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Comment by Loic | Hacker News Reader

I am surprised by the very negative ton of the first 10+ comments. These kids are not kids any more. They are between 15 and 20. As a reminder, Lafayette was 16.

They see an issue and act on it with the tools they have.

When you have an issue with a piece of software, you look at the alternatives and possibly you act on the issue, you fix it. They do what you do as designer/software developer, just in another field.

We need more people doing and less people complaining. Some may consider it stupid to sue, but if this is the only solution, why not?

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Yeah, it's probably stupid to sue (from a legal perspective, that is, it may be useful as PR), given that the judge seems to have admitted that there's no legal basis for the claim: Aikin wrote: “This action is of a different order than the typical environmental case. It alleges that defendants’ actions and inactions—whether or not they violate any specific statutory duty—have so profoundly damaged our home planet that they threaten plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights to life and liberty.” This is a novel legal argument, and it would have to be brilliant to gain much traction.

> We need more people doing and less people complaining. Some may consider it stupid to sue, but if this is the only solution, why not?

Some may consider it stupid to elect Trump, but obviously tens of millions of people felt it was the only solution.

I actually agree with you. Whatever you think of this suit or this election, I think we can agree that there are some situations in which you have no "good" recourse, and have to resort to whatever is there to make your point/stand.

> Some may consider it stupid to elect Trump, but obviously tens of millions of people felt it was the only solution.

Mostly people who will be dead before climate change becomes a problem.

>Some may consider it stupid to elect Trump, but obviously tens of millions of people felt it was the only solution.

But most people thought that was stupid, and legitimacy rests with the majority.

Both major candidates optimized for the electoral college. If the election were on popularity they would have optimized for such --what the result would have been is unknown, it may have been the same or it might have changed the outcome, but we do know that the campaigns would have been vastly different.

Also, one candidate spent twice the amount on advertising. If the winner had outspent the loser by 2x, I'm sure there'd be an outcry about the amount of money used in the campaign.

Evidence that HN is a right-wing capitalist site (like both US political parties): in a discussion of threats to humanity, an apparently highly-rated comment talks about paying too much in taxes. And fears that solutions to global warming will "completely subvert our entire system of law making."

(Both of which are good things: not just markets, but the nation state system itself, are exactly what need disrupting. Those who drank the koolaid can't think past tight bounds even when future generations are at stake. Not everyone can escape to billionaire mansion compounds in New Zealand. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-man... )

But there's a third explanation that doesn't imply it's right-wing capitalism: Maybe paying more taxes still doesn't solve global warming? A problem when I discuss global warming with colleagues is that they attempt to put me in one side (deniers) or the other (social-ecology), both of which don't match my views (In my case, I think tying social with ecology hurts both results, but the comment you're talking about has other ideas). So instead of judging and classifying this person, please dig into their logic and provide them with sources.

>Evidence that HN is a right-wing capitalist site

You read a different HN than I do.

>but if this is the only solution, why not?

It's not the only solution, and government didn't create it. People are causing global warming, not government. It's people who decide to use cars and get stuck in traffic instead taking a bus, bus will go that route anyway, people in cars will cause more traffic and generate more pollution.

People who don't turn off lights (also TVs, computers) at their homes over night. I met a lot of them, one of the dumbest excuse was... light bulbs break if we turn on and off the lights frequently, so they were leaving 3x 100W lightbulbs overnight, irony, they were working as council of Greenest Capital of Europe :)))

People who burn coal and wood to heat homes, burn coal = more CO2, burn wood = less forests.

People who don't recycle stuff - I'll just throw away that TV on a street or drop from 2nd flow window for fun! Ha! People who buy new phones and computers because that's a new fashion.

People who eat food that was grown in places were 10years ago we could see amazon rainforests.

People are too lazy and it's too hard for masses to leave their comfort zones.

It's people who rape people, murder people, poison people... oh wait, they're all illegal too.

So let's sue government for rapist and murderers to end it?

If the government were not enforcing existing laws against rape and murder, damn right there would be lawsuits.

Or if the government was allowing the laws to prevent rape and murder to be written by lobbyists for rapists and murderers.

Speak of the devil...

If there were no laws or no enforcement of laws against such things you would certainly sue (especially in the original sense of to plead and make arguments for a point).

The US is a uniquely litigious country so going through the court system in an adversarial sense makes perfect sense. In The UK system you might instead ask a court to determine who or which state organ has responsibility to fix the problem or who has authority to do something. See for instance the judgement on the Brexit case: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/judg....

The US government has committed to meeting environmental targets such as emissions limits, and can be held accountable for meeting them. It also licenses and regulates industrial activity, and therefore can reasonably be held accountable for the results of that activity.

Or are you arguing that the government should have no accountability, oversight, responsibility or say in any of the activity of it's citizens?

It's not up to the plaintiffs to say what specific thing the government or individuals should or should not do - switch off this light bulb, don't drive on that journey, don't build that factory. It's the government's responsibility to maintain the environment in a sustainable way and implement policies to do so. If it's not doing so, or worse not even trying to do so or doing so in a willfully negligent manner, then it should be held accountable for that. The same should be true of any of the government's responsibilities.

Agreed, I'm not saying government is not responsible for it, they provide grants for renewable energy, create power plants, give tax cuts for people with own solar panels etc. But it's up to people how that energy and material is used, is it wasted or used efficiently. So far, we're great at wasting everything.

Absolutely, our current way of life in the western world may not be completely sustainable. We're competing for a share of a shrinking pie with growing and advancing economies across the world, economies that we are also heavily and inextricably dependent on. I think to some extent we need to accept this and figure out ways to manage the painful transition to a long-term sustainable civilization.

People burning wood or coal in their homes is a miniscule contributor to CO2 compared to coal power plants. Only governments have the power to stop coal being mined at a national level, or coal power plants from being built.

> It's not the only solution, and government didn't create it. People are causing global warming, not government. It's people who decide to use cars and get stuck in traffic instead taking a bus, bus will go that route anyway, people in cars will cause more traffic and generate more pollution.

This is what's wrong. The government is supposed to be the people. The point of government is for people to steer people (as a collective) in the right direction.

And yet the true power is the policy makers in governments and board rooms who have(had?) the ability to incentivize and influence adoption of more sustainable actions. These people make decisions every single day. Their primary motivation? Profit for them and theirs. Their business models & the global economy relies on people consuming & throwing shit away, thus creating jobs, increasing production and, in turn, infinite quarterly growth... jusy like a parasitoid or a cancer. The dichotomous messages is what irritates me to no end with every "don't change habits, buy X to reduce your carbon footprint" news piece run ad infinum every. single. day.

I don't have the answers and, luckily, I am not a policy maker or <hardware maker> would be fined for deprecating 2 year old equipment, producers would account for the residual effects of their products' existence after it's usefulness expired, etc..

Now everyone run out and get in that Black Friday line to binge buy all those new XYZs, they're so much newer than the last iterations!

Government is supposed to be for the people by the people, and protect our common shared interests, as you say, such as resources (public trust, inherited from very old common law). This is the very angle the kids are coming from; and I suggest they will win at some point, maybe not today but soon enough as they represent all people yet to come, and since they are alreay present would have "standing".

I feel your wrath, all your points are things which should be addressed and the amount of people not giving a single f are legion. But saying government didn't create this is too short-sighted:

- they at least have a part in it. Just take your 'people who decide to use cars' argument: in countries like Belgium where it is, simply explained, more economical for a company to lease cars and give them to employees than to give the employees more loan. You can imagine what an employee does with a car he/she often doesn't even have to pay the gas for.

- they should be part of the solution as well. In my opinion it's their job to create a system where information and education about any of the problems you mention is available, or no, mandatory, for everyone annd definitely children. Teach them to do right, instead of having them believe chasing glamour or so is what's needed in life.

The Public Trust Doctrine describes the issue. But it must be recognized that the Government comprises and represents us, otherwise there may be a problem understanding their authority, to act in our name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_trust_doctrine

I think the problem here is they are proxies for those who really want the suits to go forward. Most of them cannot make an informed opinion about much in their early teens nor even by college as views can be heavily influenced by those in positions of authority they are exposed too.

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