Is clean atmosphere a ‘public trust’?
In an attempt to force recognition of the atmosphere being a natural resource to be protected by the state, several attorneys in the US have filed lawsuits in a number of jurisdictions, CNS News reports in an article titled
Climate Activists Target States With Lawsuits; Atmosphere As a ‘Public Trust’.
The goal is to have the atmosphere declared for the first time as a “public trust” deserving special protection. That’s a concept previously used to clean up polluted rivers and coastlines, although legal experts said they were uncertain it could be applied successfully to climate change.
State-level lawsuits were planned in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, organizers said. A federal lawsuit was to be filed in California, while regulatory petitions filed elsewhere would ask state environmental agencies to tighten restrictions on vehicle and industrial plant emissions.
“It’s not just a political issue; it’s a legal issue. All three branches of government have an obligation to protect that public trust,” said Amy Eddy, a trial attorney from Kalispell, Mont., who helped draft litigation to be filed with the Montana Supreme Court. “You have just as much control over emissions into the atmosphere as you do pollution into water.”
Regardless of where you stand on the issue of human causation in climate change, there is enough pollution in the atmosphere to have caused a steep increase in lung disorders in the last few decades. There is even a relatively new designation for that major disease category: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). For that reason alone, it would be a positive step to establish that a clean atmosphere is something to be actively fought for and to be protected by the government and the courts.
