Sunday, June 28, 2015

The Port Townsend Paper Mill has a HUGE Carbon Footprint and needs to STOP poisoning us as a matter of law. Check out this Groundbreaking Ruling.

I wonder if we, Port Townsend can get Attorney Andrea Rodgers of the Western Environmental Law Center to sue the Port Townsend Paper Mill for poisoning us?

It is time for the Washington Department of Ecology to not be about money for corporations and instead do what you pay them to and PROTECT the actual Ecology of Washington.

"In an unprecedented decision, a judge in Washington State has ruled in favor of a group of young people who filed a lawsuit last year asking that the state be required to develop a science-based plan for limiting carbon emissions in order to protect the climate for future generations.

The lawsuit, Zoe & Stella Frazier v. Washington Department of Ecology, was brought last year by eight teens and preteens, the youngest nine years old, who filed a petition last June with the Department of Ecology, requesting that it develop a rule “to recommend to the legislature an effective emissions reduction trajectory that is based on best available climate science and will achieve safe atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide by 2100.”

“Youth petitioners hereby submit this petition for rulemaking on behalf of themselves, the citizens of the State of Washington, and present and future generations of children,” it said.

Last August, the Department of Ecology denied the petition although it did not deny the scientific basis for it. The petitioners filed an appeal, arguing that they had a right to grow up in a healthy environment. King County Superior Court Judge Hollis Hill agreed with them and ordered the Department of Ecology to reconsider their petition and report back to the court by July 8 whether it will consider the science necessary to climate recovery.

“Washington State’s existing statutory limits should be adjusted to better reflect the current science,” wrote Hill in her decision. “The limits need to be more aggressive in order for Washington to do its part to address climate risks.”

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Andrea Rodgers of the Western Environmental Law Center, pointed to the groundbreaking nature of the decision.

“The effect of this decision is that for the first time in the U.S., a court of law has ordered a state agency to consider the most current and best available climate science when deciding to regulate carbon dioxide emissions,” she said. “The court directed Ecology to apply the agency’s own findings that climate change presents an imminent threat to Washington and demands immediate action. The ball is now in Ecology’s court to do the right thing and protect our children and future generations.”

In a footnote to her order, Judge Hill explained why she rejected the Department of Ecology’s plan to delay acting on emissions."

Source
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/groundbreaking-court-ruling-says-state-must-address-climate-change-thanks-to-teen-lawsuit