TRUST Colorado
Channel: Our Children's Trust #youthvgov
Date: 2012-09-20

In this episode of the TRUST series, meet Xiuhtez­catl Mar­tinez, an 11-year-old boy from Boul­der, Col­orado. Xiuhtez­catl shares why he joined youth from across the coun­try to ask the courts to hear their law­suit (Alec L., et al., v. Lisa P. Jack­son, et al.), which is based on one of the most fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of civ­i­lized soci­ety: TRUST.
Xiuhtez­catl asks that our atmos­phere be pro­tected, because he loves play­ing in Colorado's moun­tains, forests, lakes, and streams and fears that the resources he most enjoys will not be there for his gen­er­a­tion if we con­tinue emit­ting car­bon at cur­rent rates. 

Over a cen­tury ago, the U.S. Supreme Court rec­og­nized that our fed­eral gov­ern­ment has an absolute legal duty to pro­tect our essen­tial com­mon nat­ural resources -- such as our air and our water — for present and future gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­cans. Our youth are sim­ply ask­ing our third branch of gov­ern­ment to com­pel our leg­isla­tive and exec­u­tive branches to do their jobs. For more infor­ma­tion about the law­suits and other TRUST youth, please visit: www.ourchildrenstrust.org