Climate Change: Not Rocket Surgery

So, you’re hearing the sounds of chainsaws all over Missoula? That’s the sound of climate change.

As explained by a climate journalist John Schwartz, global warming doesn’t just mean the world is becoming warmer (it is, see), it also means that weather will be more extreme. “We’ve always had floods, fires, and storms, but climate change adds oomph to many weather events.” Warmer air and warmer water have more energy in them. That 109-mph wind gust on Mt. Sentinel? That’s oomph!

Tornadoes are also intense weather. Are we seeing more? Tornadoes mainly occur in the U.S. during the spring. Preliminary data for this year, for the period from Jan. 1 to May 16 has counted 806. That is second only to 2011 for the number of spring tornadoes.

Our warmer and warmer world is the result of more and more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and that is the result of increasing human usage of fossil fuels. The extractive industries: oil, coal, and gas have denied this, even as their scientists have known about this result since 1977. With this fraudulent denial, Exxon, et al. management has arrogantly hidden our dire future from us. As Yogi Berra, famous for his malapropisms, said: “It ain’t the heat, it’s the [lack of] humility.”

In Montana, Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a new law in May 2023 that bars regulators like the Montana Department of Environmental Quality from looking at the climate impacts of proposed projects that have environmental reviews, like coal mines or power plants. He seems diametrically opposed to even considering the effects on our environment.

On Aug. 14, 2023, District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in Held v. Montana that Montana must instead consider the effects of climate change when deciding whether to begin or renew fossil-fuel projects. This ruling, upholding the Montana Constitution’s statement of the young plaintiffs’ right to a “clean and healthful environment,” has received attention well beyond Montana. And, as a result of the Held kids’ keen action, this may well lead to real change.

Climate change effects are becoming more and more apparent, here and across the entire world. Atlantic Ocean currents are changing; refugees are being displaced because of crop failures, the Aral Sea is disappearing; food insecurity and water shortage is leading to humanitarian crises, conflict, and displacement, affecting many different areas of the world.

This past Tuesday, in a Big Sky Voices column, Roger Koopman complained that the defense in the Held trial didn’t put up much of a fight and left the claim of a projected climate disaster unchallenged and unrefuted. Well, it’s hard to challenge things that are right in front of your face. It’s hard to ignore that uprooted tree in your front yard.

From the Washington Post, July 24: “As global temperatures spiked to their highest levels in recorded history on Monday, ambulances were screaming through the streets of Tokyo, carrying scores of people who’d collapsed amid an unrelenting heat wave. A monster typhoon was emerging from the scorching waters of the Pacific Ocean, which were several degrees warmer than normal. Thousands of vacationers fled the idyllic mountain town of Jasper, Canada ahead of a fast-moving wall of wildfire flames.”

We do know what we can do to avert disaster. But will we do it? Since the world started to get “serious” about global warming, coal demand has only increased–rising by 75% since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and by nearly 15% since the Paris Agreement in 2015 [13].

What we don’t want to do is to burn our bridges before we get to them.