c-span, where history unfolds daily. 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. it is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. a group of 21 american students are suing president trump over the u.s. government climate change policy which, they claim, puts their future in jeopardy. they are seeking a court order that requires the government to quickly reduce carbon dioxide emissions that many scientists say drive global warming. a 19-year-old college student and her attorneys spoke to the commonwealth club in san francisco about the case. this is about an hour. is ourprogram tonight constitution, climate, and our children. is there a right not to be

harmed by climate change? our dark -- tonight dartistinguished group -- -- are and extinguished group. please welcome our wonderful panel and welcome them for us. [applause] we will ask bill to begin. >> we just saw, for those of you that have not heard, and amazing judicial feet today where the is in a 3-0t opinion, cap the temporary

restraining order nationwide in place over the travel ban. [applause] it is wonderful news, and it is an excellent example but how are our courts, who serve as the third branch of government, branches,other two the congress and the executive, when they overstepped their bounds. actions,n't just stop but they can cause actions. courts can cause the executive branch to take steps, and that is the basis of our suit. that, i'm going to turn it over to julia olson, who is the co-lead counsel on our case. thinks everyone to being here

tonight and thanks for the club organizing the event for the young people involved in this case. the lawsuit you are about to see forere is about a case everybody. it is case for all the children in your life that you love. i want to tell you about a story about one child who is a plaintiff in the case. she is 13 years old, and her name is jaden. for those of you in the audience, you can see the picture of her on the screen. on august 15, at 5 a.m. in the morning, she stepped out of her injured her ankles in her home. words, she stepped out of bed and stepped right into climate change. the waters are flowing in, coming up through her home, pouringp to her room,

in. there is sewage water flowing out of the top and sinks in her home. she is a home with her siblings, her mom was in a neighboring community helping neighbors struggling with putting the day before. took her 13 hours to go several miles to get home to her children. she was tied even water and her car was flooded. that family survived the flood. 13 in the -- 13 people in the region died. our federal government said this is a 1000 year storm event. the problem is these aren't coming every 1000 years anymore. they're coming with increased occurrence and severity. directly attributable to climate change. we elevated the voice of young people and gave them a platform

to secure their rights to a healthy atmosphere and a stable climate system. screen, 20, on the one of these plaintiffs who were involved in the giuliana versus united states case that we will talk about and more depth tonight, and so we lift of these voices and give ways to take of action against governments about things that will stabilize the climate system. for them and for future generations. we connect them with lawyers like phil gregory who don't notes -- donates all his time pro bono to the cause. he has been doing that for six years. [applause] he truly is a hero. he has been in it from the beginning. there are many lawyers like him around the country and around the world that are doing the same thing on behalf of youth everywhere.

the laws we turn to in this effort are foundational laws. they are laws that explain why we have government in the first place and what our basic human rights are. one of those is the published -- public trust doctrine. this goes back to ancient roman times. , bedrock ofseline legal systems around the world. it is simple. it says that governments, as a trustee, and it holds the vital resources that we depend upon and share in common, in trust for the benefit of future generations. the citizens, all of you out there and the youth we represent, are the beneficiaries of that trust. as our future generations. those resources need to be protected so they can be there for everyone and not just for the exploitation by the fossil fuel industry.

aboutr thing that is core what our children's trust does, we are not willing to compromise the stability of our climate .ystem we look to scientists and experts around the globe who are doing the most incredible research to identify what needs to happen to protect the climate system for our great, great, great grandchildren. ms. olsen: what they say is a two degree celsius rise from pete -- preindustrial levels, is actually catastrophic. humans have never lived in that kind of world. we will see catastrophic sealevel rise, storms beyond belief, and global chaos and disruption. and we can do it, we need to return to a carbon dioxide level of 300 and 50 ppm -- 350 ppm.

also less than a warming difference of one degree celsius. i hope you are seeing the right slide there. i have an image reflecting this. as i turn it over to fill to talk a little bit more, about this movement and campaign, this is strategic litigation that is coordinated and we do a lot of media work to use the platform to speak. we look to other social justice movements to inform the work we are doing and he will talk about some of those. mr. gregory: i'm going to use three expressions. one is unprecedented, another, a is, thisory, the third is no ordinary lawsuit. you think these would be coming from press clippings but, in

fact, they are from the opinions judges have written about our case. we are really not a new theory. this has been going on for decades. when we first started formulating these cases, we focused on the civil rights cases. youth that is the 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 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.

essentially what the naacp was doing was putting civil rights , asrial by having the youth well as scientists from around the nation testify against the harms that were occurring. decision,d the brown it really talks about the science that was put before the courts. -- book that i want to commit to you is called "unlikely heroes." it's by a guy named jack bass. it's 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. there werethat judges in the south that could do that, but are there judges

nowadays that are prepared to take on the fossil feel industry? the other cases we looked at were tobacco cases. -- we all know that the tobacco industry was very big and doubt is their product. that is a book by david michaels. the whole theme for the tobacco industry is sewing uncertainty. based on the documents we have gathered and received from independent sources, the same public relations folks, the same lobbying outfits, that we are dealing with, tobacco, were in parallel dealing with the oil companies. the other cases we have been , are thet, to track cases involving wall street. my partner joe, just wrote a book called "people versus greed." that is what is really going on out there.

we are trying to address problems that wall street once to continue to exist. how do we do that? how do we go after these groups of people. had a majorlifornia line of cases involving its prison system. the prisoners went after the prison system and said what we are in during, the conditions, overcrowding, poor medical treatments, those violate the eighth amendment, cruel and unusual punishment clause. so they went after the california prison system. those of you who don't know about this line of cases, it is fascinating because the prison system was found to be so overcrowded that the target, the courts set for the prison system you'll bee, that said "

ok if you hit a target." is a hundred and 35 occupancy -- is 135% occupancy. the court said we are going to start releasing prisoners until you get to that target. that is very important for our case. the court setting a target and bodyring the governmental to reach the target, come up with a plan, and if the governmental body can't come up cases,e, in these prison they said we will have the prisoners set up a plan to come up with the target. low and behold, the prison system came up with that target. weally, i want to say that focused in on who is going to be the most harmed by what's the government has known historically about what is going

on with climate change. obviously, the people that are going to be most harmed our youth and future generations. that is how we came to determine that kids might be an excellent group to bring this case. why don't you talk about why you became a plaintiff here. of the 21 youth bring the suit against the federal government. it was the spring of my senior year so, 2015. oregon, my hometown. with the use of high schoolers trying to bring, basically we were trying to get us to go to city council meetings to get the climate action plan to cut carbon emissions. was because eugene had just

passed a similar plan and, how they did that, you've had consistently gone to city council meetings that their rights were being infringed upon and that eugene needed to be responsible on cutting carbon emissions. a group of us are trying to do that as well. it is through that that i got connected with kelsey giuliana she contacted me asking if i wanted to be a part of meaningful climate change. she meant by suing the federal government. [laughter] i was intrigued of course. [laughter] my parents were as well. it was intriguing to me because i've always been interested in environmental law and the fear he of it. i was deeply concerned about the place that i loved. it was more than just the fact

that the past winter i had seen beingorite ski trails closed down because of lack of i saw theas that people that i love being threatened. water is essential to life. it begins with the small things and then grows. once you realize the impacts of climate change, you realize how extensive it is and how it is affecting everyone. it is a no-brainer to jump on something like that. i can honestly say that i didn't realize exactly what it was going to be like and i'm so excited that it is growing to be this big. i don't think i knew it was going to be this big. [laughter] each of us, each of the plaintiffs, we all have a background in environmental activism and we all have our own injuries listed in the complaint

against the federal government. as you can see, julia talked one. there are 20 plaintiffs and two roseburg, have farms there being threatened. the list goes on. we each have our own stories. julie gets in court and tells the very eloquently. she is against the federal government, which is really what our case is alleging against the federal government. she is going to explain why we brought it against the federal government and not just the fossil fuel industries. that is important to distinguish. [applause] ms. olsen: one thing that you'll see is that storytelling is important and bringing out the human element of how climate

change is affecting people. we will share a few more of these stories as we go along tonight. i want to talk to about the claims in the complaint. we filed in august of 2015, against the united states, presidents, all the major departments and agencies that are responsible for our also feel-based energy system, and also responsible for not controlling the pollution coming out of that system. i will try to make it as simple as possible. this is a constitutional case under the fifth amendment. it protects our rights to life, liberty, and property. is theth amendment substance of due process of our constitution. what it means is that government that infringe on our rights to life, liberties, and properties.

in this case, the personal security of these young people, and for manyves, of them who live in coastal region, their property is being threatened by the actions of the federal government. i will go into that a little more. aboutrt of the claim is when the government knows that it is putting citizens in danger , it creates a duty on government to act to prevent or, if the danger exists, to do something about it. they can't act with indifference to the harms that they have created. a really important part of the case is looking back, for just how long the united states has known that if we kept burning fossil fuels we would call -- cause catastrophic climate change. when we started doing research, we were shocked to find that the

knowledge goes back to the 40's and 50's. perhaps even earlier to the early part of the 1900s. 1965, when moment in lyndon b. johnson issued a report out of the white house, and there was an entire chapter --carbon dioxide and carbon climate change. they predicted with unbelievable accuracy what was going to happen if we kept digging up and burning fossil fuels. they knew it would cause climate destabilization, and they knew the impacts would be catastrophic. 1969,s a letter from white house letter, and you can see on the screen that the letter refers to the potential for apocalyptic change. in terms of talking about sea level rise, they wrote this could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. if i new york, goodbye washington for that matter. this is 1965 knowledge.

ining the nixon white house 1970, another report came out the said in the long-term, quality of the atmosphere may determine whether a man survives or parishes. i want everyone who is listening to this to really understand how deep and long lasting the knowledge has been about the climate dangers posed to our country and the very survival of future generations. the question then, and i'm showing another chart for those listening in, it shows going back to going -- going back to times inh the various showedent where they impacts. this was repeated every decade, every administration, we need to

act on climate change. we need to transition off of fossil fuels. instead, we permitted more development, production, leasing of our public lands for oil and gas extraction, and we kept our fossil fuel waste energy system in place. -- no citizentem could do anything about it. this is a government embedded system that we depend upon. just for little comic relief, there have been a lot of international processes that you know about with climate talks and going back 22 years. the united states initiated them to defer taking action on climate change. -- whole unit i did nation's the whole united nations avoided setting limits on climate pollution and to keep talking, and talking, and stalking.

settled,on says, it's we will continue to have discussions to determine when we when this can be resolved. this boys home will be if we don't stop a we are doing. i bring him up because one part of the discrimination -- one part of the case is under discrimination and the right to protection under the law. the case that had a decision that says everyone has the right to marry, that case was about protecting a group of people who are being discriminated against with respect to an exercise of a fundamental right. these children are being discriminated against with their ability to not have their

personal security threatened. i just want to show you two more quick slides, and for those showsing, this slide under president obama's clean power plan, which was, in his words, the single most important thing the united states government has ever done on climate change, would eventually flatlined our emissions, and climate pollution all the way to 2040. a slight dip when we lose some .oal-fired plants this is one of the biggest frauds perpetrated on the american public to lead them that the clean power plan was going to solve climate change. it was never intended to do so. shows how, this graph steep our emission cuts need to be. that's to get back to safe levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. it is the blue dotted line that

said that wea should start, if we started, but now the decline is significant and it is what we aim to achieve in this case. phil is going to tell you a little bit about the defendants and the defenses they raise. , you ares an clark listening to the commonwealth club of california. our program tonight is the constitution, climate, and children. is there a right not to be harmed by climate change. gregory, and public trust case. and julia olson, executive director of our children's trust. phil, back to you. mr. gregory: thanks, and. .- anne.

i get to wear the black cat here. [laughter] we only sued the federal government, so the first step in the case was the key trade associations for the fossil fuel industry. bunch, and the national association of manufacturers, a moved to intervene in our case. why did they do that? case goes if this forward and these kids when, our business could be dramatically cut back and very well could be eliminated. in these tradet associations as defendants. , whate had to face everybody faces in litigation, it is a motion to dismiss. they said your claims are all huey.

call it standing, under article three of our constitution, that they have a viable case or controversy. standing has three elements. the first element is that there has been an injury in fact and the defendants argued, climate widespreado bad, so that to these grievances are general for everybody. sue fore law, you can't a generalized grievance so, these plaintiffs don't have standing because they are merely asserting a generalized grievance. not that they have been individually injured. next, they said causation. they said that the injury that these plaintiffs suffered, they have to be traceable to the

defendant's conduct. you know what, there is no way, this is what the defendants say, there is no way these plans are going to be able to prove that the federal government caused any climate change. that the courtou took that on. they said what in the decision denying a motion to dismiss, judge aiken said the defendants are responsible for more than 25% of global co2 emissions. that's the united states alone. more than 25%. because we were able to show there was a significant share, the courts said these plaintiffs can prove causation. the third thing about standing,

the third claim the defendants asserted, you can't do anything about it court. there are some new wonderful regulations at their. let us keep passing regulations and that is what you should be doing because judge, you can't do anything. them to task on if theying that plaintiffs can show it, these kids can show that the defendants have control over a quarter of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions, then a conditionsf those will slow climate change, reduced probability of harm, and the plaintiffs would be able to read address their industry -- injuries.

we will able to get around that -- we were able to get around that. they also raised about separation of powers. political question is not something that involves politics. what it is, it means that a branch of government, the judicial branch, should not get involved in matters that are entrusted to the other branches of government. so if it is foreign policy, for example, and the constitution has entrusted that to the executive, you, courts, should stay out of it. remember, this is the political question doctrine. in the democracy in america, we 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. here, the courts said it doesn't matter that the court has to choose which agencies or sectors should reduce admissions or by how much. directrt is not going to any particular action. the judge here is going to, as we request, and julie will talk more about this in a moment, set a target that we talked about in the prison cases and have the defendants come up with a plan to hit that target. howhe courts said, that's we are going to do this. the court is going to in it -- issue in order to the executive branch is going to implement that order. what we are alleging is that the federal government and the aggregate actions are harming

these kids. i want to point out, in the laurel arguments, the federal government started off by saying climate change poses a monumental threat. turned to the attorney representing the fossil ,uel industry, and asked him you agree that there is a threat being posed by human cause the attorneye, and refused to take a position in the courts. know that the fossil fuel industry, based on documents we influencingy was the president. for example, we have the american petroleum institute, one of the trade associations ant intervened, having

action plan in 1998. the victory will be assured when we sow doubt, when we create doubt in everybody's mind. well, doubt is their product. that is what their communications plan was in 1998. another member we have is a state department memo. is between two officers in the united states state department. it states that they are going to talk with a group called the global climate coalition of which the petroleum institute and the national association of manufacturers remembers, and they are going to say that the president of the united states at this point, is george w. bush, rejected the keel tote in part based on you. thesessil fuel industry,

defendants, were working hand in glove with the executive to keep the fossil fuel system -- systemic system in place. that has been one of the major issues that has come out in the court proceedings. take a minute talking about these court proceedings. that, it is after simply something i'm aware of when i'm lined up with the 20 other youth and we look at the government lawyers sitting side-by-side, the fossil fuel lawyers. the first time, i was sitting there looking at them wondering, and iu have children?" was shocked because up to this point, i thought the government had been doing a fine job. i realized seeing that visually, side-by-side, and i was hearing them in the court saying that we don't have rights to a level

future, it was really discouraging. our argument is full of the days a nervous energy. they are sitting on the left , and julia is like a champion storyteller. there is a lot of legal statutes in the previous cases that they go off of. some of the stuff goes over my head and i'm one of the older plaintiffs. there is a lot of legal stuff going on, that there is also the storytelling, the moral side of climate change that is affecting humans. i think julie does a eloquent job of bringing that in. it brings tears to people's eyes. .hat's inside our courtroom

there is also two other overflow rooms and it is being streamed in portland. once we leave the courtroom, that is when it is really cool. when we get out there, there is hundreds of people, supporters of all ages, a lot of kids who have come from in town and out of town, who are just rallying and shouting encouragement. trial is for them to and it is really encouraging because i know everyone in the crowd has their own story as well. it is also really encouraging to see the media there as well to show people supporting and to show the judge. show the judge that people are mobilizing behind this. that is going to continually involved it and getting more importance. coming out of the hearings, i don't know if julie was going to mention, but the hearings have

putting beyond the fact that i think julie has these amazing arguments and we have a really great case, but the judges make it seem like they are in favor of our case, which i didn't know was allowed when i heard the judge in the last hearing. shoe is just ripping the government for not settling with us because they knew that obama was trying to come up with a plan. they just came up and they admitted that climate change was human cause. so, whyy the judge said aren't you sitting down of these kids and coming up with a plan? stuff can't get through through other branches of the government, then why are you not sitting down with these kids in doing it. i was shocked. we were all looking at each other, and it was exciting.

it left us with a lot of hope and i was kind of confused because stuff doesn't usually go your way. coming out of that hearing, and having her decision come out right after trump was elected, it is really a source of hope and i'm excited for trial and the discovery process for sure. thanks to you. thankstia. being in the federal courthouses it more than anything i have experienced in my experience. andad a packed courtroom people waiting outside to hear what the next steps in the case were. it's great to have that level of public engagement and people seeing his third branch of government in action. i encourage you all to check it out sometime.

that's in eugene. as she said, two days after we got our president, it wasn't the one we wanted set -- wasn't the one some of us wanted. it is a beautiful read, the legal decision from the court, and you can check that on the children's trust website. i want to read you one of my favorite parts of for decision. thataid, there is no doubt the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life a free andtal to ordered society. just as marriage is the foundation of the family, a stable climate system is quite literally the foundation of society. from out which, there would be nor civilization nor process. for those who don't know a lot about our implied liberties that we hold under the constitution, there has only been less than 10

times in the history of our nation where the supreme court has recognized an implied right that isn't explicitly written and our constitution. some of those implied rights include the right to travel, the right to parent your children, the right of protection from pirates on the high seas in case any of you are interested. [laughter] the right to privacy, marriage, self-defense. the fact that this court has recognized for the first time in history,ries here that a climate system that has sustained life, i have a double an environment that is safe for our children is asredibly met -- important we move forward. the other thing the court found is that the public trust factor applies to our federal government and not just the states. the federal government has an obligation to protect the trust

resources that are under its control, like our territorial waters, our ocean waters. they must protect those for the benefit of present and future generations. that is an affirmative duty on government to protect and so our oceans are threatened with acidification and sea level rise and we need to take a radio break. clark, -- this is an clark, you are listening to the commonwealth club. our constitution, our climate, and our children. is there a right not to be timed by climate change with phil tia hatten, and you have been listening to julia olson, the executive director of our children's trust.

we have come to that point in our program for our audience questions and we will start that phil.n as i get them to if you have audience questions please bring them up. that would be wonderful. >> thank you. here.e some questions i am going to start with this one. connections with schools could be a powerful way to spread awareness of your mission. your plaintiffs are an example of empowerment for students. how about schools having ways to bring the constitution and ideas of civic duty to life. how can schools do that? what do you think? >> i can talk a little bit about one way we engage this at the

local level. we have a program called use claimant action and we help support young people in different communities to go to their local governments and try 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, and one of our key partners in this effort is a group called earth guardians. they are a plaintiff organization on the federal lawsuit. crews alldians has over the country in the world. any young person who wants to be part of this group can start or crew or join a crew from earth guardians. they can connect to our children's trust and get plugged into a local effort.

>> another thing we are doing is we are your ring to do something for this used day, april 22 that will try to tie educating children about the cost tuition, about climate change, and about our courts. .ne other question for you why don't you speak briefly about how our children's trust was created and where the idea came from. >> sure. environmental lawyer for a long time bringing cases to protect the west and i had came to realize that climate change was going to be the issue that would define their lives. i was frustrated with the lack whack a moleach --

approach. i would have cases that had nine lives. we're seeing that process right now with the dakota access pipeline and the keystone xl pipeline that obama stopped and trump is bringing back so these things just keep coming back. we were not getting at the systemic problem of climate change. i heard repressor mary woods speak at the university of oregon and she was writing about applying the trust doctrine to the atmosphere. she had been looking for crazy lawyers to bring these cases that she had been talking about for a few years. i happened to be one of those crazy lawyers. generatingstarted more ideas and i decided i wanted to take on this effort of bringing campaigns, strategic litigation, it was coordinated across the country in the world and support lawyers to do these

cases on behalf of young people. and it ishe origin dependent upon people like phil tia.yung people like >> do you have a message for san francisco's children and audience that you would like to carry forward? on theew my input question would be to inform young children and youth about climate change and inform other adults if they are not aware of it. and inform them of the courts powers and what is going on about this case. definitely in these coming months and once the trial happens, organizing people to hold rallies, hold visuals throughout the trial which may be weeks on end. starting individual movements is powerful and

, climate changes and environmental justice issue and that is why citing all these civil rights movements and joining these other rallies going on is important. that is a huge part of our case an issue that infringes on a lot of different rights so supporting other people and -- is important for us to be part of an spreading this message of hope to people that something like this is going on. there is a lot of darkness with thisew administration and is a light for people right now. is going to happen next in the case and i get to change .ats

put on the white hat. so today we substituted in for barack obama, president donald j. trump as a defendant in our case. we are 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 we have incredible , a blue-ribbon panel of scientists who are going to talk about the scope of the problem and how we can remedy the problem. not is going to be science, alternative facts, ok? up for thisearing case, we did a lot of in formal discovery. we went to websites and we saw

documents, here is a 1983 report from the epa. can we delay a greenhouse warming? there are reports to congress with a pinpoint 2015 as the timeframe where if we continue business as usual, we are going to hit a tipping point. they were not too far off. all these reports strongly urged the executive department to do something about climate change. onortunately, they continue with business as usual. we were troubled when the new administration started taking websites down. we have sent out a letter telling them to preserve the information. we are also taking steps to take the deposition of rex tillerson both in his role as chair and

, on thexxon mobil 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 do depose our children, they want to say we want to take the tiasitions of people like by you are being injured climate change. my opinion is give me a break but they will do that. they are considering appealing the decision julia alluded to that came down through judge aiken. we are hopeful to have a child of this case -- trial of this case in the fall of winter -- or winter 2017. that will be three to six weeks where the court will put the whatce on and we will see

defense the federal government and the fossil fuel industry throw against us. >> this is an clark, chair of memberironment resources lead form. you are listening to the commonwealth club of california. we have reached that point in our program from -- for one last question. is a lotave gathered of questions and i appreciate that from the audience. i do want to thank you. we have time for one last question. thatll get back to you for famous last question, i want the radio audience to know that phil is wearing his white cowboy hat. >> this is a question that julia is going to answer. if we are successful at trial, what kind of consequences will the federal government and the

fossil fuel industry face? >> if life is goingse, to change in a really good way. we are going to have a national plan that sets forth how we transition quickly after the fossil fuel-based system including transportation. we will be off fossil fuels by my 40 predominantly in the u.s. and the effort will spread around the world. the toporking with technical experts and economists are in the world who already developing plans for how we do this and it is feasible. the only reason it has not been done because there has not been political will to do it but it is feasible and we will be better off and healthier in our communities as a result. that is what happens if we win. i will say one less thing and that is we need everyone's help

to win this case. we have massive resources on the other side. children's trust is a small nonprofit, we rely on donations and we need the public to mobilize instead with these kids when we get a trial in the fall of this year. wherever you live do what you can, write letters to the editor , get the word out about this case, it is going to be the trial of the century on climate. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, if you could add , what would itce be most important for you to tell our audience? >> i would say that i am a part

of this case so i can look my children in the eye and tell them that i fought against climate change. stance that is the 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] >> you done such a wonderful job for all of us. i know a couple of sentences but we would love to hear your last thoughts. >> i have a great amount of faith in the independence of our judiciary and our courts are going to firm branch of government against ignorance and improper use of power. i would strongly encourage

anybody out there to believe in our court system, it is going to be severely tested over the next four years. if we trust in our judges and trust in the ability of the to be objective and do the right thing, i firmly during like that judges the civil rights cases that they will take the steps that need to be taken and our future for be muchons to come will better off because of this case. [applause] >> julia, i will 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. >> what i want everyone to carry is everything that phil just just said is critical. it is not just to have hope and belief in what we're doing, but it is to support it in any way you can. for whatever that means for you in your life, it is time to get active. .ime is the enemy and the status quo is the enemy and we need to muster all of our energy encourage to preserve what we have all benefited from and our lives for the next generation. -- a week ago my first grandchild alice was born. i 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 for volunteer work out there, please take advantage of them. this is a serious moment in the history of our country and you can step up or you can step aside. -- generation,h what would you like to have the audience take away? morewould like to see young ladies like these two women that came, they traveled far and the fund raised to get here to see us and i think that is inspired -- inspiring and i hope there's more young people like you and our youth plaintiffs mobilizing. it is inspiring for me. inspired by itre and it is essential to this movement and to where we are in ourgoing forward lives and with this administration. i am excited and it gives me hope. thank you for coming. >> with those two young ladies stand up and tell us what grade they are in? [applause]

what grade are you in? [inaudible] >> what grade are you in? seventh grade. and six straight. great. thank you for being here. [applause] it is going to be hard to close our program. we have a lot of questions that people would like to respond to and i wish we had the time. stay tuned, i am sure we will be talking about this both with our friends and neighbors and people that we need to talk to. thank you again for this wonderful audience. this is an core, chair of the environment and natural resources never lead form. you are listening to the commonwealth club of california. our program tonight is our constitution, our climate, and our children.

is there a right not to be harmed by climate change? was -- panelad all was filled gregory -- phil gre olsen, executive director, our children's trust and tia hatten. please give a la -- give a big hand to our terrific panel. [applause] and for our radio audience, and ist you to know that phil

waving his white cowboy hat as we clap. i want to thank our wonderful audience here, what a great and wee we've had appreciate your questions and responses. we want to thank the two young women who came to be with us and we did not know they were coming to visit us and we appreciate your coming and being part of the program tonight. thank you so much. wonderful applause to our audience here and on the radio and the internet who are listening to us. great big applause for you, our who are, and for those on the internet. finder programs on the internet at commonwealthclub.org. videos andisten for

schedules and subscribe to our weekly free podcast and program archive. this is an 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. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

[indistinct conversations] >> supreme court justice sony

assad mayor's book last month about the importance of education, her legal career, intending princeton and yale university and growing up in poverty. see her remarks at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. tonight on book tv, it is an evening of our program afterwards. our programs include alternatives to traditional banking and her book. and melissa fleming, chief spokesperson and her book, a hope more powerful than the c -- 2.a on c-span and exploring the impact of the 19th century california gold rush on women. and the pioneers who encouraged a single woman to move west. american history tv primetime begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern on

c-span3. enjoys -- join us tomorrow for a rally demanding that president trump release his tax returns and not cut taxes for the wealthy. including congress one maxine waters. we will have live coverage tomorrow at noon eastern on c-span. this week on q&a. >> i have learned the value of discourse and compromise through this program. the way i interact with people who i necessarily do not agree with has changed. >> a special program devoted to hearing from high school attending the united states senate use program with a share thoughts about government and politics. >> i can say at the end of this week i am sure that i am certain what i believe it i think that is a good thing. >> hard work and a fair chance for everybody to reach the top will turn out not to be an equal

result but equal chance for everybody. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. now look at immigration policy and refugees in the united states. speakers include a former cia , a syrian activist who was imprisoned during the arab spring, a muslim advisor to the trump presidency campaign, and the american civil liberties union's hit -- human rights director. it was part of a series of conversations at the new york library. this is one hour. >> good afternoon, everybody. new york public library. i am the executive director of the ethics center who, along onh the carnegie council