BOZEMAN — Nationally renowned environmentalist and climate activist Bill McKibben described the atmosphere-warming effects of fossil-fuel combustion and innovations driving a shift to cleaner technologies during a public talk in Bozeman this week.
McKibben is credited with introducing a general audience to climate change’s mechanisms and impacts in his 1989 book, “The End of Nature.”
McKibben quipped for the 100-plus Bozeman residents in attendance that “The End of Nature” could be described as “the least successful book ever written” given that its warnings went largely unheeded for decades. More fossil fuel combustion-related emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, have been produced since the book’s release than in all of human history prior, he said.
McKibben then described some of the temperature records that have been broken in the past 18 months as indicative of a kind of “jump” that’s happening in response to increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. Recent months have wrought the hottest day that’s ever been recorded on Earth — July 22, 2024, which replaced global temperature records set the year prior — and a 101-degree Fahrenheit reading that a National Park Service buoy located off the coast of Florida recorded last year.
“The things that scientists were warning us about [in 1989] are now coming true, and they’re becoming true in dramatic, horrifying, painful fashion,” McKibben said. “We are living on a hotter planet than any human beings that we would recognize as human beings have ever lived on.”
RELATED
‘This changes everything’: Experts respond to Held v. Montana climate ruling
The ruling by Lewis and Clark District Court Judge Kathy Seeley is the first legal opinion of its kind, spelling out the environmental harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions as well as the effects of climate change on the physical and mental well-being of young people.
Humanity’s reluctant transition away from fossil fuels effectively means that, instead of 35 years, we have five years to make a decisive switch to renewable energy, said McKibben, who founded 350.org, a grassroots climate activism nonprofit, with that goal in mind.
The good news, McKibben said, is that “we have a pretty good idea now what we need to do if we want to avert the worst, in a way that we didn’t, really, even a few years ago.”
He said scientists have played their part over the past 35 years by making a case for a response to climate change, and now the intellectual work rests largely on the shoulders of the engineers developing technology for renewable energy.
Evidence of their willingness to rise to the challenge can be found in the dramatic decreases in cost for clean energy projects and innovations in storage technologies — batteries — that provide grid operators with the flexibility to increase renewables in their portfolios, he said.
“I think we still think of alternative energy as if it was the Whole Foods of energy,” he said, referencing the boutique grocery common in affluent communities. “It is not. It is the Costco of energy. It is the cheap stuff available in bulk, ready to go.”
McKibben noted that Texas — a deeply red state hardly regarded as an incubator for progressive environmental causes — is leading the country in battery and wind energy deployment.
“I think we still think of alternative energy as if it was the Whole Foods of energy. It is not. It is the Costco of energy. It is the cheap stuff available in bulk, ready to go.”
350.org Founder Bill McKibben
“Which might be a salutory lesson because Texas is an oil and gas state, too. But they have managed to get it together to do some pretty remarkable things,” he said.
In a subsequent conversation with Montana Free Press, McKibben pointed out that clean energy and battery deployment “gets easier with literally every month that passes” as we continue to apply our collective intelligence to the task. Renewable deployment in Texas has been a boon for the state’s energy consumers, he added, noting that Texans have some of the lowest power bills in the country.
In his talk Tuesday night, McKibben described climate change as the “biggest problem the world’s ever faced,” and wondered aloud whether the big brains our species developed as a result of our ability to harness fire and cook food will ultimately support an effective response to this particular problem.
“We’ll find out if it gets us out. My intuition is that the real answer to that question depends on the size of the heart that the brain is attached to,” he said. “And I’m counting on all of you to have big hearts enough that we can get all that we can done in the time that we have.”
RELATED
‘Running in the wrong direction’
Annual emissions associated with the extraction, transportation and combustion of fossil fuels from Montana are greater than comparable emissions from more than 100 countries, an environmental consultant with the Stockholm Environment Institute told Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seeley during the fourth day of a climate trial over Montana’s energy policies. Another expert for the 16 youth plaintiffs said the state is “running in the wrong direction to address the climate crisis.”
Wind power set to overtake coal generation capacity in Montana
With coal plants encountering tough market conditions and two big wind projects slated to come online, U.S. Energy Information Administration data indicates that Montana-based wind plants will soon provide more ‘nameplate capacity’ than their coal-fired counterparts.
The League of Women Voters, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Montana Environmental Information Center, Moms Clean Air Force and MSU’s Ivan Doig Center sponsored McKibben’s appearance in Bozeman. McKibben visited Montana as part of a larger tour of swing states he’s making around the country ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Other stops include Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan, as well as a stop in Missoula Sept. 28, he said.
Other engagements during McKibben’s visit to Montana this week included a similarly themed talk in Billings hosted by Billings Climate Week and meetings with Northern Plains Resource Council and Protect Our Winters, two nonprofits active on climate issues. While in Bozeman, McKibben also met with Montana State University students and a handful of young Montanans who successfully sued Montana over its energy-permitting policies.
latest stories
Montana drops bison lawsuit against Yellowstone National Park
Motion to dismiss ends nearly two years of litigation, renewed tension over who gets a say in bison management
Poll: Rep. Troy Downing ahead in Eastern U.S. House District
A Montana Free Press-Eagleton poll conducted between Aug. 27 and Sept. 7 shows incumbent Rep. Troy Downing with a substantial lead over Democrat Brian Miller in their race for Montana’s Eastern District U.S. House seat.
What Missoula’s homelessness response looks like one year after Johnson Street shelter closure
The last 12 months without the 165-bed emergency shelter have left Missoula’s longstanding homeless shelter full more often than not and have strained other organizations serving people living on the street. Limited shelter capacity also means more people are living outside to navigate the city’s camping restrictions, providers said.
