By Lesley Clark, E&E News
MISSOULA, Mont. — Mica Kantor was just 4 years old when he began to worry about the future of the world’s glaciers. A documentary had him tearing up at the climate-change-fueled retreat of the icy masses.
Growing up in the state that’s home to Glacier National Park, Mica participated in climate strikes at his school. He said he mailed letters to elected officials in Montana, “telling them how much climate change meant to me and hoping they would reevaluate their positions.”
He got a few replies — each automated: “Thanks for your concern, we appreciate your feedback.”
MISSOULA, Mont. — Mica Kantor was just 4 years old when he began to worry about the future of the world’s glaciers. A documentary had him tearing up at the climate-change-fueled retreat of the icy masses.
Growing up in the state that’s home to Glacier National Park, Mica participated in climate strikes at his school. He said he mailed letters to elected officials in Montana, “telling them how much climate change meant to me and hoping they would reevaluate their positions.”
He got a few replies — each automated: “Thanks for your concern, we appreciate your feedback.”
So when his mother told him and his sister in 2020 that Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based law firm, was planning to sue Montana’s government for failing to protect the environment for kids like him, he was all in.
“It felt empowering,” Mica, now 14, said on a recent hike in the Pattee Canyon Recreation Area he frequents near his home. “A lot of people have it worse, but this is our home, and Montana isn’t doing enough to prevent it.”
He added: “They’re even going in the wrong direction.”
His destination on the hike: a towering ponderosa pine, Montana’s state tree. Mica buried his nose in the bark, which is known to give off the scent of vanilla or butterscotch.
Unlike other native species threatened by changing climate conditions, the ponderosa is built to withstand threats: Its thick bark makes it resistant to fire, and its deep roots help it survive drought.
Mica, who was born in Billings, said he can only hope kids in the state are as resilient.
Wildfires and smoke in 2017 left him housebound for more than a month. Increasingly hot summers — “90 degrees for weeks on end,” he said — mean he and his dad can’t fish Montana’s rivers when the water hits above a certain temperature.
“Nature is a big part of my life,” he said, “and I wanted to do something.”
His course of action was to join a lawsuit that is poised to be the first youth climate challenge to go to trial before a judge in the United States. Held v. Montana, the 2020 lawsuit filed on behalf of 16 young Montanans, is scheduled to be heard at the 1st Judicial District Court in Helena for two weeks in June 2023.
“This is a chance to put all of the climate change evidence on the record,” said Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School who tracks climate litigation. “It’s an opportunity to build a really strong case for why Montana — and really the whole world — is facing imminent and irreversible effects of climate change.”
