- In Montana, 16 young residents are suing the state over its support of the fossil-fuel industry.
- They argue Montana is violating their right to a clean environment as laid out in its constitution.
- The suit is the first constitutional case on climate change to go to trial in the US.
When it's too smoky to be outdoors near his Montana home, Badge Busse gets depressed.
Badge, 15, is named after the Badger-Two Medicine wilderness area adjacent to Glacier National Park in northwest Montana. The Badger-Two Medicine has been the focus of a 40-year battle involving lawsuits over oil and gas leases the federal government issued in the early 1980s.
Now, Badge himself is part of a legal fight. He, along with 15 other young people, contend that Montana's support of the fossil-fuel industry is depriving them of the clean environment they're entitled to under the state's constitution.
Badge testified on Tuesday as part of the landmark trial that wildfires and other disturbances exacerbated by a changing climate have made it harder for him to do the things he loves most, including fishing and hunting Hungarian partridge, among other animals, with his family.
"It's smoky outside and all you want to do is just, like, lay down on your bed and cry. It's super depressing and I just — it's very hard to deal with," Badge said in a Helena courtroom where the trial, which began Monday, is expected to play out over two weeks.
The trial comes little more than a month after the Supreme Court turned down appeals from oil and gas companies that were hoping to prevent climate lawsuits brought by local governments from being heard in state courts, where damage awards are likely to be higher than in federal courts. The decision could allow at least some of about two dozen such cases to proceed.
Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School, told Insider there's broad agreement that the ideal fix to the environmental challenges brought by a hotter planet would be strong government action. But, he said, divided government in the US and abroad means legal measures will have to be a part of the tool kit for dealing with the climate crisis.
"We are so far behind where we need to be in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions that every lawful tactic needs to be pursued. And litigation is certainly one of them," Gerrard said.
The Montana suit, Held v. Montana, is remarkable for being the first constitutional case on climate change to reach trial in the US. Gerrard said Columbia's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, which he founded and runs, has documented about 2,200 climate cases around the world; about 70% of those have been in the US. But trials, he noted, are "exceedingly rare."
Plaintiff Mica Kantor, 15, told the court he'd run numerous races, including half-marathons, near his home in Missoula. But now, unlike when he was younger, he has to use an inhaler to help his breathing and that going outside when it's smoky hurts his throat and lungs.
A victory in court for the young Montana residents, the oldest of whom is 22, could show that where there's a state constitutional right to a clean environment, that's violated by unrestricted fossil-fuel emissions, Gerrard said. "It's putting science on trial. It's highlighting the effect that climate change has on young people."
Montana's constitution, which was ratified in 1972, established the right to a "clean and healthful environment."
Badge said during his testimony that lower water levels in rivers had made it harder for him to fish with his family.
Before leaving the stand Tuesday, Badge replied to a question from his lawyer about whether he felt a sense of urgency concerning climate action: "Yeah, it's kind of a now-or-never situation."