For any winter lover, this winter has failed to deliver. The view from my window looks more like spring and not February, when the surrounding mountains are normally covered in snow, powder days are frequent, and my driveway at home requires shoveling and salting. During last week’s temperature spike into the 50s, I may have got a sunburn. It’s a troubling first. Yet, the weirdness of this winter, beginning just before the holidays with the historic rain and flooding and now a dwindling snowpack, might be an indication of what to come as the climate gets hotter and drier.
These impacts don’t simply dampen the hopes of skiers like me or rob kids of the simple joys of sledding and snowball fights. Rather, unmitigated climate change will drastically alter our way of life in Montana.
I don’t think anyone is attracted to northwest Montana to visit a chain or big box store or drive on a highway. Residents and tourists alike come here, sometimes in droves, for our unparalleled natural beauty. Some of us fall in love with the peaks of Glacier National Park or the wild flowing rivers where cutthroats flirt with a fisherman’s fly. This landscape has likely either made marriages or ended them, depending on if that ardor for peak or piste is mutual.
But these places won’t remain unchanged if climate change isn’t, at the very least addressed, and carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions aren’t curtailed. And, in Montana, our very own state constitution enshrines our right to a clean and healthy environment. Poetics aside, a warmer and drier climate, unpredictable storms and an increase in wildfires, also impacts our economy.
The impacts are far reaching and so far, the American government is willfully choosing to ignore climate science that calls for curtailing CO2 emissions, which endangers everyone. In northwest Montana, where our natural environment is also a chief economic driver, failing to address a chaotic climate puts our economy in dire straits. Outdoor recreation in Montana generates $3.4 billion annually. And, it’s also a major driver of jobs. According to 2023 figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economics nearly 6% of employees across the state are employed in some facet of the outdoor recreation industry. In the Flathead Valley, these numbers translate to businesses large and small creating jobs, sustaining the economy, and building community around chairlift rides and mountain bike trails.
Climate change, which will dry up snowpack and fill skies with smoke, will also threaten economy viability in northwest Montana. A sobering report, commissioned by the Montana Wildlife Federation, found that by mid-century, climate change could cost the state’s outdoor economy $263 million annually. The report predicts a potential loss of nearly 9,000 jobs and significant drops in tourism to iconic places like Yellowstone and Glacier. Without any effort to address climate change, the Flathead Valley could be, alarmingly, an altogether different place. Extreme weather events could remake the landscape and evaporate the local economy.
Far away from Montana, the current federal administration is reshaping the E.P.A and reversing guidelines and laws around emission standards, fossil fuel industries, and limits renewable energy efforts and climate research. It’s a dangerous game for both the planet, and here in the Flathead. I’m not certain how many politicians are skiers or hikers but economic data should cause them concern if the environment doesn’t.
The impacts of a warming climate are readily observable. What will happen when it’s beyond observable that our cherished big skies and snowy winters are a thing of the past? What are we willing to lose?