In Montana Climate Kids Lawsuit, Climate Change Misinformation Wins
By Gregory Wrightstone
A group of young people in Montana won a landmark lawsuit on August 14, when a judge ruled as unconstitutional the state’s failure to consider climate change when approving fossil fuel projects. The judge accepted as fact allegations made by plaintiffs in the suit, which we will systematically show to be patently false.
Just some of the catastrophes accepted as fact by the judge included:
- More heat waves and extreme summer heat
- Days above 90 degrees increased by 20 days between 1970 and 2015
- Increased drought and lower precipitation
We will soon have a complete rebuttal to the Montana lawsuit. First, the plaintiffs cherry-picked the time frame of 1970 to 2015 to select days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit when the full data show that there has been no discernible trend since the 1920s. In fact, the period between 1920-40 looks remarkably similar to the most recent several decades.
Increasing drought and lack of precipitation? That isn’t what the data show.
According to Judge Kathy Seeley of Montana District Court, Montana is a “major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.” She added that the state’s emissions “have been proven to be a substantial factor” in affecting the climate. Is that the case?
Montana’s CO2 emissions are 0.6% of the total U.S. emissions. If Montana had gone to zero emissions of CO2 in 2010, it would only avert 0.0004 degree Fahrenheit of greenhouse warming by 2050 and 0.001 degree by 2100, according to the MAGICC simulator, a tool created by a consortium of climate research institutes including the The National Center for Atmospheric Research. These numbers are far below our ability to even measure and certainly not the “substantial factor” as claimed.
Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist; executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, VA; and author of Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn’t Want You to Know.
Depressing.
Not for lawyers.
This is crucial information, but will the mainstream media publicize it; or will the environmental organizations like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, etc. threaten to withdraw their donations if they do?
Sad watching this murder of Gretas. They would not enjoy life in Montana without carbon-based energy. In fact, I doubt they could even survive it.
Prima facie this case falls well short of the standard for considering it before a judge or jury. The judge should be removed from her position and disbarred. What a complete failure.
I agree but it is now legal precedent. Is any citizen of the state NOT affected? Maybe they could all just write each other checks and trade. If I lived in that state I’d love it a few degrees warmer.
I wonder what actual defense was offered. “Sue and Settle” is an old game by environmental regulators.
Why? Who is appealing the decision?
Judith Curry was paid to produce a report for the trial but she did not testify so the report never made it into evidence.
The horse has bolted. Either Montana is not at all concerned about the consequences of the decision or were bored to distraction with the mountain of evidence for the plaintiffs and forgot to call all their witnesses..
It will now be difficult to challenge the facts taken into evidence by the judge. Even on appeal.
“It will now be difficult to challenge the facts taken into evidence by the judge. Even on appeal.”
What “facts”?
This case won’t go far. Not because of anything to do with the climate or CO2 but with Montana law.
I haven’t read all comments, but I expect Rud will have something to say. He has already said in another thread that the case won’t stand up to scrutiny in a higher court.
Any evidence given by the plaintiff’s expert witnesses that was not rebutted. There was a mountain of evidence accepted as fact that was considered in the decision.
Looking at the case it is not surprising that the plaintiffs won. Article IX, Section 1 of the Montana Constitution states that “the state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.” while the law in question “forbids the State and its agents from considering the impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or climate change in their environmental reviews;”
Now telling state agencies that they cannot consider whether or not factors X, Y and Z could have an environmental impact certainly seems to violate the constitutional duty to maintain a healthy environment. This would be true whether or not factors X, Y and Z have any impact or not. The Montana law appears to be an example of forcing agencies to bury their head in the sand and to refuse to consider possible negative impacts of their actions. As such it is not surprising that it was found to be unconstitutional.
The points raised by the author of this post are completely irrelevant to whether or not CO2 emissions should be considered as part of an environment review. If the case was about whether or not CO2 emissions were harmful then they would be relevant but the legal question is not about that. Furthermore if people like Geoffrey think that their case is so strong then they should be happy to debate it in court rather than changing the law so that it is never considered.
It will fail since it is absurd as NASA themselves says CO2 increase in the atmosphere is GREAT for the planet:
Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
Ooops.
But in which case you should be pleased that the plaintiffs won. Now you and the CO2 coalition have the chance to make the argument that CO2 emissions are beneficial to the environment rather than being forbidden by law from doing so.
“The state shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment for present and future generations.”
Montana by the numbers
– All-time highest temperature: 117° F (Glendive on July 20, 1893)
– All-time lowest temperature: -70° F (Rogers Pass on Jan.20, 1954)
Montana’s lowest temperature was recorded in 1954 at -70 degrees. But in early February 2019 and into the first week of March, Montana set a brand-new bone-chilling record for consecutive below-freezing days when Great Falls concluded its 32-day streak on March 8, 2019.
Some not so Healthful temperatures showing up there without a reliable heating / cooling system in place.
Also, having traveled across Montana a number of times, there is plenty of grassland & timber to suck up any excess CO2 they put into the system.
Raise of hand for those who know where Glendive is at. Been there many of times and its not the Montana most people think about, although it is in the Yellowstone river valley.
Extremes are normal here. We had 30 below in late October a few years ago. I was playing golf in shorts the week before. Also seen it go from 30 below to 60 above in 24 hours on the east side of the divide during Chinook wind season in March. I think the record for 24 hour temp change is in the area of 100 degrees F.
THere isn’t a scintilla of evidence that CO2 is bad for the environment.
Even if the plaintiffs claims were true, which they aren’t, there is no evidence that CO2 was causing any of the things they were whining about.
I agree with you. But that’s irrelevent.
If the law says it:
Then that law must be over-turned as unconstitutional. The constiution demands that all things are considered for their environmental impact. If that’s NONE then that is will be considered.
But the current law says that it should not be considered at all, as NONE or as something else.
That’s clearly in contravention of the constitution.
“if people like Geoffrey think that their case is so strong then they should be happy to debate it in court” That is what an appeal is, where a rebuttal is heard.
leefor,
you are missing the whole point of the case. The argument is about whether or not state agencies have to consider the role of CO2 emissions on the environment and not whether or not CO2 emissions are doing anything to the environment. As the law currently stands it is illegal to consider any beneficial effects of CO2 when making a decision and is that really something that you think should continue?
So air quality has nothing to do with particulates? I am sure that CO2 is not the only game in town. Even if it is not mentioned here.
You are still missing the point. Why should it be illegal to consider the effects of CO2 on the enviornment when making a decision? At the moment it is just as illegal in Montana to say that CO2 is benificial as it is to say that it is harmful. If your case is as strong as you think it is then you should welcome the opportunity to make it in court.
Whether it should be illegal or not is irrelevant to the case. Judges interpret laws and are not supposed to attempt fashioning their own. The judge didn’t like the law passed by the state legislature and substituted her own ideas, supporting them with “facts” about as convincing as the lies of Ketanji Brown Jackson. That is an impeachable offense and if there were any justice she’d be out of a job post haste.
The question is whether or not the law stating that state agencies can’t consider CO2 when making decisions about the enviornmental impact of mining etc conflicts with the Montana constitution that states that people have a duty to maintain the enviornment. Now it seems reasonable that if you have a duty to maintain the enviornment then you also have a duty to consider anything that might effect it. And if so then the law is unconstitutional.
The point is that the constitution is the fundamental law and the state legislature cannot pass laws that contradict what is in the constitution. If the state legislature doesn’t like the constitution then they can start the process to alter it. But they can’t pass laws that contradict what the constitution says.
Please explain how a possible (assuming the highly flawed models are correct) 0.0004 degree increase in temperature over 40 years – something, as the article mentions, is not measurable by humans – affects the environment in any way humans can comprehend.
Again that is not what the case is about. The case is about whether or not it is legal to consider whether a 0.0004 degree increase in temperature is damaging to the enviornment. As the law in Montana currently stands you can’t bring that up during an enviornmental assessment. Is that really what you want?
All I can say is you just don’t understand the separation of powers in American government. You don’t understand the difference between the legislative and judicial branches and what their proper roles are in our system. The question before the court was not the one you keep trying to suggest it is.
Actually, I believe it is you Mr. Walton who is missing the point. If the Montana legislature decides that greenhouse gas emissions are not harmful to the environment and on the basis of that assessment prohibits those to whom it delegates the power to issue environmental permits from considering the environmental effects of such emissions, the question whether the Montana legislature is correct in its assessment is the heart of the case. If it is correct, then the law that prohibits the State actors from wasting time assessing the impacts of GHG emissions during environmental reviews is clearly consistent with the constitutional requirement. The law would have the same relation to the constitutional requirement as a law prohibiting the environmental review folks from considering the weight of elephants during their reviews. You believe the constitution requires the legislature to allow its underlings to repeatedly perform environmental assessments that the legislature itself has already performed. That is not the case in my opinion, or at least should not be the case.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
I live in MT. Hate to break it to you: 1 The judge is a known wingnut. There is a reason they filed the case in her court.If Bozo the Clown was the attorney for the plaintiffs they still would have won. 2 CO2 is not a pollutant but that was not an issue for some reason (mostly because the state will ignore her decision or just pay it lip service). I think it was a mistake on their part not to stomp them into dust legally though I appreciate them trying to be frugal with taxpayer money. It will have to be done eventually, with the Bidenbux even Red states got we are getting tax cuts as the state has a big surplus. It will just get more expensive later, nipping it in the bud now was the thing to do.
Again the case is not about whether or not CO2 is a pollutant but whether or not it is
legal to consider whether or not CO2 is a pollutant. Surely the best option would be to have a proper hearing about the benefits/costs of CO2 rather than passing a law saying that considering the matter is illegal?
Even if the state’s loss was a foregone conclusion, the public interest would have been better served if a full defense had been mounted, one which addressed each and every point of the lawsuit.
The countering information would then have been on the official public record for further use in any future public policy debates over the merits of proposed anti-carbon regulatory actions.
“Now telling state agencies that they cannot consider whether or not factors X, Y and Z could have an environmental impact certainly seems to violate the constitutional duty to maintain a healthy environment.”
There is nothing unhealthy about CO2.
The result means nothing if someone doesn’t sue to not only ban recovering fossil fuels, but their use also. I would file a case in this same court against every gasoline/diesel provider requiring them to stop furnishing that product to the public. I would a case in this same court against every clothing manufacturer using synthetic fibers made from oil in their product. I would file a case in this same court against every retailer selling plastic products made from oil stocks.
Judge’s rulings must have some effect. Making that same judge see the error of their ways is the only satisfaction one can obtain.
That is absurd as the state doesn’t emit much and no demonstrated harm to the planet, she has fallen hard for the CO2 is evil propaganda.
The whole thing was a farce. The state made a mistake not using the resources to stomp the lunacy (such as that absurd statement by the wingnut judge) to dust, but they didn’t take it seriously. Izzy the dolt doesn’t realize that all they have to do is put a paragraph in siting documents that say CO2 issues were considered but not deemed to be a mitigating factor rather than not mentioning it at all per the law and it satisfies her ruling. The Big Green circle jerk is much ado about nothing. They are just happy they didn’t get laughed out of court like their previous bites at this apple. The same bunch will sue on any new FF power plants on different grounds (and lose) anyway.
That’s a real possibility. But the other possibility is that a friendly judge will allow activist lawsuits to be filed which stay any regulatory rulings which allow new FF projects to go forward or which grant renewal to existing FF permits.
It could go either way. Time will tell.
The impacts of this court ruling in Montana on the regulatory permitting process are a good bit less certain than the impacts of New York State’s 2019 Climate Act on that state’s permitting processes.
Under the tight stipulations of the 2019 Act, it is hard to see how a permitting agency in New York State could grant any kind of environmental permit for a new or upgraded FF project, or even for renewal of an existing permit for a legacy FF project.
When did CO2 become pollution?
Off topic. When will the corrupt media declare Hurricane Hillary and the resultant excessive precipitation be blamed on “climate change?”
CO2 is not pollution. And it won’t be long before Hurricane Hillary is blamed on CO2.
Hurricane Hillary is not unprecedented. Hurricanes have hit California in the past when even alarmists say CO2 was not a factor.
But that won’t stop the alarmists from claiming this time is different because CO2.
Dr. Ed Berry, a resident of MT, has been predicting this precise outcome of the trial for over one year.
https://edberry.com/held-v-montana/
When the defense, for political reasons, wants to lose, they generally will.
It appears AG Knudsen is a closet climate zealot. It appears he did not make any effort to counter the evidence presented. He spent most effort trying to void the case rather than defend it on evidence.
Will we ever know why he chose not to defend?
I say, I hope that Montana suffers the full consequences of this ridiculous decision.
Sooner the better.
Fossil fuel companies should immediately withdraw their products, as should anyone that uses fossil fuel products.
The Bakken extends into Montana yet they is little drilling in Montana because excessive tax Montana levies on the extracted oil.
You have no understanding what the outcome means. Making ignorant assumptions because lefty media is having a wet dream is not real smart. The conservative legislators did a bit of their own virtue signaling by passing the law in the first place. In practical terms it means nothing other than a propaganda coup.
About 65% of homes in Montana are heated natural gas, or propane -all of which are fossil fuels.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1231388/residential-heating-fuel-distribution-in-montana/
About 45% of electricity in Montana comes from fossil fuels.
https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/state-electricity-generation-fuel-shares
Nearly all cars are gasoline powered.
I would suggest that the state legislature give them exactly what they want. Ban all fossil fuel use beginning in December this year. So there will be no cars, no home heating for 2/3 of the population and a 45% reduction in electricity.. Once they feel the effects of their folly they will rapidly develop a strong affection for fossil fuels… the judge too.
No surprise lawyer are lawyers and then those lawyers become judges because STEM is hard.
Some lawyers don’t know how to define a woman. They they get appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Back on June 19 at the PBS NewsHour, their guest analyst said, and I quote,
CO2 is not a pollutant. It promotes bigger plants and tree growth, something the children no doubt crave. I thought the lawsuit would implode over the simple fact that the plaintiffs could not prove the alleged main driver of CAGW was an actual harmful pollutant to breathe.
I appreciate this piece so I decided to dig into the particulars of the lead plaintiff Rikki
Held further.
Google led to this–>https://montanafreepress.org/2023/06/05/who-is-held-of-held-v-state-of-montana/
Note how she refers to cattle starving to death in 2012 from a wildfire…
I couldn’t find any ranches in Powder River County owned by anyone named Held so I
dug deeper and found her fathers name is Steve. Googling *Steve Held Broadus MT* and things got a bit more interesting. —
https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5aa9dfd2342cca6ec6b6a4f0
It’s not a quick read as it’s a MT Supreme Court Case. The MT Free Press piece
makes Ms Held story to be her family vs climate change…but in reality it’s a much
more tangled web..I would like to ask Judge Seeley if she knew anything about
this case before she made her ruling on this case.
This page was easier for me to follow.
https://casetext.com/case/platt-v-stephen-a-held-twin-hearts-smiling-horses-inc
At the bottom of the page the court noted: The District Court also determined that fraud provided an additional basis for reformation of the contract.
Climate Change now includes fraud? Who would have guessed..
Not just misinformation. It’s out-and-out fraud.
Was this information presented at the hearing?
A little more color on Mr Steve A Held—>
https://www.ypradio.org/show/56-counties/2019-12-03/56-counties-steve-held-margaret-scoles
“Steve Held was adopted by a Broadus couple, Cap and Jean Hough, when he was two months old after being born in North Hollywood, California. Ironically, after graduating from high school in Broadus, Steve ended up going back to Los Angeles and working as an actor for more than twenty years after completing his Masters at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. He eventually returned to his childhood home, where he now trains horses, and owns a ranch and a hotel in Powder River County.”
And some more color on Ms Held–>
https://www.hcn.org/articles/climate-change-meet-the-youth-attempting-to-hold-montana-to-account-on-climate
“Rikki was likely chosen to be lead plaintiff because her story is good, and she knows it. She’s a fifth-generation rancher in Powder River County, one of the most conservative counties in the state.”
What else are we not being told about this story?
People need to quit making a mountain out of this mole hill. The legislature passed a law saying CO2 can’t be considered in administrative actions like the siting of a proposed new natgas peaker plant that is in the works. This was a bit of virtue signaling for non climate hysterics. So instead of not mentioning CO2 in an EIS for such a facility (or a new oil well, etc., etc.) they will mention that CO2 was considered and doesn’t have a significant impact and move on. It will change nothing in the approval process, it changes the amount of paperwork a bit. THAT is what she ruled on. The same lawyers will be suing for anything they can come up with to oppose any new FF power. They would have either way the ruling went. It did make the judge look like a drooling idiot on a positive note.
From the article: “We will soon have a complete rebuttal to the Montana lawsuit. First, the plaintiffs cherry-picked the time frame of 1970 to 2015 to select days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit when the full data show that there has been no discernible trend since the 1920s. In fact, the period between 1920-40 looks remarkably similar to the most recent several decades.”
It doesn’t just look remarkably similiar, it *is* similiar. It was just as warm in the Early Twentieth Century as it is today, in Montana, and everywhere else in the United States and everywhere else in the world if you go by the regional surface temperature charts.
There is no unprecedented warming today from any heat source, including CO2.
No unprecedented warming today means CO2 is a minor player in determining the Earth’s temperature, since there is much more CO2 in the atmosphere today than there was in the Early Twentieth Century, yet it is no warmer today than it was then. Obviously, CO2 has had no effect on the temperatures, or at least, so little effect, that it cannot be measured, which is the same thing.
From the article: “According to Judge Kathy Seeley of Montana District Court, Montana is a “major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.” She added that the state’s emissions “have been proven to be a substantial factor” in affecting the climate. Is that the case?”
Of course, it is not the case. This judge doesn’t know what she is talking about. She is accepting speculation, assumptions and assertions as evidence. Something a judge should never do, because it is antithetical to the law profession. The job of a judge is to decide what is evidence and what is not. This judge obviously has failed this basic requirement.
From the article: “If Montana had gone to zero emissions of CO2 in 2010, it would only avert 0.0004 degree Fahrenheit of greenhouse warming by 2050 and 0.001 degree by 2100, according to the MAGICC simulator, a tool created by a consortium of climate research institutes including the The National Center for Atmospheric Research. These numbers are far below our ability to even measure and certainly not the “substantial factor” as claimed.”
Assuming those figues are correct, which I do not.
Any time you see a figure like this produced, you should know this is just a guess. They don’t really know how much warmth a certain amount of CO2 will add to the atmosphere. It’s all speculation and assumptions.
And, they don’t know if CO2 is net warming or net cooling the atmosphere after all feedbacks are figured in. That’s how little we actually know about CO2 in the atmosphere. We certainly don’t know enough to ruin our economies trying to cut back on CO2.
A relevant but inadmissible question: Are females more prone to arguments with an emotional element? Asking for an impartial, stoic friend.
Who was the shrew in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew?