【Poor Things】

There's a brand new committee in the U.S. House of Representatives -- the Select Committee on Poor Thingsthe Climate Crisis -- and the group used its first-ever hearing to call on four young environmental leaders to testify. Their age is particularly relevant, as these youthful citizens are destined to experience the worsening consequences of a globally disrupted climate.

Two of the witnesses were teenagers, including 18-year-old Aji Piper, a plaintiff in the ongoing "children's climate lawsuit." Piper is one of 21 children, adolescents, and young adults suing the U.S. government for supporting a national energy system that emits prodigious amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and ultimately threatening their right to a prosperous future.

To avoid many of the most ruinous effects of climate change -- namely debilitating droughts, historic flooding, and deadly wildfires -- the United Nations has concluded modern civilization must slash carbon emissions to basically zero by 2050 -- something "that is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes," said Jim Skea, a climate scientist who led the recent, damning U.N. climate report.

"2050 is just 30 years from now," Representative Kathy Castor, chair of the climate committee, said at the Thursday hearing. "All of you will be about our age." Castor is 52.

The new congressional committee has the specific task of recommending to the House of Representatives laws and actions that would limit the adverse societal consequences of climate change, though with the highest carbon dioxide levels in millions of years, Earth is already locked in for significant changes. The warming trend is unquestionable, even though winter (as Republicans are consistently pleased to point out) still comes around each year.

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Representatives spent the morning asking the young witnesses -- which also included Louisiana's Lindsey Cooper (a state coastal policy analyst), Chris Suggs (an 18-year-old student in North Carolina), and Melody Zhang (co-Chair of Young Evangelicals for Climate Action) — about how climate change has impacted their home states. The young witnesses cited many of the same events that have been documented by scientists, such marked increases in extreme precipitation and flooding, smoke-inundated cities, and vanishing coastlines.

“It takes a huge toll on our economy,” said Suggs, noting that U.S. Route 70 in North Carolina — a main corridor — has gone underwater.

Most of the representatives expressed gratitude for the young climate leaders burgeoning efforts, and even lamented the federal government's failure to rein in carbon emissions -- decades after legendary NASA scientist James Hanson warned that climate change was underway. "For four decades we’ve had a bipartisan consensus to do nothing," said Representative Sean Casten, a Democrat from Illinois.

But not all committee members were as receptive to the witnesses' views (which are backed by U.S. government scientists) that climate change is a momentous future problem, one that's attributable to humans. Gary Palmer, a Republican from Alabama, told the young leaders to remember that "the climate has a history, it’s always been changing" and to be aware of the planet's "natural variations." This is a well-trodden attempt -- repeatedly espoused by Republicans -- to sow doubt about human responsibility for climate change.

"Shame on Mr. Palmer for trying to feed these kids fossil fuel-funded denialist talking points when they’re the ones who actually have it right," Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, said over email. "If Mr. Palmer were truly interested in, and familiar with, the actual science of climate change, he would know that human activity is responsible for all of the warming of the planet, as natural factors (like volcanoes and small changes in solar output) actually OFFSET some of the warming temporarily."

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"This is reminiscent of the infamous episode when [former vice president] Dan Quayle “corrected” a child who had spelled “potato” correctly at a spelling bee, insisting on the incorrect spelling 'potatoe'," added Mann. "But this is more pernicious and immoral, because the stakes involved are literally the future of the world these kids inherit."

Some kids and young adults are also looking for the judicial branch of the federal government to address the nation's ample carbon emissions, which ticked up last year. Having sued the U.S., Aji Piper and his 20 fellow plaintiffs are now moving through the court system in an effort to take the lawsuit to trial, which would mean a federal judge would weigh climate science and its implications. But the Trump Administration has so far successfully used judicial maneuvering to keep the suit from actually advancing to this stage.

"They are scared of what the trial will reveal," Piper said at the Thursday hearing.

Though Piper's congressional testimony has no bearing on the case, Phil Gregory, one of Piper's attorneys, emphasized that it's important for Congress to listen to the young Americans who may very well experience the progressive deterioration of a stable, manageable planetary climate.

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"I genuinely believe that Aji will be able to fulfill the role of teacher and explain to the House Select Committee how climate change is affecting America's youth and why climate action is needed now," Gregory said before the hearing. "I'm not sure the committee members are hearing those voices of America's youth."

The lawsuit is still very much alive, though to a legal outsider it might seem like it's moving at a glacial pace. "But to an attorney it is moving relatively quickly," explained Gregory.

On June 4 in Portland Oregon, a three-judge panel will decide if the lawsuit can proceed to trial in a federal court.

"We want to put climate science on trial," said Gregory.