Only a court full of Europe’s finest could come down with a ruling this stupid. From Thomas Brooke at rmxnews.com:
The case sets a precedent that could see national governments across Europe sued for not pursuing a sufficiently aggressive climate agenda
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, second left, joins youths from Portugal during a demonstration outside the European Court of Human Rights Tuesday, April 9, 2024 in Strasbourg, eastern France. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
National governments are infringing on citizens’ human rights by not doing enough to tackle climate change, the European Court of Human Rights has held in a landmark ruling that could have far-reaching consequences and influence climate policy across the continent.
In a highly-anticipated judgment, the Strasbourg court on Tuesday sided with a group of Swiss pensioners who brought a claim against their national government for its perceived failure to act sufficiently in reducing carbon emissions, claiming that existing climate policy was violating their human rights.
The members of the KlimaSeniorinnen group, supported by environmental campaign groups such as Greenpeace, argued that elderly citizens are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, citing the fact that excess deaths occur more regularly among the elderly during periods of extreme heat because they are less able to regulate their body temperature.
The group also claimed that heat waves impact the mental well-being of elderly citizens more because they are less able to go outside and withstand the heat, which they argue affects their quality of life.
The association relied on Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the general right to life, and Article 8, which guarantees the right to private and family life.
Domestic governments are obliged to take “reasonable and appropriate measures” to secure these rights, steps members of the KlimaSeniorinnen group claimed the Swiss government had not taken.
Socialism is not in the least what it pretends to be. It is not the pioneer of a better and finer world, but the spoiler of what thousands of years of civilization have created. It does not build, it destroys. For destruction is the essence of it. It produces nothing, it only consumes what the social order based on private ownership in the means of production has created.
Ludwig von Mises