Climate Change in Montana
Overall temperatures in Montana have risen an average of 2.7°F from 1950 to 2015 while the winter and spring seasons experienced a rise of 3.9°F. These changes in temperature and seasons have caused hotter and drier summers, increased wildfires, reduced snowpack, melting glaciers, and a variety of impacts on fish and wildlife habitats.
Montana’s diverse landscape regions cause variation in the effects of climate change. However every region has experienced it and with no plan to fight or respond to man-made greenhouse gas emissions, the whole state is expected to suffer in the years to come. In a “stabilized emissions scenario”, most of Montana is projected to have increases of about 4.5°F by 2050 and a 6°F increase in a “business as usual scenario.”1
Increasing temperatures and droughts will continue to increase forest fires and decrease Montana’s water availability, affecting the state’s multi-billion dollar industry, agriculture. Climate change also affects Montana’s economy and many jobs that rely on the state’s outdoor culture. 11k jobs and $281 million in income are at risk of being lost to Montana’s changing climate.2
Senator Daines’ Position on Climate Change
Steve Daines (R) recognizes the effects of climate change, but claims Montanans care more about keeping gas prices low and using the state’s abundant coal and oil resources to limit foreign dependency.
The Senator’s reelection campaign efforts include a TV ad displaying Montana’s beautiful mountains and streams, and boasts about Daines’ role in passing the Great American Outdoors Act which reauthorized funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
The LWCF uses money from offshore oil companies to protect public lands and increase access to outdoor recreation, but the ad fails to mention that every year Daines was not running for reelection, he voted against reauthorizing the LWCF and even now has only asked for $600 million in funding of the $900 million/year the LWCF is supposed to receive.
What Montanans think about climate change
The majority of voters in Montana believe the impacts of climate change are significant and that some degree of action needs to be taken according to 2020 Conservation in the West Poll.
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67% support full, dedicated funding for the LWCF.
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73% think that portions of existing public land where wildlife migrates each year should not be open to oil and gas drilling.
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58% think water supplies in the West are becoming less predictable every year.
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Click here to learn more about the unusually-high spending in Montana this election cycle, here to learn more about Daines' position on the new Supreme Court nominee, and here for information on how to vote in Montana. See here for information on how Trumpy Daines is (spoiler alert -- he's very Trumpy).