Ignoring climate change will not make it go away

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Republicans have decided climate change is, as our incoming president claims, a "scam" and "Chinese hoax" intended to cripple the U.S. economy. Simply put, that's hogwash and the evidence is stacking up day by day, year by year, disaster by disaster worldwide.

Yet, at both the state and federal level the GOP majorities have budgetary and policy priorities based in the mistaken belief that ignoring our over-heated global climate will somehow make it go away. Nothing could be further from the truth — and it's getting worse a lot faster than predicted.

If one needed proof, look no further than the incoming president's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency. With a dearth of environmental background, former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin has received the worst rating of any New York congressional member from the League of Conservation Voters

He has already promised to go on a "deregulatory" rampage to "unleash prosperity." He apparently forgot the same tactic failed to work in Trump's first term when he dismantled more than 100 environmental regulations. He also conveniently ignored the fact that a park in Brooklyn experienced a wildfire last week due to incredibly dry conditions resulting from the Earth's hottest year on record.

Oddly enough, Montana's Gov. Greg Gianforte used the same language for his new budget, promising "security and prosperity." Now if the $150 million he has earmarked in his budget for new prisons was going to deal with the increasingly destructive impacts of climate change, he'd be taking concrete steps to deal with dewatered and degraded rivers, collapsing fisheries, and drought ravaged farms and ranches. But ignoring those inconvenient facts, Gianforte says we can have "security" by putting more Montanans behind bars.

It's not like people don't know what's going on. Thanksgiving is two weeks away and our unseasonably warm and dry weather persists. As a new study points out, our "winters" are now several degrees warmer across most of the nation, with diminishing snowpacks causing widespread drought conditions...and Montana is no exception.

Even Montana's Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission knows we're losing the battle. As Commissioner Pat Tabor said this week when the Commission addressed the collapsing trout populations by limiting anglers' keep from 5 to 3 fish daily: ""Our obligation is to protect the fish, not to protect the rights of an angler. As far as adaptive management, when we adapt, it feels a little too late. It's like, why didn't we get ahead of this curve?"

Dang good question, Commissioner, maybe you should ask Gianforte, eh?

His comments were echoed by fellow commissioner KC Walsh, who again wonders why the state is so behind the ball on such an obvious and important issue: "I perceive my role as a commissioner to think strategically about what this state is going to be looking like in 5 or 10 years and how we can get ahead of the type of issues we're struggling with on the Big Hole, Beaverhead, Jefferson and some other major rivers where we're kinda trying to clean up after the fact."

"Cleaning up after the fact" isn't working, as is all too obvious. Nor will cutting anglers' limits put even one more drop of water in our chronically dewatered rivers. And without water to "protect the fish" and meet the flows that dilute our municipal and industrial discharges, the future is bleak.

Actions speak louder than words and the actions we need now are real appropriations to fix our rivers. Without those the governor's pledge to keep Montana secure and prosperous simply ignores the problems — but it won't make them go away.