My sons, Jeffrey and Nathaniel, are the youngest of 16 youth plaintiffs in the Held v. State of Montana climate case. They and the other youth plaintiffs challenged the State of Montana for causing dangerous levels of greenhouse gas emissions by permitting fossil fuel projects. And they won. The recent opinion by Judge Seeley of Helena recognizes that Montana is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions that are harming Montana’s children, and tasks the state with considering climate change when deciding whether to approve or continue fossil fuel projects in the state. The case also creates momentum for climate action everywhere.
The trial and its outcome are a moving testament to young Montanans. Early in the trial, we heard from Mae Nan Ellingson. Ellingson was the youngest delegate to the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention, at 24, and one of only 19 women, out of 100 delegates. As Ellingson explained how she helped secure Montanans’ right to a “clean and healthful environment,” I couldn’t help but wonder whether Rikki, Grace, Eva, and the other young women of the plaintiff group resonated with her courage and foresight. They, like her, are the bold young voices of their generation. Each spoke compellingly on the stand.
I view climate change as a pressing cross-generational social justice issue, and I was lucky to work on climate change in Montana for eight years as an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. From working with agencies through the public comment process to litigating cases against them when they failed to respond to climate concerns, I learned both the science of climate change and the history of state and federal fossil fuel permitting. It became achingly clear to me that our state and federal governments needed to take a hard look at the consequences of their permitting decisions, especially as I viewed the trajectory of warming through the eyes of my young sons. They, not me or those currently in charge, would live through the worst of climate change, which experts warn is not just an environmental phenomenon but a “threat multiplier” that will have social, geopolitical, and economic effects.
The win in Held v. State of Montana doesn’t solve the climate crisis. But like the incremental permitting decisions that have been notching our world warmer, it is palpable and significant. And I pray it may be a tipping point beyond which governments begin to fall into domino agreement that society needs to change, or suffer terribly. I am so intensely proud of Montana’s children for standing up and getting their grownups to listen. May the other grownups of the world take heed.
Nathaniel and Jeffrey King are from Montana City, Montana. Their mother, Laura Anderson, was formerly a staff attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center in Helena, Montana.
