trump loyalist, they say they will be trump's most ardent allies in congress and others they don't mention his name very much. they say they would be an independent check on trump in congress and that appealsto a segment of the republican electorate here who voted from trump but did so holding their nose . >>. >> host: greg bluestein is a reporter for the atlanta constitution, you can read more and follow his reporting probably today on twitter . thanks for the update. >>. >> guest: thanks for having me. >> a group of students aged 9 to 19 is suing president trump over the us government's climate change policy which they claim puts their future in jeopardy. in early february, their lawyers in federal court substituted president trump for president obama as the defendant in their lawsuit. they are seeking a court order requiring the government to quickly reduce

carbon dioxide emissions. many scientists they drives global warming. one of the plaintiffs, 19-year-old college student and her attorneys spoke to the commonwealth club of california in san francisco about the case. >> our program tonight is our constitution, our climate and our children. is there a right not to be harmed by climate change. and our speaker tonight are a distinguished group. gregory, partner, cochair the petrie macarthur llp. gail hatton, youth plaintiff in constitution and public trust case and julia olson, executive director of children's trust so please welcome our wonderful panel and greet them for us. [applause] and we will ask still again.

>> we just saw for those of you who haven't heard, and amazing judicial defeat today where the ninth circuit as in a 3 to 0 opinion kept the temporary restraining order nationwide in place over the travel ban and that is ... [applause] it's wonderful news and it's an excellent example about how our courts who serve as the third branch of government check the other two branches, the congress and the executive when they overstepped their bounds. but courts don't just stop actions . courts can cause actions. courts can cause the executive branch to take steps and that's the basis of

our suit and with that, i'm going to turn it over to julia olson,executive director of our children's trust and cocounsel on our case . >> thanks everyone for being here tonight, thanks to an and the commonwealth for organizing the event . we have is here for the young people involved in the case. the last thing that you're about to hear about for the next hour is really a case for everybody and it's a case for all the children in their lives that you love and i want to start by telling you the story of one child who is a plaintiff in the case. he's 13 years old, her name is jaden and she lives in louisiana and for those of you not getting to see the picture in front of the screen, on august 15 at 5 am, she stepped out of her bed

and stepped into water that was up to her ankles. this is during the storm you might remember last august in the south. and in her words, she stepped out of bed and stepped right into climate change so the waters areflowing in, coming from the floor of your home, coming through the roof , pouring in. there also is with water going out of the tub and the same and the toilets in her home. so she's at home with her siblings, her mom is in a neighboring community trying to help neighbors and friends struggling with flooding from the day before, that it took 13 hours to go several miles to get home to her children. she was five feet deep in water and her car was flooded. so jaden's family survive, 13 people in the region died. and our federal government said this was the one set the storm limit but the problem is these 1000 storm events are coming everyone thousand years anymore. they're happening with increased frequency and severity and the government

says that it's directly attributable to climate change. that's the story of one of the uses and the reason that we founded our children's trust in 2010. we did so to elevate the voice of young people and to give them a platform to secure their rights to a stable climate system. you can see on the screen 21 of these plaintiffs were involved in the juliana versus united states case that will talk about in more depth tonight. no you lift up these voices, we give them a way to bring action against government, to compel the needed reduction of emissions, so we will stabilize the climate system for them and future generations. so we connect them with lawyers. like gregory, who donates all his time pro bono to the cause, we've been doing that

for six years. [applause] and he truly is a hero. he's been in it from the beginning and there are many lawyers like him around the country and the world who are doing the same thing on behalf of youth everywhere and to stay on these liberal actions that we support. the lives that we turn to in this effort are foundational laws. they are laws that explain why we have government in the first placeand what our basic human rights are and one of those is the public trust . this is a law that goes back to ancient roman times and the justin in code. it's the baseline, the bedrock of legal systems around the world and it's simple. it says that government is a trustee and it holds those vital resources that we all depend upon and share in common like air and water and trusts for the benefit of future generations. and all of you out there, you

are the beneficiaries. as our future generations so those resources need to be protected so they can be there for everyone's benefit and use and not just for the exploitation of the oil industry. so another thing that's really cool about what our children's test does is we are not willing to compromise the state ability of our climate system and the longevity of the resources we need for survival. we look to scientists and experts from around the globe who are doing the most incredible research to identify what needs to happen to protect the climate system for our great-grandchildren and what they say is, a two degrees celsius rise in temperatures from

preindustrial levels which is what the global community has been focused on is catastrophic. who wants to live in that type of world? we will see catastrophic sea level rise, storms beyond belief, immense global chaos and destruction. what we really need to do and we can do it is we need to return to an atmospheric carbon dioxide level of 350 parts per million and we need to stabilize temperatures at less then a long-term warming of one degree celsius. so all of our actions on behalf of youth are uncompromising and based on the science. >> i hope you are seeing the right slide there, i have an image . and the other thing, just before i turn it over to talk a little bit more, about this movement and its campaign, this is strategic litigation that's coordinated and is based on a campaign so we do a lot of media work, we get people to speak and we look to other social justice movements to inform the work we are doing and i let phil talk about some of those i'm

going to use three expressions, one is unprecedented, another on novel theory, a third, this is no ordinary lawsuit. to think these would be coming from press clippings but in fact they are from the opinions, judges have written about our case. but we're really not a new theory. this is been going on for decades. when we first started formulating these cases, we focus on the civil rights cases and we said it's the youth that were put front and center, not only through high school and segregation rallies but the naacp put kids on trial as well as the science showing the harm that separate but equal was causing to the kids in the south.

an excellent book on this if you haven't read it is richard kluger's book simple justice.it's on the history of brown versus board of education and how they got to the decision but essentially what the naacp was doing is putting civil rights on trial by having but you as well as scientists from around the nation testify about the harms that were incurring so if you read the brown decision, it really talks about the science that was put before the courts. another thing, another book i want to recommend to you that i handed out my last copy is called unlikely heroes. it's by a guy named jack katz and what it is is about the judges in the fifth circuit in the south who had to implement these decisions.

judges who courageously took on the entire ingrained segregated world and we thought that there were judges in the south that could do that, are there judges nowadays who are prepared to take on the fossil fuel industry? the other cases we looked at were the tobacco cases and we all know that the tobacco industry was very big. doubt is their product. and that's a book i david michaels but the whole theme for the tobacco industry is selling uncertainty. based on the documents we have gathered and we've received from independent sources, the same public relations folks, the same lobbying outfits that were dealing with tobacco were in parallel dealing with the oil companies.

so the other cases they were looking at to track are the cases involving wall street. my partner joe just wrote a book, people versus 30 and that's what's really going on out there. we are trying to express problems that wall street wants to continue to exist so how do we do that? how do we go after these groups of people? recently, california had a major line of cases involving itsprison system . the prisoners went after the prison system and said what we are enduring, the conditions we are enduring, overcrowding, poor medical treatment, those violate the eighth amendment rule, cruel and unusual punishment clause so they went after the california prison system and

those of you who don't know about this line of cases, it's fascinating because the prison system was found to be so overcrowded that the target, the court set for the prison system to achieve that said okay, you will be okay if you hit a target is 135 percent occupancy so they had to bring down and the court said we're going to start releasing prisoners until you get to that target and that's very important for our case when we talk about later, the court setting a target and requiring the governmental body, pleased to reach that target, come up with a plan and the governmental body cannot come up with a plan and these prison cases, they said we don't have the

plaintiffs, will have the prisoners set up a plan to come up with a target. lo and behold, the prison system came up with that target. and finally, i want to say the last thing we focus in on is who is going to be the most harmed by what the government has known historically about what's going on with climate change? and obviously, the people are who are going to be most harmed our youth and future generations. >> and that's how we came to determine that kids might be an excellent group to bring this case. >> while you talk about how you became a plaintiff? >> i'm one of the 21 youth bringing the suit against the federal government. it was the bringing of my senior year so in 2015 before august 2015, we filed a lawsuit and i was in bend oregon, my hometown and there was the use of high schoolers

, trying to bring basically we were trying to get us to go to city council meetings to get a climate action plan so set carbon emissions. >> and this was eugene had passed a similar plan and how they did that was you had to be served on the city council meetings, telling them their rights were being infringed upon and that eugene needed to be responsible to cut carbon emissions so a group of us you invested to do that as well. so it was through that that i got connected with siciliano in eugene who had previously been on the oregon state case and she contacted me asking if i wanted to be of the people for climate change and by meaningful she meant by going to the root of the issue which was suing the federal government. >> i was intrigued of course. my parents were as well.

and it was intriguing to me because i've always been interested in environmental law, i was interested in the theory of it and i was deeply concerned about the place that i love and it was more than just the fact that that past winter i had seen my ski trails being closed down because of lack of snow. >> it was the places that i love, and the people that i loved were being threatened because water is essential to life and it begins as these small things and it grows and grows and you realize the impacts of climate change and how extensive it is and that it's affecting everyone. so it's kind of a no-brainer to jump on board like that. i can honestly say that i didn't realize exactly what was going to be like and i'm so excited that it's grown to be this big, i think i didn't

know at all it was going to be this big. and each of us, each of the plaintiffs, we all have a background in environmental activism. we all have our own injuries so this is a complaint against the federal government is our own personal injuries because as you can see, as celia talked about, it impacted just one, there's 20 plaintiffs and two of them, two of my good friends come from farms that are being threatened and the list really goes on and we each have our own stories and julia get some very eloquent ones and she is against the federal government which is really what our case is alleging is against the federal government and she's

going to explain why we brought against thefederal government and notjust against the fossil fuel industry which is something that's important to distinguish . >> thank you clea . [applause] so one theme i think that it's fascinating is storytelling is important and bringing a human element of how climate change is impacting people so we will hear a few more of these stories as we go along tonight and i want to talk about the claims and the complaints. we filed in august 2015, against the united states, the president and the departments and agencies responsible for our fossil fuel based energy systems and also responsible for not controlling the pollution coming out of that system. and i'll just run you through the claims. and kind of make it as simple and understandable as possible. this is a constitutional case under the fifth amendment which protects the right to life, liberty and property.

and the fifth amendment is the step for due process by our constitution and what it means is that government can't do things that infringe on our rights to life, liberty and property. in this case, of personal security as these young people, their very lives in the future and for many of them who live in coastal regions, their property is being threatened by the actions of this. and i'll go into that a little bit more. one side of the claim is about when the government knows that it's putting citizens in danger, it creates a duty on government to then, to prevent that danger or if the danger exists, to then do something about it and they can act with indifference to the harms that they created. so a really important part of

our case is looking back at four just how long the united states has done it if we kept burning fossil fuels, we would cause catastrophic climate change and when we started doing research for this case, we were all shocked to find that the knowledge is back to the 40s and 50s and perhaps even earlier, to the early part of the 1900s. but there was a moment in 1965 when lyndon b. johnson issued a report out of the white house and there was an entire chapter on atmospheric carbon dioxide and climate change and a predicted with unbelievable accuracy, what was going. if we dating up and burning fossil fuels. >> they knew that it would cost ocean ossification, they would cause climate destabilization and they knew the impacts would be catastrophic. >> this is a letter from 1969, by the white house and

you can see on the screen that the letter refers to the potential apocalyptic change and in terms of talking about sea level rise, they wrote this could turn to raise the level by 10 feet, and for that matter. >> this is 19 $65. then during the nixon white house in 1970, another report came out that said that in the longer term, the quality of the atmosphere may well determine whether man survives or terraces. >> so i want everyone who's listening to this to really understand how the long-lasting the knowledge has been about the quiet dangers because it's the very survival of our future generation. ask then the question, i'm showing another chart for this right now , is showing back to 1955 all the way to the present. the various key moments in

time when our government issued reports to make critical findings. top scientists around the world, and levels of our government in and out to the presidency.about the need to act on climate change. >> and this was repeated every decade, every administration. we need to act on climate change, we need to transition off fossil fuels but instead what we did is permitted more development, more production, more leasing as our public lands , oil and gas extraction, and we kept the fossil fuel based energy system in place. no citizen could do anything about this because this truly is agovernment embedded system that we all depend upon. >> . >> how's this for a little comic relief? there have been international passages that you all probably know about climate change. back 22 years. united states initiated those

climate passages as a way to defer action on climate change. though the whole united nations framework i mentioned, was orchestrated by the united states to avoid setting limits on climate pollution and to keep talking and talking and so this rings as it settled that we agreed to sign a pledge to hold another meeting to consider changing course at a date yet to be determined and that's what our world leaders have been doing. >> so this is 89 and his island is subject to sea level rise right now, he's already lost late in life. and his home will be underwater if we don't stop what we're doing and i bring a lot because one part of the case is about the determination against young people and their right to equal protection under the law. next overdeveloped versus the

hodgkin's case, the decision saying that everyone has the right to marry. that case was about protecting a group of people who are being discriminated against. with respect to the exercise of a fundamental right. these children , are being discriminated, with their ability to exercise their fundamental rights and not have their social security threatened. >> and i just want to show you two more quick slides and for those listening, this slide shows under president obama's clean power plan which in his words, the single most important thing the united states government has everdone on climate , would essentially streamline our commissions, our climate emission all the way to 2040. that's when we lose coal-fired power plants but it's basically a stop light on emissions and this is one of the biggest fraud

perpetrated on the american public to lead them to believe the clean power plant was going to solve climate change and it was never intended to do so. conversely, this graph shows how the emission cuts really need to be to get back to safe levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there's a food additive that says if we had started when epa said we should of started, that would have been much easier transition but now that this decline is significant. and it's instead that we aim to achieve in this case. so bill is going to tell you a little bit about the defenses they raise. >> this is an clark, chair of the natural resources reform, you are listening to the commonwealth club of california. our program tonight is our constitution, our planet and our children. is there a right not to be harmed by climate change? >> phil gregory from petrie

and mccarthy llc, g.i., youth plaintiff and constitutional and public trust case and julia olson, executive director of our children's trust. phil, back to you. >> i'm doing the defendants positions all of course i get to wear the black hat here. and let's start off, we only sued, we only sued the federal government so the first step in the case was the key trade association to the fossil fuel industry, the petroleum bunch and the national association of manufacturers, they moved to intervene in our case. why did they do that? they said if this case goes forward and these kids win, our business could be dramatically cut back and very well could be eliminated. so the judge let in these trade associations as

defendants. then we had to face what everybody faces in the litigation, is called a motion to dismiss, they say oh, your claims are all who we and the first thing, the argument was is what we call standing. standing means somebody has to prove that under article 3 of our constitution, they have a viable case for a controversy. so standing has three elements, the first element is there's been an injury in fact. and the defendant argued you know, like the change is so bad, it's so widespread that these grievances are general for everybody and under the law, you consume for a generalized grievance so these plaintiffs don't have standing because they are merely exerting a generalized

grievance. not that they have been individually injured. and next, be they said causation. they said that the injury these plaintiffs suffered, it has to be traceable to the defendant's conduct. you know what? there's no case, this is what the defendants say. they will weigh these plaintiffs will be able to prove that the federal government cause any crime. so let me just tell you that the court just quickly to a side, they took that on. the court said no, in a decision denying the motion to dismiss, the judge aiken said the defendants as we allege in our complaint are responsible for more than 25 percent of global co2

emissions, that's the united states alone, more than 25 percent. but because we were able to show there was a significant share, the court said that these plaintiffs can prove causation. the third thing about standing, the third claim the defendants asserted is that the, you can't do anything about this. >> you can't do anythingabout this. there's so many wonderful regulations out there , let us eat having, and acting regulations and that's what you should be doing. as judge, you cannot do anything. and the judge took them to task on that. say that if the plaintiff can show, if these kids can show that the defendants have control over in order of

greenhouse gas emissions, that a reduction in those emissions will by nature slow climate change, reduce the probability of harm and the plaintiffs would then be able to redress their injuries. we were able to get around that. >> but the other argument, the defendants raise is what you all call separation of powers taste argument called deliverable questions and the political question is not something that involves politics. when it is is that a branch of government, the judicial branch should not get involved in matters that are entrusted to other branches of government. so if it's foreign policy, for example and the constitution has entrusted that the executive, you should stay out of it. again, remember it's called the little question doctrine

and the bill and democracy in america observed there is hardly any political question in the united states that sooner or later does not turn into a judicial question. we just saw that as we said earlier with the immigration ban . but here the court said it doesn't matter that the court has to choose which agencies or sectors should reduce emissions or by how much. the court is not going to direct any particular action. the judge here is going to asbury request and julia will talk more about this in a moment, that a target as we talk about in the present case and have the defendant come up with a plan to hit that target and so court said, that's how we are going

to do this started off by saying climate change poses a monumental threat. and the judge turned to the attorney representing the fossil fuel industry and asked him, well, do you agree there's a threat being posed by human caused climate change? and that attorney refused to take a position in the court. refused to take a position. now, we know now that the fossil

fuel industry, based on documents we have, clearly was influencing the president. for example, we have the american petroleum institute, one of the trade associations that intervened having in 1998 an action plan, victory will be assured when we sow doubt, when we create doubt in everybody's minds. well, doubt is their product. that's what their communications plan was in 1998. another memo we have is a state department memo. and it's between two officers and the united states state department, stating that they are going to go talk to a group called the global climate coalition, of which the american petroleum institute and the national association of

manufacturers are members, and they're going to say the president of united states, at this point is george w. bush, rejected the kyoto treaty in part based on input from you. so the fossil fuel industry, these intervener defendants were working hand in glove with the executive to keep the fossil fuels systemic problem in place. and that's been one of the major issues that come out in the court proceedings. why don't you talk about what it's like at one of the court proceedings. >> just coming off after that, it's something i'm aware of when i signed up with the other 20 years and we look at the government lawyers sitting side-by-side, the fossil fuel lawyers. the first time i was just sitting there looking at them, i was wondering, like do you have children? i was shocked because up until

this point in my life i thought the government had been doing kind of a fine job, but i really realized seeing that visually through sitting side-by-side and i was doing to him in court of law saying that we don't have rights to livable future. it was really discouraging. oral argument is full of the days of hearing full of discouragement and encouragement. you go in with a nervous energy, we are excited for julia and her sitting on the left side, luckily, and -- [inaudible] >> i did not mean it like that. [laughing] julia just come she's like a champion storyteller and so it's like there's a lot of legal statutes and all the previous cases that they go off picks sof the stuff goes over my head. i'm one of the older plaintiffs. there's a lot of legal stuff

going on, but then there's also the storytelling, the moral side of climate change. it's affecting humans and i think julia does an eloquent job bringing that in and it brings tears to peoples eyes. so that's inside our courtroom. there's also two other overflow rooms full of people and it is being streamed in portland which is really awesome. once we leave the courtroom, that's what it's really cool. so when we get out there, there's hundreds of people, hundreds of supporters of all ages. a lot of kids have come from in town but also out of town and are just rallying and shouting encouragement, you know, they know that this trial is for them and it's really encouraging because i know everyone in the crowd has their own story, too. it's also encouraging to see the media there to show that there's people are supporting and to show that the judge, people are mobilizing guide this important

issue and that they know with the right to this. that's just going to continually become more and more important as a go to trial. so that's something to keep in mind as well. but coming out of the hearings, i don't know if julia was going to mention this, but the hearings have been beyond the fact i think julia has these amazing arguments and that with a really great case, but the judges, they make it seem like they are in favor with our case, which i didn't even know was like a loud when i like hard the judge in the last hearing when she was just kind of like ripping the government for not selling with this because they knew that obama is time to come up with a plan and that they admitted they just came, you know, they just keep up in the first thing this it was admitting climate change was human cost. basically the judge just said so why are you sitting down with his kids and coming up with a plan?

you can't get stuff to other branches, then why are you sitting down with his kids and going through the courts and doing it? i was shocked and kind of like what? did you just say that? we were all like looking at each other, all the kids and i. it was exciting. it left us with a lot of hope and also, like, i was kind of confused because i was like stuff doesn't usually go your way, you know? but coming out of that hearing and having her decision come out right after trump was elected, it's really a source of hope ad i'm excited for trial and the discovery process, for sure. >> thanks, tia. thanks for the kind words. it is really energizing to be at the federal courthouse. it's unlike anything i think we have experienced in our legal careers. we had a status conference on

tuesday. it was a packed courtroom with full of people and people and outside waiting to what the next steps would be the case. it's great to have that level of public engagement and people really saying this third branch of government action pics i i encourage you all to come check it out sometime in eugene. so as tia said, two days after we got our new president, and it wasn't the one some of us wanted, we got a great decision from the federal court. it's a beautiful read if anyone likes to read legal decisions. we also have some summaries on r children's trust website so you can check that out. but i want to read you one of my favorite parts of her decision. she said there is no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society. just as marriage is the foundation of the family, a stable climate system is quite

literally the foundation of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress. and for those who don't know a lot about our implied liberties that we hold under the constitution, there's only been probably less than ten times in the history of our nation where the supreme court has recognized and implied right that isn't explicitly written in our constitution. some of those implied rights include the right to travel, the right to pair your children, the right to protection from pirates on the high seas, in case any of you are interested, the rights of privacy, the right to marriage, the right to self-defense. so the fact that this court has recognized for the first time in our country's history the right to a climate system that sustains life, a habitable planet, environment that is safe for our children is really

remarkable, and is critically important we move forward. the other thing that the court found is that the public trust doctrine applies to our federal government and not just to our states. and that the federal government has an obligation to protect the trust resources that come under its control, like our territorial waters, our ocean waters and protected those for the benefit of present and future generations. that's an affirmative duty on government to protect. so our oceans are threatened with acidification and sea level rise, and we need to take a little radio break. >> this is ann an clark, childrn five and natural resources. you're listening to the commonwealth club of california, a program tonight is our constitution, of climate and our children. is there a right not to be harmed by climate change? with philip gregory from,

partner. tia, plaintiff, and you been listening just now to the executive director of our children shas, julie also be a quick come to the point in our program tonight for our audience questions and we will start that just as soon as i get them to philip. and philip will be referring back to audience qstions. if you have questions you'd like to ask, is bring them up. that would be wonderful. >> thank you, ann. so we have some questions here. i'm going to start with this one. connections with schools could be a powerful way to spread awareness of your mission. your plaintiffs on example of empowerment for students. how about schools having ways to

bring the constitution and ideas of civic duty to light? how can schools do that? julia, tia, what do you think? >> well, i can talk a little bit about one when we engage with youth at the local novel. we have a program called youth climate action now, and we help support young people in different communities to go to the local governments and tried to get laws passed to commit cities to reduce emissions at levels required by science. to do that we partner with teachers. we partner with youth organizations. one of our key partners in this effort is a group called earth guardians. they are also a plaintiff organization on the federal lawsuit. and so earth guardians has cruise all over the country and all over the world. answer any an person who wants

to get involved and actually be part of this plaintiff group can start a crew or join a crew some earth guardians. they can also connect to our children's trust and get plugged into a local effort. >> another thing we are doing is we're getting up to try to do something for this youth day, april 22, that will try to tie educating children about the constitution, about climate change and about our courts. julia come one other question for you. what if you speak briefly about how our children's trust was created in where the idea came from? >> sure. so i was an environmental lawyer for a long time, bringing cases to protect the west. and then i had children and

really came to realize that climate change is going to be the issue that we define their lives. and i was frustrated with the lockable approach of trying to be done all these bad projects and it would bring cases that have literally nine lies. hit did if i met to review, sto, do another bottom of the review. we are seeing that process right now with the dakota access pipeline and the keystone xl pipeline that obama stopped and now is coming back. these things keep coming back. we were not getting at the systemic problem of climate change. i heard professor mary would speak at the inverse of oregon and she was writing about applying the public test doctrine to the atmosphere. she calls it at mr. trust litigation. she had been looking for crazy lawyers to actually bring these cases that should been talking about for a few years, and i happen to be one of those crazy lawyers.

we met angie started generating more ideas and i decided that it wanted to take on this effort of bringing campaign, strategic litigation those coordinated across the country and eventually the world, and support lawyers to do these cases on behalf of young people. and so that was the origin. and again, it's really depend upon people like tia who come forward to help lead this effo effort. >> tia has a question. go ahead. >> it says do you have a message for san francisco's children and the prayers that you would like for this audience to carry forward? i know it and put on this question would be to inform young children and youth about climate change and inform other adults if they're not aware of it, and in front of the courts powers and what's going on about this case -- informed them --

definitely in these coming months, once the trial happens, organizing people to hold rallies, hold vigils throughout the trial, which maybe weeks on end. and i think starting individual movement is really powerful and definitely, climate change is suchlike and environmental justice issue, and i think that's why finding all these different civil rights movements and joining all these different other rallies going on is really important. because that's a huge part of our case, it's just that it is adjusted -- i can't say that word right now. it's an issue that infringes on a lot of different rights, so supporting of the people in other movements is important to us, too, and for all of us to be a part of. also spotted this message of hope to people that something like this is going on. because there's a lot of darkness with this new

administration, and this is what i like for people right now. >> thanks, tia. another question is what's going to happen next in the case? and here i get to change hats. [laughing] >> put on the white hat. so today we have substituted in for barack obama, president donald j trump as a defendant in our case. and we're hoping downstream to take his deposition. the status conference julia alluded to that occurred earlier this week, the court told us that it wanted to focus on the science, and with incredible scientists, a blue ribbon panel of scientists who are going to talk both about the scope of the problem and how we can remedy the problem.

and these are going to be, this is going to besides, not alternative fax. [laughing] okay? as we were gearing up for this case, we did a lot of informal discovery. we went to websites and we saw documents. for example, here's a 1983 report from the epa. can we delay of greenhouse warming? there's reports to congress where they pin point 2015 as the timeframe where if we continue on the business as usual, with regard to hit a tipping point. they were not too far off. all these reports strongly urge the executive department to do something about climate change. unfortunately, they continue on as business as usual. so we were troubled when the new administration started taking

websites down. so we have sent out a letter telling them, reserve the information. we are also taking steps to take the deposition of rex tillerson, both in his role as chair and ceo of exxon mobil, on the executive committee of the american petroleum institute, and now what is he going to do about this significant problem in his role as secretary of state? the other side wants to depose our children. they want to say well, we want to take the depositions of people like tia about are you really being injured i climate change? my view of course give me a break. but they're going to do that. the government has also indicated it's considering appealing the decision julia alluded to that came down from judge aiken.

finally, we're hopeful to have a trial of this case in the fall, winter of 2017. and that's going to be three to six weeks where the court will put the science on and we will see what kind of defense the federal government and the fossil fuel industry throw against us. >> this is ann clark, chair of the above middle natural resources lead for good or listening to the commonwealth club of california. unfortunately, we have reached that point in a program from, for one last question. and what we've gathered is a lot of questions, and i really appreciate that from the audience, and i do want to thank you. but we just have time for one last question. so phil, we will get back to you for that famous last question. i want the radio audience to know that phil is definitely

wearing his white cowboy hat. >> so this is a question that julie is going to answer. if we are successful at trial, what kind of consequences will be federal government and the fossil fuel industry face? >> so if we're successful, if we win this case, life is going to change in a really good way. we are going to have a national plan that sets forth that we transition really quickly off of a fossil fuel based industry. we are going to be off fossil fuels probably by 2040, predominantly in the united states. and that efforts going to spread around the world. so that's what will happen. one thing at what everyone to know who's listening is w we're also working with the top technical experts and economists around the world who already have are developing plans for how we do this. it's feasible.

the only reason it hasn't been done is because it hasn't been political will to do it. but it is feasible and we will all be better off and healthier in our communities as a result. so that's what happens if we win. i will say one last thing, and that is we need everyone's help to win this case. we have massive resources on the other side with the defendants. our children's trust is a small nonprofit. we rely on donations to we also need the public to mobilize and stand with his kids we get a drop in the fall of this year. wherever you live, do what you can come write letters to the editors, get the word out about this case. it's going to be the trial of the century on climate. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, julia olson, tia hatton. if you could add one last sentence, would you be most important for you to tell our audience? >> i would say that i am a part of this case so that i can look my children in the eye and tell them that i fought against climate change. and i think that's the stance we are all taking, how are we going to tell future generations how we dealt with this and the outcome of this case is going to decide how the future looks for future generations. [applause] >> and phil, you've been such a wonderful job for all of us. i know a couple of sentences, but we would love to hear your last thoughts on this. >> i have a great amount of

faith in the independence of our judiciary. and our courts are going to stand up as the firm branch of government against ignorance and improper use of power. and i would strongly encourage everybody out there to believe in our court system. it's going to be severely tested over the next four years. and if we trust in our judges and we trust in the ability of the courts to be objective and to do the right thing, i firmly believe like the judges during the civil rights cases that they will take the steps that need to be taken and that our future for generations to come will be much better off because of this case. [applause]

>> and julia, i'll come back to you. what do you want most for the audience to carry back with them that would help your campaign? and i will ask phil and tia also. >> i think what a want everyone to carry is everything that phil just said and that tia just said is really critical. and it's not just to have hope and belief in what we are doing, but it's to support us in whatever active way you can't do whatever that means to you in your life, but it's time to get active because we were at the end of the line with climate. time is in and the status quo is the enemy and we need to muster all of our energy and courage to really preserve what we've all benefit from in our lives for the next generation. >> a week ago my first grandchild alice was born. i, like trying to want to be

able to look her in the eye and say i did everything i possibly could. we are at a critical juncture right now. i want all of you to take away that you can do things. there is, there are opportunities from bollinger worked out there. please take advantage of them. this is a serious moment in history of our country and you can step up or you can step aside. >> and tia, for your generation what would you like to the audience take away? >> i would like to see young -- more young ladies like these two women who gain. they traveled far and i know they fund raise just to get her to see us. i think that is so inspiring for me and i hope that there's more young people like you and like our youth plaintiffs after mobilizing because it's really inspiring for me and our lawyers are inspired by it and it's just essential to this movement and to where we are moving.

it's going forward in our lives and with this administration. i am just really excited and it gives me hope. thank you for coming. >> with the two young lady stand up and tell us what grade they are in? [applause] and what greater u.n. [inaudible] what greater u.n.? seventh grade. wonderful. and you? sixtsixth-grade. great, thank you for being here. [applause] >> this'll be hard to close our program tonight. we still have a lot of questions that people would like to respond to and i wish we had the time. so stay tuned. i'm sure we will all be talking about this both with our friends and our neighbors and people that we need to talk to.

thank you again for this wonderful audience. this is ann clark, chair of the environment and natural resources member lead for him. you're listening to the commonwealth club of california. program tonight is our constitution, our climate and our children. is there a right not to be harmed by climate change? our wonderful panel was philip gregory, tia hatton, youth plaintiffs in constitution of public trust case, julia olson, executive director, our children's trust, and so i'd like for the audience to give a big hand to our terrific panel. [applause]

and for our radio audience, i want you to know that phil is wearing his white cowboy hat. as we clapped. i also want to thank our wonderful audience here what a great audience we've had and we really appreciate your questions and your responses. we want to thank the two young women who came to be with us, we didn't even know that they were coming to visit us and we really appreciate your coming and being part of the program tonight. thank you so much. so let's give a wonderful applause to our audience here and on the radio and the internet who are listening to us. so a great big applause to you, our audience and for those --

[applause] and for those were on the internet. so find a program on the internet at www.commonwealthclub.org, click on our website, watch and listen for commonwealth club of videos, radio schedules and subscribe to our weekly free podcast and program archives. this is ann clark, chair of the environment and natural resources member led forum. thank you all for being with us tonight. this meeting of the commonwealth club of california is adjourned. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

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>> british prime minister theresa may announced she would be calling or agent eight general election, nearly two years earlier than originally planned. she said this is the best path forward it to ensure the british government was unified as it negotiates its exit from the european union as mandated in 20116voter referenda. here's the statement from ten downing street. >> i have just chaired a meeting of the cabinet, where we agreed that the government should call