For the past three to four years, I had been planning a trip to Montana to understand the meaning behind the phrase Big Sky Country and see the effects of the climate crisis upon the glaciers in Glacier National Park. While driving through huge swaths of the state, I learned much about the effects of climate change on the environment of Montana and I met folks doing the advocacy and educational work of environmental and climate organizations in the state.
Through a fortuitous measure of coincidence, my trip coincided with the announced legal verdict on August 14th holding the state of Montana liable for violating language in the States constitution. Judge Kathy Seeley found the State had contravened the “right to a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations” as written into the constitution in 1972. 

Sixteen youth plaintiffs aged 5 - 22 years old sued the state of Montana due to the state governments passing laws designed to benefit the fossil fuel industry and, by consequence, endangering the youth's future in the state. Rather than honor the text of the State’s constitution, the Montana government provides robust subsidies and legislative protections for the established fossil fuel industry. 

Evidence of coal, oil, and gas extraction dots the terrain throughout the state. Oil and gas wells in the eastern portion of the state line I-94 here and there over the dried brown grasses and sagebrush of the plateau. The giant pumps in the denuded oil patches resemble outsized praying mantis’ with their heads bobbing up and down with ruthless efficiency. Railway lines hammered into the countryside crawl with extensive trains bearing cars with open container after open container of coal, exposing the land and people to the black dust or tanker after tanker filled with oil from the Bakken Shale.

Two weeks prior to my trip, I scheduled a meeting for coffee with members of 350 Montana to discuss the political and cultural environment of the state. Missoula, being the home of the University of Montana, offers an atmosphere of college town liberalism amidst the smoke season, hazy mountain vistas of a reddish state. On a sweltering Tuesday afternoon, I stepped into The Break coffee shop, feeling the relief of air conditioning and the reassuring aroma of brewing in process. The congenial decor of the storefront held a dim bohemian character replete with a wayward Australian owner in a misshapen cowboy hat and a tattooed barista with melancholy and slight, impatient irritation in her manner. 

I sipped my espresso in the dim cafe while conversing with Wynona, Bill, Carla, and Beth of 350 Montana. We  sat around a quite worn, circular wooden table with a small lamp bearing a green glass shade and a short pull chain. Soon enough the subject turned to the victory by the youth plaintiffs in Held vs State of Montana. The members of 350 Montana described the support offered to the youth suing the state. Each day the court was in session, members of climate and environmental groups lined both sides of the sidewalk leading to the courthouse entrance. As the young plaintiffs walked up the sidewalk as a group, the supporters clapped and cheered, encouraging the youth in their perseverance and courage to take on the state and the fossil fuel industry. The delighted and amazed expressions caught in photos clearly conveyed the young plaintiffs' appreciation of the morale boost.

Prior to departing from our hour of coffee and conversation, I was invited to attend a party at Bonner Park to celebrate the victory. Prior to the celebration, I stopped at the Clark Fork River landing downtown.  I watched kayakers and river floaters on blow up tubes gliding along the dappled surface while a pervasive and abnormal heat overlaid everything.

With the sun still hours from setting, I departed and drove to the city park occupying a square block in a tree filled neighborhood of middle class homes and traffic circles.  Approximately 50 - 75 people from a number of supporting groups gathered in the dry heat of a 103F late afternoon on August 15th to hear Olivia and Micah speak under the sheltering shade of an elderly oak. Both thanked the folks in the crowd for their support and spoke of the gratifying nature of a long sought victory.

Later in the evening, I drove back to Helena, passing through the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest with dead and dying trees from being besieged by pine beetles. The beetles are able to destroy more trees each year due to warmer summers and warmer winters induced by global warming. 

Later that night, in Helena, in a tiny cabin decorated with film memorabilia from a long bygone era, I was surrounded by the basic comforts and conveniences of a modern life. In the coolness of conditioned air with the TV volume down low, I slowly feel asleep, my mind caught in the unrelenting irony of modernity, it’s creation from fossil fuels and the possibility of modernity’s destruction from the same.