They keep trying.<\/p>\n
Students locally and around the world have been taking to the streets and courthouses attempting to pressure governments and polluters to get more serious about reducing pollution and taming global warming.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re acting like their future is at stake which, sadly, it is. Perhaps more than their elders, younger people see climate change as affecting their health, where they live and even whether to have children.<\/p>\n
The activist ethos of young people is fueled by years of gloomy reports and growing physical evidence of how climate change exacerbated by human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are affecting the planet.<\/p>\n
More intense wildfires, stronger storms and rising seas that are encroaching on continental coastlines and shrinking islands have been attributed to climate change, despite more prominent denialism in high places, such as the White House.<\/p>\n
The actions of young people on this front have produced mixed results so far, though what ultimately happens remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
Students staged a walkout<\/a> at schools in San Diego County and across California on Friday in support of the \u201cPolluters Pay Climate Superfund Act.\u201d Their hope is to unlock Assembly Bill 1243<\/a>, which has stalled in Sacramento amid powerful opposition.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed<\/a> a lawsuit by nearly two dozen young people who claimed executive orders by President Donald Trump on energy and the environment violated their constitutional rights.<\/p>\n Intriguingly, the judge nevertheless may have opened the door for further legal challenges<\/a> regarding climate change.<\/p>\n Our Children\u2019s Trust,<\/a> a public-interest firm that organized the case, also helped young people win<\/a> a landmark climate case in Montana state court and a settlement<\/a> in Hawaii.<\/p>\n And students on several South Pacific islands won a major ruling<\/a> in international court that said nations have legal obligations to prevent climate harm, though the court does not have the power to enforce its opinion.<\/p>\n That young people are concerned about how climate will affect their future is no surprise.<\/p>\n A survey published late last year by the Lancet Planetary Health<\/a> concluded a large majority of young Americans are worried about climate change, with more than half saying global warming may affect<\/a> where they live and whether to have children.<\/p>\n The research was led by New York University\u2019s Grossman School of Medicine and several other universities. The study was funded by Avaaz<\/a>, a U.S. nonprofit that advocates activism on climate change, human rights, animal rights and other issues.<\/p>\n The news on the climate front has been grim for some time, with heat-trapping carbon emissions pushing global temperatures toward \u201ctipping points<\/a>\u201d beyond which scientists say increasing levels of damage will be irreversible.<\/p>\n There are glimmers of hope. Increasingly, some experts have been eschewing the near-total focus on doom scenarios<\/a> and calling for working more toward adapting to a warmer world while continuing to try to reduce the carbon emissions causing it.<\/p>\n Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, long an advocate of combating climate change, recently shifted his outlook somewhat, saying global warming will have \u201cserious consequences\u201d but \u201cit will not lead to humanity\u2019s demise.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cClimate change is serious, but we\u2019ve made great progress,\u201d he said<\/a> in a recent memo. \u201cWe need to keep backing the breakthroughs that will help the world reach zero emissions. But we can\u2019t cut funding for health and development \u2014 programs that help people stay resilient in the face of climate change \u2014 to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Bloomberg this week reported<\/a> that global emissions of greenhouse gases are expected to fall by about 10 percent by 2035, compared with 1990 levels, representing the first decline ever forecast by the United Nations.<\/p>\n But the report says the world remains \u201cwell off course\u201d in keeping global warming below the threshold leaders committed to when they signed the Paris Agreement a decade ago.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hardly likely any of that will temper the outlook and activism of young people on climate change.<\/p>\n Legal challenges by young people and others have been springing up in the U.S. and around the globe.<\/p>\n In the lawsuit against Trump\u2019s executive order, the judge \u201creluctantly\u201d dismissed the suit, saying it lacked a legal basis and was too broad in scope.<\/p>\n But Judge Dana Christensen said the plaintiffs had successfully argued that climate change constitutes a \u201cchildren\u2019s health emergency.\u201d Legal experts told<\/a> The New York Times the ruling offered guidance to shape other suits to avoid the problems this one faced.<\/p>\n Students at a law school with campuses on several Pacific island countries, including Fiji, Samoa and Kiribati, made their case to the International Court of Justice, which issued an advisory opinion that said countries must protect people from the \u201curgent and existential threat\u201d of climate change.<\/p>\n