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.
Guv carries climate message to White House
Energy policy » Western governors have a proposal
By Thomas Burr, Salt Lake Tribune, 11/21/08
Washington » Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer meet this morning with President-elect Barack Obama's top transition leader to deliver a bipartisan energy proposal from Western governors.
The plan, supported by 14 Western governors, includes what Huntsman labeled a "road map" for the new administration and includes a so-called cap-and-trade program, goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing renewable energies, and suggestions for weaning the country off foreign sources of oil.
MSU to lead carbon capture effort in Wyo.By The Associated Press, 11/19/08
The Big Sky Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership hopes to start work within a year to develop the project, which will study the injection of carbon dioxide underground on a commercial scale.
Montana urged to boost wind power
By The Associated Press - 11/17/2008
BILLINGS — A renewable-energy expert says Montana will play a crucial role as the U.S. grapples with energy over the next two decades.
Randy Udall, the son of former Arizona Congressman Mo Udall, was keynote luncheon speaker during the 37th annual meeting of the Northern Plains Resource Council in Billings.
Randy Udall said Montana is one of only two states in the country that is self-sufficient when it comes to the fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas.
“Montana is to fossil fuel as a piñata is to candy,” he told an audience in Billings. “You guys are loaded up.”
Ruling: Coal Plants Must Limit C02
Sierra Club, 11/13/08
In a move that signals the start of the our clean energy future, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) ruled today EPA had no valid reason for refusing to limit from new coal-fired power plants the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. The decision means that all new and proposed coal plants nationwide must go back and address their carbon dioxide emissions.
“Today’s decision opens the way for meaningful action to fight global warming and is a major step in bringing about a clean energy economy,” said Joanne Spalding, Sierra Club Senior Attorney who argued the case. “This is one more sign that we must begin repowering, refueling and rebuilding America.”
Montana: Trout and Drought
How is climate change affecting Montana? Warmer springs are making snow melt sooner, and early snowmelt leaves rivers low by summer's end. A look at what it all means for anglers, farmers and other Montanans, and how they are responding.
Montana: Trout and Drought HD from Climate Central on Vimeo.
Power co-ops unwaveringly back coal plant
By Linda Halstead-Acharya, Billings Gazette, 11/2/08
Robert Evans Jr. lives roughly 35 miles downwind of the proposed Highwood Generating Station outside Great Falls. But Evans, board president of Fergus Electric Cooperative, is less concerned about pollution - he's confident that has been addressed - than he is about securing a stable energy source for fellow co-op members.
"All I hear is 'Would you guys quit talking about it and get it built?' " he said. "Our members are very supportive. If they weren't, we wouldn't be going forward."