Last Wednesday I spoke to
Ross, a rancher in the Flathead country. Amazingly,
western Montana is suffering from a severe drought
and his area has not received measurable moisture in
the previous 45 days—certainly a different picture
than we are seeing east of the continental divide.
On Saturday, May 21st, I had the honor of delivering
the commencement address to the nine graduates of
Turner High School. My trophy wife and I drove north
out of Laurel through Roundup, Grass Range, Hays and
Harlem before reaching Turner 255 miles later. The
rain was incredible. If you were a courageous rafter
not intimidated by Class IV rivers cross-fenced with
barbed wire, EVERY gully along our entire route
offered fresh, uncharted whitewater. With my
curiosity tweaked by the downpour, I ran some
numbers on my calculator as I drove home. (Only
texting is dangerous while driving—calculating is
perfectly safe.)
Roughly 87,333 square miles of Montana lies east of
the continental divide. If we assume it received
nine inches of rain in May, and many places received
more (some a lot more) it calculates to be over 41
million acre-feet of water. Let me put a face on the
size of that puddle. Montana’s Flathead Lake covers
191 square miles and its maximum known depth is 370
feet. If we assumed it was cone-shaped, Flathead
Lake would contain 15 million acre-feet of water, so
eastern Montana received a volume of water 2.7 times
the amount in Flathead Lake. (As I write this, two
more inches of rain are forecast for Memorial Day,
so I’ll have to recalculate things next week.)
With the extensive property damage and tragic loss
of life due to the flooding here in Montana, and
similarly with the tornados in the Midwest, expect
to see climate change followers renew calls for
carbon taxes and higher governmental regulation to
re-establish climate balance. Prostituting tragedy
to advance a political agenda is unconscionable and
their hysteria forces me to address “climate change”
one more time.
I think we can all agree the science concerning man
caused “climate change” has proven it to be a fraud,
so from that commonality let us deepen our
consensus. (That sentence was me reaching across the
aisle.) In the 1970s, environmentalists claimed
western capitalism was causing global cooling and
warned us about the impending ice age. By the 1990s,
the earth had naturally warmed so the same
extremists switched positions and claimed man caused
greenhouse gas emissions were now causing global
warming. No one noticed this 180 degree flip-flop,
and global warming promoters cashed in on
carbon-credit exchanges—a device of their creation.
(Al Gore is now a very wealthy man.) When the earth
began cooling in 2005, “global climate change” then
became the brilliant new catch phrase and suddenly
the actual movement of global temperatures became
meaningless—if they could accurately be measured at
all. Suddenly, any tragic weather event fell under
the “climate change” label and every tornado, flood,
hurricane, blizzard, drought, or tsunami, could be
blamed on western capitalism. Figuratively and
ironically, “climate change” was the perfect storm.
Universities have become institutions of higher
indoctrination, and an entire generation of students
has pledged blind allegiance to “climate change”.
College students of the 70s, 80s and 90s have now
matured into positions of influence in universities,
journalism and politics. Now they educate,
propagandize, and set policy. On May 18th, the
children of this misled generation, under the name
of “Our Children’s Trust”, filed suit in the Montana
Supreme Court to force the legislature and state
agencies to regulate greenhouse gasses under the
guise the atmosphere is a public trust we must
manage. Similar lawsuits were filed in all 50
states, but Montana’s Supreme Court was one of the
few who took the bait.
Very clearly, this is an attempt by
environmentalists to implement carbon taxes and
strangulating regulation of domestic energy
production using the judicial branch of government
because they have been so ineffective in the
legislative branch. This is blatantly
unconstitutional and we legislators simply cannot
allow this to stand. If we do nothing, the Montana
Supreme Court’s decision will set precedent for
generations. Thus, this will become the fight of the
century and yours truly is right in the middle of
it. Stay informed. More later…
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