Youth win climate case in Germany
AGROUP of nine people aged between 15 and 24 years recently won a legal case about the environment in Germany’s top court. The high court ruled that the country’s climate law, which deals with the issue of climate change, needs to be reviewed since it doesn’t do a good job protecting children.
The climate crisis has been sparked by weather changes around the world caused by pollution and human activity. Each year Earth is getting hotter, which is known as global warming.
The effects of global warming include heatwaves, higher temperatures, melting glaciers and polar ice and droughts, which will all affect today’s children more than adults in the future.
The group, called Fridays for Future, took the government to court after authorities passed a law in 2019 that undertook to make the country carbon neutral by 2050. This meant that they’d cut back on pollution being created or take action to remove pollution.
The law only provided for plans to be implemented until 2030, which concerned the group – what would happen in the 20 years after that? The court ruled that more detailed plans must be put in place for a pollution-free future for young people.
On this day, a German businessman named Levi Strauss and a tailor named Jacob Davis, received a patent, or licence, to make what would become one of the world’s most famous garments: blue jeans.
Davis came up with the idea to make strong work pants with metal rivets (strong pins) that would hold the material and pockets together to make them last longer.
He approached Strauss, who ran a successful business importing a tough fabric called denim and other dry goods in San Francisco, California, to be his business partner.
They got the money together and developed the idea to manufacture the first pair of jeans or “waist overalls” for the many gold miners and settlers in the area.
By the 1880s Strauss opened his first factory and the company grew faster than they could have imagined. The jeans became extremely popular among working men in the United States.
They eventually became known as Levi’s and the trend took off. Today jeans are worn around the world and are a staple in almost everyone’s cupboard.