The Montana Climate Action Project is a collaboration of partners in Montana working to find solutions, create opportunities and empower people around the issue of climate change. Our goal is to provide Montana citizens with the information and tools they need to understand climate change and make personal changes that will have a positive effect on the climate change crisis.
News
Britta Climate Ride Touts the Bicycle as Agent of Change
By Bill Schneider, New West News, 8/20/08
Caeli Quinn of Whitefish and Geraldine Carter of Missoula co-founded the Britta Climate Ride 2008, a five-day event starting September 20 in New York City and ending in Washington D.C. on the steps of the Capital Building. Each rider has to raise or contribute $2,250 to be one of the 120 cyclists riding a scenic route to the Capital with the proceeds going to Clean Air - Cool Planet and Focus the Nation, two nonprofits leading the way in climate change education, renewable energy policies, and global warming solutions.
This is the first year for the Britta Climate Ride 2008, which will become an annual event, and already it has become the equivalent of a global climate change conference on two wheels.
Glacier Park: The next century - Disappearing namesake may make pristine wilderness symbol of climate change
By Michael Jamison, Missoulian, 8/19/08
WEST GLACIER - The tourists huddled in a shivering pack amid what should have been the heat of July, crowding around Laura Kloeck while she explained a bit about climate change. “There is definitely a frightening side to global warming,” Kloeck told them, “but there is hope, too.”
Hope hip-deep, white and wintry and piled high in mid-July atop Glacier National Park's popular Logan Pass. Here, where trails remained buried beneath snowpack well into summer's season, Kloeck talked on about a warming world. Her hat was flat - as park rangers' are - but her delivery was sharp and pointed. The lingering snowfield you see here, she explained, is weather, not climate, and weather is unpredictable. Weather is what pushed temperatures just east of here 100 degrees - from 44 above to 56 below - in less than 24 hours back on Jan. 23, 1916. Weather is wild.
Climate, on the other hand, can be tracked over time, can be measured and modeled, even predicted. The trend lines, Kloeck told her chilly crowd, are clear. The world is warming.
Crow Tribe strikes deal for $7B coal project
By Matthew Brown, Associated Press, 8/8/08
CROW AGENCY, Mont. — The Crow Tribe struck a deal Thursday with an Australian company toward building a $7 billion plant to convert coal into liquid fuels, which would be among the first such projects in the nation.
Capping months of negotiations, the Crow Legislature ratified a 50-year development agreement with Australian-American Energy Co., a subsidiary of Australian Energy Co.
The Many Stars coal-to-liquids plant initially would produce 50,000 barrels a day of diesel and other fuels. Construction would begin in several years and coal for the project would come from a mine yet to be developed by the tribe on the reservation, Crow leaders said.
S.D. farmers earn $1.3M for capturing carbon dioxide
By Faith Bremner, Sioux Falls Argus Leader, 7/31/08
WASHINGTON - The National Farmers Union mailed checks last week totaling more than $1.3 million to 414 South Dakota farmers and ranchers who are capturing and storing carbon dioxide, then selling carbon credits to corporations, utilities and local governments.
Farmers can capture carbon dioxide, a gas experts say is contributing to global climate change, by converting croplands to grasslands, planting trees and practicing no-till farming.
Dairy farmers and livestock producers can earn credits by capturing methane, another greenhouse gas, by processing animal wastes in small-scale sewage treatment plants.
Report outlines warming in region
By John Cramer, Missoulian, 7/30/08
Citing extreme heat, fires, a human population boom and other changes on the landscape, Montana House Majority Leader Carol Williams called Tuesday for federal, state and local lawmakers to take a stronger stand on climate change.
“If this was really easy, we'd have done it by now,” she said at a public meeting in Missoula to discuss a new report by the Clark Fork Coalition on global warming's impact in western Montana. “But don't get discouraged because this is what our children and grandchildren want us to do.”
The coalition's report, titled “Low Flows, Hot Trout: Climate Change in the Clark Fork Watershed,” summarizes more than 50 years of research, observations and predictions on ecological changes linked to greenhouse gas emissions in western Montana. Research shows the Clark Fork basin's average temperatures have increased by 1 to 2 degrees since 1950 and may rise 5.5 degrees over the next century.
GlobalWarmingSolution.Org: Aiming for the big 3-5-0
By Keila szpaller, Missoulian, 7/26/08
350. Three. Five. Oh.
That's an important number for a Missoula nonprofit called GlobalWarmingSolution.Org.
In fact, it's a figure the group's members hope will be shouted at Washington, D.C., and here's why.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is somewhere around 385 parts per million - and climbing like the thermostat. According to the membership network, it needs to be pushed down to 350 ppm at the most.
That's low compared with the 450 ppm maximum touted by many conservation groups as a fine place to level off, but the nonprofit's number is apparently OK with the Garden City. “In Missoula, there seems to be this critical mass of people that are willing to support this very aggressive vision,” said executive director David Merrill.
Report details climate change's effects on Clark Fork Basin
By John Cramer, Missoulian, 7/20/08
Western Montanans need only to step outside to experience hotter temperatures, shrinking snowpacks, warmer streams and larger wildfires, but climate change can still be a complicated global issue.
In a new report, the nonprofit Clark Fork Coalition tries to make climate change understandable at the local level - and to prompt policymakers and residents to take action.
The comprehensive report, titled “Low Flows, Hot Trout: Climate Change in the Clark Fork Watershed,” compiles more than five decades of scientific research into a 36-page document about the impacts of climate change in the Clark Fork River Basin. The report contains no original research or new findings, but provides an easy-to-understand summary of climate change's current and potential impacts, as well as anecdotal accounts from a rancher, firefighter, fishing guide and others.
Act Now!
Climate change and you. What you can do now! The U.S. EPA recommends these few small changes in your home and yard that can lead to big reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and save money.
- Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)
- Look for Energy Star products
- Heat and cool smartly
- Seal and insulate your home
- Use green power
- Reduce, reuse, recycle
- Be green in your yard
- Use water efficiently
- Spread the word
Learn more:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/downloads/wycd-home.pdf
