Lawyers are going to court to stop climate change. And it might just work

Sierra Robinson has had enough. The 17-year-old from Cowichan Valley, Vancouver Island, Canada is one of 15 plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the Canadian government in late October. She says

the government has been “talking for a long, long time about how climate change is a problem, yet they’re continuing to contribute to that problem instead of taking action on it. With this lawsuit, we’re asking them to take that action.”

Climate scientists expect higher sea levels and
rising temperatures to make storms such as Hurricane
 Katrina from 2005 more destructive.

The suit is calling on the government to develop and implement a plan that will accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the claim, the current government’s negligence – which has resulted in increasingly alarming levels of global warming – has violated young people’s rights to life, liberty and security. 

Robinson’s words echo those from a previous court case about climate change – one that was won, against all odds, by the party demanding a more effective climate policy.

In that instance, it was Urgenda, a Dutch activist organisation promoting a sustainable society. The defendant in that 2013 case was the Dutch state. 

Read the story from The Correspondent by Jelmer Mommers - “Lawyers are going to court to stop climate change. And it might just work.” 

Carol saw a need and so set up Psychology for a Safe Climate

Carol Ride recognised a problem about a decade ago and founded “Psychology for a Safe Climate”.

Carol Ride.

She has a team of nine fellow psychologists, mostly, who help her with workshops aimed at giving people the tools the live with the demands of a changing climate.

The Melbourne-based Carol said the group’s work has been targeted at assisting those who work in the climate change activist field helping them understand, and deal with the psychological damage they can sustain working in the climate field.

Carol said demand for the group’s workshops has grown and requests for events interstate in increasing. She said then had conducted a few interstate, but not they hope to set up similar groups in other state capitals.

Carol was recently interview by “Climate Conversations”.