Do children have a right to a healthy climate? Montana case is a test.
| Bozeman, Mont.
Ever since she was a freshman at Colorado College, Rikki Held has been waiting for today.
It’s not her graduation; that happened a few weeks ago. This is something else – the day when the lawsuit that bears her name, Held v. Montana, goes to trial, marking the first time that young people in the United States have entered a courtroom to demand the right to a stable climate.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onA lawsuit in Montana marks the first time that young people in the United States have gotten a chance in court to demand the right to a stable climate – part of a larger global effort by children to demand government action.
Ms. Held and 15 other young plaintiffs, ages 5 to 22, claim Montana’s continued support of fossil fuels violates the state’s constitutional promise to “maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.” She says her family’s ranch is increasingly threatened by droughts, floods, and wildfires that are worsening due to climate change.
The case is not just about justice, the youth and their lawyers say, but also about perseverance in insisting that state representatives – the grown-ups who are supposed to take care of them – actually protect their futures.
Climate change is “not just something on the other side of the world,” Ms. Held says. “It’s affecting people in Montana and people working closely with the land, and we rely on environmental systems to make a living.”
Ever since she was a freshman at Colorado College, Rikki Held has been waiting for today.
It’s not her graduation; that happened a few weeks ago. This is something else – the day when a major lawsuit that bears her name, Held v. Montana, goes to trial. It marks the first time that young people in the United States have gotten a chance in court to demand the right to a stable climate. As such, it’s a key moment in what has become a global effort by children to use litigation to demand government action – and potentially affect public opinion – on climate change.
“I didn’t think it would be this long at all,” Ms. Held said in an interview before the beginning of the trial, in which 16 young plaintiffs, ages 5 to 22, claim Montana’s continued support of fossil fuels violates the state’s constitutional promise to “maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.”
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onA lawsuit in Montana marks the first time that young people in the United States have gotten a chance in court to demand the right to a stable climate – part of a larger global effort by children to demand government action.
“It’s kind of a slow process,” she continued. “But that’s also meant I’ve been able to tell my story.”
And her story, which she has been sharing with neighbors and classmates for years now, and which today she was able to tell from the stand, is this: Her favorite place on this big-sky Earth – her family’s ranch outside the town of Broadus, population 456 – is increasingly and devastatingly threatened by the effects of climate change. Over recent years, she has watched drying riverbanks leave her animals without drinking water; she has watched floodwaters, connected to abnormally high temperatures and unusually rapid ice melt, decimate riverbanks. Wildfires have swept across the ranch, and she has become accustomed to air quality warnings.
Climate change is “not just something on the other side of the world,” Ms. Held says. “It’s affecting people in Montana and people working closely with the land, and we rely on environmental systems to make a living.”
This narrative, according to the plaintiffs’ case, is one that is repeated in different forms throughout the state. There are children who have had to evacuate their homes because of climate-charged wildfires, or who can no longer hunt because of shifting animal ranges. There are residents of the Flathead Indian Reservation who can no longer practice certain ceremonies because the snow has melted too quickly, and there are children who live near Glacier National Park who must stay inside because of smoke conditions.
Their case, then, is not just about justice, the young people and their lawyers say, but about perseverance in insisting that state representatives – the grown-ups who are supposed to take care of them – actually protect their futures.
“The climate crisis is degrading and depleting Montana’s unique and precious environment and natural resources, which the Youth Plaintiffs depend on for their safety and survival,” the lawsuit says in its complaint.
Montana, the lawsuit claims, has an obligation to protect these children’s right to a stable climate as part of its constitutional duty to maintain a clean and healthful environment. (Montana is one of only a handful of U.S. states whose constitutions include a right to a clean environment.) It is also required to act as a trustee of the state’s natural resources for the benefit of future generations.
Two views on climate – weighed in court
Instead, plaintiffs allege, the state has embraced an energy policy that specifically supports fossil fuels – an act it knew would contribute to the climate crisis that is causing the harm.
But that’s where the legal wrangling begins.
The state has argued that there’s no way to show that Montana’s energy policy actually causes the alleged environmental harm – and it rejects the premise that the young plaintiffs can hold the state liable for making what it claims are well-considered energy policy decisions. Some state representatives have also dismissed the youths’ claims as misguided advocacy; the lawyers representing the Montana plaintiffs are part of a group called Our Children’s Trust, which is representing young people in climate cases throughout the country.
“This entire case has been nothing more than a publicity stunt spearheaded by an out-of-state special interest group,” Emily Flower, a spokesperson for Attorney General Austin Knudsen, was quoted in the Flathead Beacon as saying. “We believe this political theater will come to an end soon.”
But Montana district court judge Kathy Seeley has allowed the case to go forward – despite recent GOP changes to a law involved in the plaintiffs’ argument. Over the next two weeks, lawyers expect testimony from the youth plaintiffs, as well as pediatricians and scientists who are expected to talk both about the impact of climate change on children’s mental health and the connection between climate change and environmental harm.
“The Held case is really the first case that is going to answer the question, hopefully positively, as to whether the right to a safe and stable climate is part of the environmental rights that the people of Montana are entitled to,” says Maya van Rossum, an environmental activist and lawyer who has started the Green Amendment movement to add mandates for a healthy environment in state constitutions across the U.S.
It will also be a moment where climate change scientists can make their case in court about the connection between climate change and extreme weather, says Michael Gerrard, an environmental lawyer who is the founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. On the other side of the coin, those who might minimize the impact of climate change could face legal questioning too.
“It means that scientific evidence will be subject to the crucible of cross-examination,” he says. “Climate science deniers have long had a political platform. But they’ve mostly tried to stay out of court because they’ve realized they were vulnerable.”
The trial, which is scheduled to last two weeks, is scheduled to be livestreamed, and Our Children’s Trust has helped organize watch parties across the country.
Differing opinions at a local park
But for many in Montana – even young people – the lawsuit is still under the radar.
Hazel Rex, 20, and Taylor Macik, 19, both Montana State University juniors, were leaving Glen Lake Rotary Park, known as Bozeman Beach, after a recent day of relaxation in the sun as ominous gray clouds rolled over the train tracks on the other side of the pond – the very tracks that carry Montana coal from mines in the state’s eastern region to ships waiting on the West Coast.
They weren’t familiar with the lawsuit, but after learning more about it, Ms. Rex said she was surprised it had gotten as far as it had.
“It’s extremely hard for Montana to do anything about fossil fuel usage because now it’s about damage control and what we can do to minimize its effects,” she said. She didn’t feel much was being done in the state to offset fossil fuel use.
Tony Knick, sitting in his plug-in electric Ford F-150, came here to “cool his feet off” in the pond before continuing on his errands with his wife. He wasn’t familiar with the lawsuit, either, but he still had an opinion.
“Some of these lawsuits are frivolous,” the retired business owner said. “I don’t think we really have any fossil fuel concerns in Montana.”
That opinion wouldn’t surprise Ms. Held. She says that many of her neighbors don’t call the shifts in the environment “climate change,” and says a lot of people aren’t clear on the correlation between Montana’s coal extraction and fossil fuel energy policies with the floods, wildfires, and heat waves. She hopes the lawsuit will help get more people talking about all of it.
“If you just ask a person if they’ve ever experienced climate change, I’ll get the reaction that they haven’t – it’s seen as an abstract thing that’s hard to see, on the other side of the world,” she says. “But people do experience these things. All the time.”
Dawson Dunning, a wildlife filmmaker who also grew up on an eastern Montana ranch agrees. He says people don’t often talk about climate change – but it’s clear to them it’s having an impact.
“There’s a lot of recognition in the ranching community that things have changed,” he said. “We’re looking very much at a drastic change in our future. We can’t keep burning and developing.”
Mr. Dunning has been involved with the Northern Plains Resource Council, a Montana-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting the state’s water, land, air, and working landscapes. As such, he said, he’d seen the need for vigilant public oversight of government regulators. Mr. Dunning spoke of two proposed fossil fuel projects he believes would have negatively impacted his family’s ranch – a coal mine near Otter Creek and a railroad that would have run through nearby properties. Both projects were eventually abandoned after years of fraught legal battles.
“I’m not a huge fan of things being decided in court,” he says, “but I don’t see another option.”
Stephanie Hanes reported from Northampton, Massachusetts, and Jodi Hausen reported from Bozeman, Montana.
