Having witnessed the use of children to promote gun control after the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting, a group of Florida lawyers has decided to do the same thing with regard to climate change. On April 16, a squad of politically-minded ambulance chasers used a group of children as human shields by filing suit against Florida Governor Rick Scott because of Scott’s “deliberate indifference to their fundamental rights to a stable climate system in violation of Florida common law and the Florida Constitution.”
Also named as defendants in the suit are Noah Valenstein, the head of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection; Adam Putnam, the commissioner of the Florida Department of Agriculture; the Florida Board of Trustees of Internal Improvement Trust Fund, and the Public Service Commission.
The suit claims that Governor Scott’s inaction on climate change is “immoral” and that he and the various state agencies named have “endangered” the plaintiffs’ future.
Among the plaintiffs are 18-year-old Delany Reynolds and 21-year-old Oscar Psychas. The rest of the plaintiffs are ages 10-15.
“The reason I’m a part of this lawsuit is because I believe that the climate change crisis is the biggest threat that my generation will have to face,” Reynolds said. “Right now, we live in what I like to call the state of denial because the State of Florida is doing nothing to address climate change, but everything to cause it.”
Scott’s office released a statement regarding the lawsuit on Monday. “The Governor signed one of the largest environmental protection budgets in Florida’s history last month — investing $4 billion into Florida’s environment,” the statement read. “The Governor is focused on real solutions to protect our environment — not political theater or a lawsuit orchestrated by a group based in Eugene, Oregon.”
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The group the governor is referencing is called Our Children’s Trust, a climate-change advocacy group whose stated mission is to “protect earth’s atmosphere and natural systems for present and future generations.” The organization originated this lawsuit, as well as many other lawsuits that use children as human shields for their political agenda.
The frivolous suit blames climate change for Hurricane Irma last year, stating, “When Hurricane Irma struck in the summer of 2017, Delaney lost power for eleven days and her college studies were significantly disrupted. Her home on No Name Key and the surrounding lower Keys region suffered tremendous damage as it is located where the northern eyewall of Hurricane Irma hit Florida. Delaney was out of school for two weeks and is concerned about scientists’ predictions that climate change is leading to more frequent, more powerful hurricanes in the future that will impact her ability to live in places that she loves such as Miami and No Name Key.”
The suit also bizarrely claims that Governor Scott and the Florida state government are responsible for sea level rise, seaweed invasion, flesh-eating bacteria, and the psychologically damaging effects that the fear of climate change has on the plaintiffs, among many other similar statements.
Our Children’s Trust is also responsible for a lawsuit in federal court featuring 21 young plaintiffs, one of whom is also named a plaintiff in the Florida lawsuit. The organization also boasts lawsuits or petitions in Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington. The organization’s methods are always the same: They find youngsters and parents, brainwashed by the climate-change cult, and file lawsuits on the children’s behalf, hiding behind them.
Our Children’s Trust and the lawyers involved in this case — Guy M. Burns, F. Wallace Pope, Jr., Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte, Mitchell A. Chester, Erin L. Deady, Deb Swim, Jane West, Matthew D. Schultz, and Andrea K. Rodgers — all need to be held accountable for this cheap misuse of the court system. The use of children to advance political agendas is despicable and is clearly a tactic of people with faulty ideas. As with the AstroTurf March for Our Lives activists, the climate-change alarmists cannot further their beliefs with facts, but only with hyperbolic theater.
Image: screenshot of Our Children’s Trust website
