Posted Saturday, January 19, 2019 10:57 am

WILLIAMSTOWN — Kids these days. Well, for instance, the brave and stalwart 21 youths suing the U.S. government. In Juliana v. U.S. assert that, through the government's affirmative actions that cause climate change, it has violated the youngest generation's constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources. The Department of Justice stalled the trial in the Oregon District Court in December by appealing to the Ninth Circuit Court. On Jan. 8, the District Court turned down Juliana's request to move ahead anyway.

Meanwhile ambitious young people in the Sunrise Movement are touring the country building the political will to pass a Green New Deal, an all-out effort to convert the nation to green power, with jobs and justice for all. They want the proposal to be a defining issue in the 2020 election and plan to ask every Democratic candidate for president to sign on. They will rally at the first Democratic debate.

The idea may trace back to a 2007 opinion piece in the New York Times by Thomas L. Friedman. Parts found their way into the Obama economic strategy. The United Nations Environmental Programme took up the idea, which in some form shows up in the economic planning of several countries.

When the Sunrisers sat in at Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi's office after the November election, newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined them, calling for a select committee to flesh out the plan. Pelosi has reestablished a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which was discontinued by the Republicans.

This committee is not aimed directly at the Green New Deal, however. Ocasio-Cortez had wanted to stipulate that no one could serve on the committee who accepted money from the fossil fuel industry. Sad to say, that would have made for a small committee.

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The Sunrise Movement, whose leaders earned their chops while working to get their universities to divest from fossil fuels, has begun training youth leaders to persuade politicians to act to eliminate greenhouse gases from manufacturing, agriculture and other industry. At present 45 congressmen and half a dozen Democratic presidential candidates have signed on, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

The potential cost of the program, although as yet uncalculated, is likely to be high, a disincentive to many otherwise interested in the idea. Ocasio-Cortez proposes taxing the very rich up to 70 percent of their income to pay for it. If that sounds outrageous, Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has pointed out that that was the case for 35 years after World War II, which included "the most successful period of economic growth in our history."

Those who remain afraid that the cost might derail the U.S. economy should consider that the cost of not taking action would be far higher.

Kids these days. All they're trying to do is save us from the climate mess we made. At least, that's how it looks from the White Oaks.

A writer and environmentalist, Lauren R. Stevens is a regular Eagle contributor.