Ian Proctor, a third-year environmental studies student,wrote about Our Children’s Trust, a Eugene-based nonprofit law firm that represented plaintiffs in the Held v. State of Montana case and will represent plaintiffs in the Juliana v. United States case. Proctor first got the idea for the article when he was reading about the Held v. State of Montana case and discovered that the firm was connected to Eugene, he said.

Proctor sat down with the trial lawyer for the two cases who connected him with a plaintiff in the Juliana case.

Proctor’s hope was that the article would cover “a lot of different recent events, summarize some older events and put it all in one piece for people” so the information could be more accessible, he said.

Overall, Proctor wanted to tie up some “loose ends in the water” that is Eugene climate action, he said.

“There’s stuff getting done,” Proctor said. “There’s hope out there.”

Proctor has been a news reporter for the Daily Emerald since June 2023 and this is his first cover story.