When it comes to climate change, children are the canaries in the coal mine. If we’re lucky, they will lead us out of the collapsing mineshaft.
Oregon native Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana is the lead plaintiff in the landmark climate-change case, Juliana v. U.S., currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Kelsey was only 19 years old in 2015 when she and 20 other youths sued the federal government for failing to protect them from the future horrors of a warming planet.
From climate change to school shootings to asylum-seekers at the border, the plight of young people now animates our political culture. This is not the first time Americans have looked at children to understand periods of troubling social and environmental change.