First the good news.
Today’s youth are taking action to preserve the environment.
The bad?
Saving the planet has become a divisive issue.
On Monday, a Montana judge ruled in favor of Montana youths ages 5 to 22 who argued its governor and legislators were designing laws to hurt the state’s waters, skies and land.
The youths filed their case against Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and several of his department heads for designing and approving laws that forbid considering the impact of the fossil fuel industry, specifically its production of greenhouse gas emissions.
Such laws, argued Our Children’s Trust, violate Montana’s constitution, which in 1979 was amended to say the state should “maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment for present and future generations.”
That’s not happening, the youths said.
District Court Judge Kathy Seeley sided with the 16 plaintiffs in her decision, saying recent legislation to curtail the Montana Environmental Policy Act violated state constitution.
This most recent legislative session, Montana legislators amended its environment policy act to prohibit state agencies from considering “an evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions and corresponding impacts to the climate in the state or beyond the state’s borders.” Gov. Gianforte signed the measure into law on May 10.
In earlier testimony, many of the youths said they have witnessed how the changing environment has threatened their families’ health and livelihoods with wildfires, warming rivers and drought.
Climate science experts backed up the youths’ claims. The Earth is getting hotter as a direct result of greenhouse gasses being emitted from mining and gas drilling operations and this change is harming the state’s ecosystems as well as the plaintiffs themselves.
It has long been understood that certain greenhouse gasses, including carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat in the atmosphere, causing the Earth to warm. July was the hottest month on record.
The science community is unequivocal in its agreement that CO2 from fossil fuel pollution is the primary driver of the Earth’s energy imbalance resulting in more solar energy being retained on Earth and less energy being released into space.
Until greenhouse gasses can be reduced, extreme weather events such as droughts and heat waves will occur more frequently and in greater magnitude.
