RUTHFULLY YOURS

In reporting on a Montana case in which a judge ruled that the state had to include the climate effect of oil and gas permits before deciding on them, the Associated Press showed just how brain-dead the discussions of “global warming” have become.

District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in favor of several young plaintiffs – ranging in age from 5 to 22 – saying they “have a fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate as part of the environmental-support system.”

As proof of the harm the plaintiffs are suffering, the order has a list of horribles that includes:

• “Olivia expressed despair due to climate change.”
• “Badge is anxious when he thinks about the future that he, and his potential children, will inherit.”
• “Grace … is anxious about climate change.”
• “Mica gets frustrated when he is required to stay indoors during the summer because of wildfire smoke.”

(Perhaps the judge should have ruled against the adults who are filling these poor children’s minds with climate alarmist fantasies, but that’s another story.)

The ruling was heralded by the likes of Julia Olson, executive director of the Oregon-based Our Children’s Trust, which has filed similar lawsuits in other states, who said: “Today’s ruling in Montana is a game-changer that marks a turning point in this generation’s efforts to save the planet from the devastating effects of human-caused climate chaos.”

(Apparently, after “global warming,” and “climate change,” and “climate crisis” failed to move the needle, the left is trying out “climate chaos.”)

We will admit that we find ourselves in wholehearted agreement with Emily Flower, spokesperson for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who called the ruling “absurd” and said that this “same legal theory has been thrown out of federal court and courts in more than a dozen states. It should have been here as well, but they found an ideological judge who bent over backward to allow the case to move forward and earn herself a spot in their next documentary.”

In any event, it was up to the crack reporters and editors at the once respectable Associated Press to come up with what is perhaps the most asinine sentence ever written about this issue.

“The ruling following a first-of-its-kind trial in the U.S.,” the AP reported, “adds to a small number of legal decisions around the world that have established a government duty to protect citizens from climate change.”

“A government duty to protect citizens from climate change”?

Think about that for a minute.

Do they mean any sort of climate change, such as the climate change that occurs around the world every year when temperatures can change from sub-zero to 90 degrees in a matter of months?

Or perhaps they mean that the government should protect citizens from things like El Nino, that naturally recurring – but scientifically inexplicable – climate phenomenon that we are currently experiencing, and underwater volcanic eruptions, both of which have driven this summer’s heat waves.

Or, longer term, what about ice ages? There have been five of them in the earth’s history – also for reasons nobody can fully explain. The last one ended 10,000 years ago, which is about how long these “interglacial” periods last. A few years ago, some researchers predicted the next ice age could begin in 2030. Is it the government’s duty to protect us from this climate variation?

Someone should take these AP reporters aside and explain to them a basic fact of life: The climate is always changing. Always. Sometimes for the worse. Sometimes for the better.

They might go on to explain to these reporters that the best way to deal with an ever-changing climate isn’t to wish change away, or pretend that denying a drilling permit will make one iota of difference, but to encourage human ingenuity and prosperity.

That’s how you deal with a climate that is always changing. By adapting to it. It’s why deaths from naturally occurring disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and so on, have steadily fallen as mankind has become smarter and more prosperous.

It’s radical anti-growth environmentalists – aided by brain-dead reporters – not oil and gas companies, who are the biggest threats to the health, safety, and well-being of those kids in Montana.