There is a 15-year-old girl named Mesina D. She went to the shoreline a few years ago with a relative. Mesina said that the woman said she used to play volleyball there. It's all 20 feet up to where we were.
Fourteen young people ranging from the ages of 9 to 18 years old filed a lawsuit against Hawaii's transportation department last week, accusing it of violating their constitutional rights.
The young people who filed the lawsuit want the HDOT to take action to help Hawaii become carbon neutral by 2045.
Many elected officials in Hawaii want to push for more climate friendly policies, but the Hawaii Department of Transportation has been a weak link in the state.
She said that the department is encouraging the leading source of fossil fuel emissions and that they are also blocking the passage of climate legislation. According to a press release from Our Children's Trust, the transit sector is expected to make up more than half of the state's greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020.
The lawsuit outlines how the climate crisis has personally affected them. Heavy flooding forced Mesina's family to close their yoga studio for a week, but they still run it out of their home.
Fourteen-year-old Taliya N. is a Native Hawaiian who lives in Hawaii. She and her family live off the grid and use the rain to do laundry, but the recent dry spell forced them to limit water usage. Taliya had to change her morning schedule because of the storms on the island.
The roads are flooded by the heavy rains. She told Earther that she needs to wake up at fourthirty in the morning and leave the house at five. To get out of my home when the water goes over the bridge is scary.
It is in her heritage that she is working to protect the islands. Important spiritual and cultural heritage sites are worried about the turbulent weather conditions.
Sea level rise is washing out burial sites along the coast, exposing and scattering Ancestor bones in the sands, according to the lawsuit. The flooding of a cemetery or any other act of desecration against the dead is the same as the disinterment of iwI.
Our Children's Trust has filed a number of lawsuits in an effort to force action on climate change. The firm helped a group of teens in Utah file a lawsuit against the state.
In other countries, young activists have filed lawsuits. The highest court in Germany ruled in favor of the young activists. The Australian government was sued by a college student in 2020 for not telling investors about the risks of climate change.
The young Hawaii residents want action from the state's DOT, and feel that they can't wait until the department decides to take climate action when they're already feeling the effects of extreme weather
They want the lawsuit to go to court so that they can testify about the chain of islands that they call home. Taliya said, "I realized what I'm doing, but I just haven't had it hit me where I'm actually like, hopefully..."
All Rights Reserved © 2024
