliana case asserts

that government policies on fossil fuels contributed to catastrophic climate

changes that deprive them of “li fe, liberty, or property” in violation of the

Fifth Amendment. ey are ask ing the Court to compel government action

to phase out fossil fuel emissions that exac erbate climate change.

Recent years have seen thousands of ra llies and numerous lawsuits both

here in the United States and throughout the world spurred by the onrush of

climate change. A ll of them seek government action to protect the public’s

right to a healthy environment. Juliana is the rst lawsuit led by individual

plaintis to seek relief from climate change in a federal court ba sed on the

assertion that the United States Constitution as written provides a right to a

healthy environment.

e Juliana case was led in 2015 during the Obama administration.

It is still slowly winding its way through t he courts, and it is likely to be

some time, perhaps years, before all appeals are settled and the ca se is nally

decided. But whatever the outcome, the question the case has raise d remains:

does the public have a constitutional right to a healthy environment?

When I entered politics in 1966 by running for the Pennsylvania House

of Representatives, I had no idea that anything I might do, if elected, would

be relevant a half centur y later to the fundamental constitutional question of

the next century, the public’s constitutional right to a healthy environment.

But that is exactly what happened, through the unforeseeable circumsta nces