Dear friend, 

We are heading north next week to the Alaska Supreme Court! 

The 16 young Alaska Natives and Alaskans that we support in Sinnok v. Alaska have a hearing before the Supreme Court next Wednesday, October 9, at 1:30 p.m. AKDT, in Anchorage. The Court will consider whether to allow the young plaintiffs and their constitutional climate case against the State to move toward trial. 

After a summer that reached some of the hottest temperatures on record in Alaska, the need for the courts to step up and act as a check on the State’s energy policy that promotes fossil fuels and exacerbates the climate crisis has never been more urgent. If successful, this lawsuit would stop the State of Alaska from continuing to promote fossil fuels and require the defendants to prepare and implement a plan to bring Alaska’s energy policy into compliance with the Constitution and these youths’ vital need for a climate system that sustains--not endangers--life.

If you or someone you know can be in Anchorage on this important day to support these brave youth in person, click here for more details. We must come together to stand with these young Alaska Natives and Alaskans to show the State that it cannot enact laws and implement them when those laws affirmatively destroy the fragile climate on which children depend. Laws that promote fossil fuels are unconstitutional and must end to give our youth any chance of a livable future.

If you aren’t in Anchorage, you can watch Andrew Welle, one of our staff attorneys, argue on behalf of these amazing young people live through the Alaska Supreme Court’s online streaming. 

Stay tuned! We are also preparing for a November 13 oral argument in a Portland High School before the Oregon Supreme Court in Chernaik v. Brown, the lawsuit brought by two young Oregonians against the State of Oregon. We also expect a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Juliana v. United States any day, and you will be the first to hear.

Let the youth be heard! 

The team at Our Children’s Trust