by Guest Writer | Aug 13, 2024 | Guest Articles
By Jim Edwards
We’re past the time to “debate” climate change, it’s real – and it’s a problem. We need Congress focused on bi-partisan solutions for addressing it.
We need to be solving it so we can live in a stable climate and not enduring the climate-driven extreme weather events – wildfires, droughts, heatwaves, and the resulting low flows and warming water temps in our rivers and reservoirs. 2023 was the hottest year since records have been kept and 2024 is likely to beat it. Besides rising global temperatures, we’re seeing all sorts of other negative impacts, like more frequent and extreme droughts, floods, and severe, dangerous storms.
However, since the “debate” seems to keep cropping up, I’d like to remind my fellow Montanans that there is overwhelming consensus within the scientific community on these fundamental points regarding human-induced climate change:
- Earth’s global average temperature is increasing;
- Due to our burning of fossil fuels, human emissions of greenhouse gasses, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), are the main cause of the warming;
- International, independently derived research results ALL pointing towards the same finding provide a high degree of confidence that climate scientists are on the right track. The scientific community continues to add new findings and knows that many details about climate interactions aren’t fully understood and require significant, additional, continued research.
Climate defines the range in temperature and precipitation patterns making up our weather. Since the 1800s, the climate has warmed. Since World War II, the dominant contributor has been the burning of fossil fuels—coal, oil and natural gas. All contain carbon. When burned, they emit potent gases, mostly CO2, into the atmosphere. These emissions act like a down blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and thus raising temperatures, and creating droughts. As more water evaporates into the atmosphere, it provides fuel for storms and more intense rainfall.
Nearly 100 percent of climate scientists are now convinced, based on the evidence, that human-caused global warming is happening. Still, the general public perceives there is significant “debate” among scientists – why?
A campaign of obfuscation regarding climate change science has been underway since the late 1980s, funded in large part by the fossil fuels industry (quite similar to what the tobacco industry did 30 years earlier regarding the correlation of tobacco use and cancer prevalence).
In the early 1990s, the Western Fuels Association (with funding from Exxon and others), conducted a massive PR campaign to “reposition global warming as a theory (not fact)”, using dissenting scientists (industry funded), to create the impression of ongoing scientific debate.
My brother spent 40 years as an engineer working in the coal side of ExxonMobil (Exxon is now 100% divested of its coal portfolio). He’s helped educate me to the fact that for the first 30 years of his career, Exxon was invested in climate change denial; within the past 15 years, Exxon has pivoted and is now fully on board with the Paris Climate Agreement.
Scientists do not disagree about whether climate change is human-caused. There are only a very few, and even fewer with scientific backgrounds relevant to climate science, who promote “debate”. Many individuals who pose as “experts” in media sources are not scientists at all, or else have no real background in actual climate science.
People from all walks of life and all political stripes care about climate change and want to see the problem fixed as soon as possible.
To leave a healthy, stable world for future generations, we need to act now, get creative, and work energetically together. For solutions, please see https://citizensclimatelobby.org/
Jim Edwards
Member of the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL)
Jim founded Mountain West Benefits (MWB) consultancy in 2003. MWB provided health insurance advisory services and was Montana’s largest benefit consultancy firm, advising large employer, association and union sponsored plans covering over 35,000 individuals.
In 2012 Jim and his partner, Richard Miltenberger, founded the Montana Health Co-op (now Mountain Health Co-op). Jim sold MWB to the Leavitt Group in 2015 and retired in 2017. Jim and his wife Sheila have four ordinary adult children and three brilliant grandchildren.
by Guest Writer | Jul 13, 2024 | Uncategorized
By Mary Moe
It’s tempting to say nothing. With so much anger and nonsense everywhere, I keep telling myself, turn the other cheek. This, too, will pass. But eight years in, it hasn’t passed. It’s worsening. So as we celebrate the 248th birthday of our shared inheritance, a warning.
That fatal moment is upon us, Americans. If we don’t meet it calmly, rationally, and unwaveringly, the whole experiment fails.
When thousands of American citizens storm the nation’s Capitol under a president’s orchestration, at his behest, and without his interference … when they wave Confederate flags while they pummel those who defend ours … when they erect a gallows to hang the vice president and the president tweets, “He probably deserves it” … I’m plumb out of cheeks to turn — top and bottom.
But our institutions stood, right? Wrong. Every American on any side of any aisle should have risen up on Jan. 6, 2021, and every day after it to say what happened that day was inexcusable. Inexcusable. Instead, the Senate shirked its impeachment duty. And with depressingly few exceptions, Republicans — throughout this nation and throughout Montana — spent the next 3 1/2 years perpetuating the big lie and kowtowing to the Big Liar. They should know by now what virtually everyone in Trump’s White House learned the hard way: When you sell your soul to Donald Trump, there’s no buy-back clause in the contract.
But the cancer on the body politic that was the Trump presidency had metastasized. In Montana, we elected a governor who assaulted a reporter and lied about it, an attorney general now facing 41 ethical violations, a secretary of state who spent millions of taxpayer dollars in court to keep likely Democrats from voting, a state auditor who lied about his residency to get a cheaper hunting license, and a state school superintendent who … well, ‘nuff said. All in thrall to Trump.
We’ve spent the last two legislative sessions enacting a carpet-bagged agenda attacking libraries, schools, the court, local governments, and the autonomy of women and other marginalized groups while Montanans’ taxes sky-rocketed, health insurance evaporated, climate issues intensified, and housing escalated from problem to crisis.
The hate Trump legitimized is everywhere. The nonsensical theories that fuel it defy any rational discussion. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court that Trump packed — the Court the framers designed as a bulwark against partisanship — has become a political action committee.
https://missoulian.com/opinion/column/mary-sheehy-moe-donald-trump-election-2024/article_433b5a3e-37b6-11ef-b7f9-3bf02d7708cc.html
by Guest Writer | Jun 22, 2024 | City
After the previous safety levy for the City of Great Falls failed in the last election by a wide margin, 9,095 no to 5,620 yes, the city went back to the drawing board, beginning by appointing another advisory group to study the issue. We decided to put out a few thoughts as this advisory begins its work.
Don’t waste a lot of money on polling and/or promotion- People in the city are already talking about commissioning a poll to find out what people think. Truth is people have just been hit with large property tax increases. We don’t need polling and messaging to tell us passing any kind of property tax increase will not be popular. Make clear what is being proposed and trust people to make their own conclusions.
Quit Playing Politics with an “Advisory Committee”- It is hard to figure out the logic for the appointments made for this committee. Apparently there was no application process for citizens who might have been interested in participating. And no process for deciding what qualifications the City wanted for members. Worse yet, it appears that political consideration rather than knowledge of related issues was a major driver. The members of the committee are: Sandra Guynn, Mike Parcel, Wendy McKamey, Jeni Dodd, George Nikolakakos, Aaron Weissman, Tony Rosales, Thad Reiste, Joe McKenney and Shannon Wilson.
Separate Fire and EMT funding from Police and Crime- Fire and emergency medical services are fundamentally different from policing. Wrapping them together in a levy forces voters to take or leave the whole thing. Very few people have a negative view of the services provided by fire and emergency personnel. Like it or not the same can not be said of police.
Make Clear Economic Arguments to Justify Increased Taxes- Rick Tryon’s crime task force back in 2021 didn’t do anybody any favors. It ended up producing a laundry list of expensive items which many citizens did not understand or support. To the extent the city wants to put an increase in the budgets of the police and local courts, it should emphasize things that save money like jail diversion programs, drug treatment and use of un-armed personnel wherever possible. In the area of fire protection, people should understand that their home and business insurance rates are directly ties to the safety rating of the local fire department.
by Guest Writer | Jun 13, 2024 | E-City Beat Watch
By Jackie (Mike) Brown blogger for the Western Word
Apparently, someone got under Great Falls City Commissioner Rick Tryon’s skin again. He penned a column that was posted on the E-City Beat blog:
Tryon says:
In light of some of the recent chatter around town I thought this would be a good time to offer my own opinion on the character of my hometown.
I grew up in Great Falls in the 1960’s and 1970’s. I raised my own two daughters here and helped to get a couple of my grandkids started right here in the Electric City, so I take strong exception to some of the disparaging, insulting, and divisive comments which have made it into the local news recently about the kind of community this is and people who live here.
Despite what some of the loudest most obnoxious local voices would have you believe, the overwhelming majority of folks in this community are not bigots, homophobes, racists or haters.
He does ask the question, “Are there jackasses in this town?” He answers his question with, “Sure, just like in any other town.”
I think I know one…
If you haven’t done so already, check out The Western Word blog https://thewesternword.com/
by Guest Writer | Jun 1, 2024 | Taxes
By Ryan Busse
Greg Gianforte raised your property taxes. And he did it deliberately, in order to give the wealthy and corporations huge tax cuts. That’s a simple truth that our governor doesn’t want you to hear, but it’s important for all Montanans to understand as we decide whether Gianforte deserves a second term.
Just last year, Gianforte and his supermajority in the Montana Legislature faced an important choice: Should they follow the recommendation from Gianforte’s own Department of Revenue, which suggested lowering the residential property tax rate from 1.35% to .94%in order to keep property taxes neutral — as previous Republican and Democratic governors have done? Or should they ignore that suggestion and bow to the lobbyists of wealthy corporations who pleaded for millions in tax cuts to bolster their profits?
Gianforte, of course, chose Option Two, walloping Montana homeowners and renters with the highest tax hike in state history so corporations could get their tax cuts. It hit the rest of us hard. The Gianforte Tax Hike is pinching Montana families at a time when our state is already facing a housing crisis.
Under Gianforte’s watch, Montana is the most expensive it’s ever been. And then he made it worse.
Only one Montanan — our governor — is ultimately responsible for raising property taxes. But that’s not what Gianforte wants you to believe. “It’s the counties’ fault,” he falsely claims. Or “city governments spend too much money,” he says. Those are lies. Just ask the countless elected Republican county commissioners and municipal leaders across our state who are furious that Gianforte is blaming them, willfully bearing false witness against his own neighbors.
Speaking of his neighbors, Gianforte is faring pretty well through his own tax hike, and that raises even more serious questions about whether he deserves a second term.
Public records show Gianforte’s next-door neighbors in Bozeman got slapped with a tax increase of nearly 71% in 2023, bringing their annual property taxes to over $11,680. But Gianforte’s mansion only got a tax increase of 19%, totaling $7,088. And it gets much, much worse.
Gianforte owns another mansion in Helena. According to a blistering investigation by MTN News, property taxes on every one of the 75 homes surrounding his privately owned mansion in Helena shot up dramatically. One of his neighbors got hit with a 62% tax hike. But what happened to Gianforte’s own property taxes? You guessed it. Somehow the tax bill on his Helena mansion went down nearly 7%. He gave himself a tax cut.
All of this is incredible but none of it is conjecture. It’s all easily verifiable with a few clicks on publicly available tax databases. And the governor hasn’t denied any of this. He refuses to answer questions about it.
Perhaps he believes it’s just his right to make things easier for wealthy people and harder for ordinary families. Perhaps he is proud of giving himself and his wealthy friends millions that could fund our public schools or provide tax relief to working people across this state.
Perhaps we should just take him at his word. After all, he warned us what his approach would be when he proclaimed, “the fairest tax is the one you pay and the one I don’t.”
One thing is for sure. As Montana faces another historic budget surplus, Greg Gianforte cannot be given another opportunity to make things even worse for the rest of us. He’s promised to stack the deck for people like him. We should believe him.
Ryan Busse, a former firearms executive, is a Democratic candidate for Montana governor.
