I am deeply grateful to the Montana Environmental Information Center and local activists for stopping the Highwood Generating Station near Great Falls. Building a coal-fired power plant now, when global warming is threatening not only the environment but the entire agricultural economy of Montana, would have been a horrible mistake for Montana.
Unless the carbon emissions are appropriately sequestered, coal is simply an obsolete fuel. We cannot use it. Global warming is not a myth, it is real, and it could cause an enormous amount of harm to Montana's environment and agricultural economy. Whether or not precipitation declines, the expected increase in temperature from carbon dioxide emissions will make our climate much more arid. Winters will be shorter, spring runoff will come sooner, the fire season will be longer, and farmers will find it harder to grow a profitable yield.
Every farm and ranch in Montana is truly threatened by global warming. We all could go broke because of it. People who say that developing coal is good for the economy are ignoring science and denying reality. The best thing for the economy is not only to stop new coal plants but shut down existing ones, replacing them with something that will help our economy: windmills. Let's start with the Mount Everest of carbon emissions in Montana, Colstrip.
MEIC and the local activists did the right thing for Montana. We should all be grateful to them.
