In the tradition of all great civil disobedience that paved the way for such brave displays, and securing their place as Truly The Greatest Generation, schoolchildren today will daringly accept their teachers’ encouragement to skip school and promote a fashionable cause. To fully appreciate the moment, CLW thought it worth revisiting the genesis of these “world-wide youth marches”.
Thanks to records obtained under a state open records production about the infamous meeting in La Jolla – convened to craft a plan to privately litigate against opponents of the climate agenda – we learned this Spring that, as with all good ideas, it was lawyers urging this forward.
In June 2012, world-wide youth marches were prescribed as a key component of a press strategy in support of anticipated litigation with children as plaintiffs. Their case like the desired marches did indeed ensue, as Juliana v. United States, currently pending before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
These public records produced mere days after 60 Minutes’s promotional segment, and days before the nationwide children’s climate walkouts, affirm:
- the climate litigation campaign was expressly grounded in this failure of “conventional approaches” otherwise known as our constitutional system
- it was to be “linked to youth climate movement (world-wide marches)”;
- it would be accompanied by a press strategy including documentaries featuring children;
- the meeting was acknowledged, but this strategy laid out there was “not to be publicized”;
- the strategy sought both a cooperative federal administration “Consent decrees (would be ideal)” — and to “Bring selected carbon majors to the table, then what?”
“Then what” turned out to be demands by cities for “damages” to run into the several hundred billions of dollars, in litigation — regularly thrown out by the courts — demanding that targeted industries bail out bankrupt progressive governance and pay for their desired programs. It meant, as in the Juliana case, a demand for federal imposition through the courts — by consent decree, if elections turn out right! — of what is now known as the dangerous if absurd Green New Deal.
“Then what” turned out to mean a climate litigation industry, dedicated to a shakedown. And a lot of terrified, indoctrinated kids skipping school to serve as props in political, and legal, campaigns.
So today, spare a thought not just for the children, but for the ever-present lawyers.