Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
Page Number: 45

Cite as:  549 U. S. ____ (2007) 

7 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

(CADC 2005) (opinion of Tatel, J.), on the State’s asserted 
loss of coastal land as the injury in fact.  If petitioners rely
on  loss  of  land  as  the  Article  III  injury,  however,  they
must  ground  the  rest  of  the  standing  analysis  in  that 
specific injury.  That alleged injury must be “concrete and 
particularized,”  Defenders  of  Wildlife,  504  U. S.,  at  560, 
and  “distinct  and  palpable,”  Allen,  468  U. S.,  at  751  (in-
ternal  quotation  marks  omitted).    Central  to  this  concept
of  “particularized”  injury  is  the  requirement that  a  plain-
tiff be affected in a “personal and individual way,” Defend-
ers of Wildlife, 504 U. S., at 560, n. 1, and seek relief that 
“directly  and  tangibly  benefits  him”  in  a  manner  distinct 
from  its  impact  on  “the  public  at  large,”  id.,  at  573–574. 
Without “particularized injury, there can be no confidence 
of  ‘a  real  need  to  exercise  the  power  of  judicial  review’  or 
that relief can be framed ‘no broader than required by the
precise facts to which the court’s ruling would be applied.’ ”  
Warth  v.  Seldin,  422  U. S.  490,  508  (1975)  (quoting 
Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 
208, 221–222 (1974)). 

The  very  concept  of  global  warming  seems  inconsistent 
with  this  particularization  requirement.    Global  warming
is  a  phenomenon  “harmful  to  humanity  at  large,”  415
F. 3d, at 60 (Sentelle, J., dissenting in part and concurring
in  judgment),  and  the  redress  petitioners  seek  is  focused
no more on them than on the public generally—it is liter-
ally to change the atmosphere around the world.

If  petitioners’  particularized  injury  is  loss  of  coastal 
land,  it  is  also  that  injury  that  must  be  “actual  or  immi-
nent, not conjectural or hypothetical,”  Defenders of Wild-
life,  supra,  at  560  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted), 
“real and immediate,”  Los Angeles v.  Lyons,  461 U. S. 95, 
102  (1983)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted),  and  “cer-
tainly  impending,”  Whitmore  v.  Arkansas,  495  U. S.  149, 
158 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted).

As to “actual” injury, the Court observes that “global sea