{"id":17251,"date":"2025-08-28T20:19:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T20:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=17251"},"modified":"2025-08-28T21:02:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:02:55","slug":"want-to-truly-help-wisconsins-children-stop-using-them-as-plaintiffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=17251","title":{"rendered":"Want to truly help Wisconsin\u2019s children? Stop using them as plaintiffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/want-to-truly-help-wisconsins-children-stop-using-them-as-plaintiffs\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Climate change lawsuit filed by children as young as eight<\/em><\/h4>\n

Fifteen kids \u2014 one only eight years old \u2014 just filed a lawsuit in, of course, Dane County, claiming that, as children, they are particularly vulnerable to air pollution and fossil fuel-caused climate change.<\/p>\n

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Their list of vulnerabilities takes up much of a 74-page complaint against the Wisconsin Legislature and the Public Service Commission that approves new power plants.<\/p>\n

The children between the ages of eight and 17 are from all over the state and cite a variety of maladies and issues. A couple have seasonal allergies or \u201callergy symptoms,\u201d and others have either \u201casthma symptoms\u201d or asthma itself.\u00a0At least two contracted Lyme disease. There is mention of \u201cmental health injuries\u201d that the lawyers suggest are related to \u201cclimate anxiety.\u201d At least one gets migraines.<\/p>\n

The little 8-year-old plaintiff who \u201csuffers from seasonal allergies\u201d is, for example, unable to play outside because of heat and humidity and smoke from wildfires that started somewhere \u2014 the suit doesn\u2019t say where. She has been prevented from recreating on lakes because of harmful \u201calgal blooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thankfully, she does appear to get out of the house occasionally. In fact, she \u201chas been attending climate events with her friends and family since she was two years old and organized her own educational climate event at age four,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Wow. My kids were mostly worried about who took their sippy cup at that age. Slouches.<\/p>\n

By the way, the 8-year-old has also \u201csubmitted comments in several (Public Service) Commission proceedings opposing the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

(This will be the one and only time, I can assure you, that I will ever question use of the pronoun \u201cshe\u201d rather than \u201cthey.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Another plaintiff, a 17-year-old Viroqua boy with asthma, had to limit his time outdoors and wear a facemask in the summer of 2023 because of \u201cunhealthy air quality from climate-induced wildfire smoke,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

He, by the way, \u201chas been engaged in climate activities since he was a child, including participating in a cross-country climate march when he was four years old.\u201d<\/p>\n

That, too, is pretty amazing, especially when you consider that a four-year-old with a short stride would take way more steps than an adult on, say, the Bataan Death March.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t blame these kids for being plaintiffs and don\u2019t know how that came about. I do know it\u2019s hard to dial up a lawyer when your fingers are immersed in Play-Doh. And by the way, it says right there on the first page that the 15 children filed the lawsuit \u201cby and through\u201d 13 parents or guardians. Just sayin\u2019.<\/p>\n

They (you decide who my pronoun should allude to here) want you to know climate change has or will cause a lot of hardship. Already, they, at least at times, can\u2019t swim or kayak or canoe or sled or ski or bike or hike or paddleboard, states the lawsuit. One plaintiff had to move after two \u201c100-year rain events\u201d damaged her family\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

One child\u2019s family \u201clost approximately $80,000 in the past two winters because of canceled reservations at her family\u2019s lakeside resort\u201d and she \u201cis harmed by her family\u2019s loss of revenue as she relies on her family for financial support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another child, a 15-year-old, has a family with a cottage that has seen a dramatic decrease in rental income due to lack of winter snowpack, they say.<\/p>\n

The child plaintiffs want to force the PSC to consider levels of potential air pollution when considering power plants and contends that transitioning to 100% renewable energy could, among other things, save Wisconsinites money on energy costs.<\/p>\n

The adults over at the Center of the American Experiment a couple of years ago calculated the costs of the 100 percent carbon-free electricity mandate advocated by Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers and concluded that electricity costs for Wisconsin families, businesses, and manufacturers would actually increase <\/em>by an average of $2,755 per year<\/a>, every year, through 2050.<\/p>\n

Our own adults here at the Badger Institute put out a paper not long ago<\/a> calculating the potential costs of disconnecting homeowners from fossil fuels in favor of the likeliest all-electric alternative, the air source heat pump. The bottom line, summing up a future of annually higher operating costs as a single \u201cnet present value\u201d estimate of the added costs borne by an average Wisconsin homeowner over the 15-year life of a heat pump: $19,976.<\/p>\n

I called the lawyer at Midwest Environmental Advocates who is representing the children along with an attorney from Our Children\u2019s Trust \u2014 left a message wondering why they are using children as plaintiffs but didn\u2019t hear back by my deadline.<\/p>\n

Forgive me if I don\u2019t try to call the plaintiffs themselves for comment on this one. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s right to put kids in the middle of an issue like this, especially when some of the claims about the origin of all their laments are so hard to really verify. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s good for them.<\/p>\n

Of course it\u2019s not really about them, is it?<\/p>\n

Mike Nichols is the President of the Badger Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n

Any\u202fuse or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written\u202fpermission.\u202fTo request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute Marketing Director Matt Erdman at\u202f<\/em>matt@badgerinstitute.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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