From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Managing Producer Jenni Doering with Pat Parentau, emeritus professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School, on the ruling this week by a Montana judge in favor of a group of youth plaintiffs who claimed in a lawsuit that the state’s promotion of fossil fuel development violated their constitutional right to “a clean and healthful environment.” With Executive Producer Steve Curwood. STEVE CURWOOD: In a first of its kind ruling in the U.S., sixteen young plaintiffs have won their suit against the state of Montana over its refusal to protect them from climate change. This climate case is one of several that have been filed by youth plaintiffs in states including Hawai’i, where extreme heat, drought, and hurricane-fed winds recently fueledhe nation’s deadliest wildfires in a century. So, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Joe Manchin, oil companies, and anyone in power who denies climate change, to me are the arsonists here.  And we’re living the climate emergency.   JENNI DOERING: Young plaintiffs in Hawai’i seek to hold the state Department of Transportation accountable for projects that lock in the use of fossil fuels, with a trial set for June 2024. There are also youth climate lawsuits against the states of Virginia and Utah, and the Juliana case against the federal government is still in play in Oregon. In her 108-page ruling on the Montana case, J udge Kathy Seeley cited the strong scientific record on climate change presented at trial and linked it to the harms the young plaintiffs are already experiencing.....READ ON          https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19082023/montana-youth-climate-lawsuit-pat-parenteau/