Once I thought that Montana’s claim to the “last best place” was outrageous hyperbole, the sort of catch phrase usually invented by a Chamber of Commerce.
But after I helped my daughter, Betty, move to Bozeman three years ago, I began to see the reality. It is truly a magical place.
Even with the influx of (mostly California) buyers of second homes, the construction boom in Big Sky, the outrageous inflation of real estate values on a par with Malibu, Montana has retained its reverence for the outdoors.
Before I bought my little hideaway in Big Sky, I made many wrong assumptions about the natives. I expected a Fox News culture-the former governor, after all, was a fierce promoter of the state’s extractive industries. Instead, I found people fiercely protective of wildlife and the environment. For every West Yellowstone business owner pressing for unrestricted snowmobile access in Yellowstone, there are hundreds of hikers, skiers, wildlife photographers and naturalists defending the park from noise and air pollution.
Most of Yellowstone is actually in Wyoming, Veep Cheney’s home state, where oil and gas extraction is prime. But with corners of the park in Idaho and Montana, residents of surrounding communities generally vote for environmental protection first.
This is not to say there are a lot of California-style tree huggers. You won’t see Hollywood celebrities living in threatened trees or strapping themselves to bulldozers.
What you will see is well-attended lectures and discussions about how to share the natural resources of the Gallatin National Forest surrounding the park, giving equal space to motorized recreation and those who seek silence in the wilderness.
I admit to holding an old bias against hunters (mostly city gun toters who bring high-powered rifles to the mountains and plague ranchers by shooting holes in irrigation pipes and No Trespassing signs, killing does (and occasionally each other) and scaring the daylights out of livestock).
In Montana, hunters and fishermen often support environmental legislation and are generally friendly to ranchers, as long as they don’t try to block river access. Betty has discovered only one trail where it’s unsafe to ride her horse during hunting season.
The current governor listens equally to ranchers, farmers, hunters and those who seek environmental protections. He seems to understand that these interests attract tourism and contribute equally to the state’s economy.
Another indication of enlightenment among state legislators is a willingness to address national and global interests. A recent climate change conference in Helena, meant to help state officials work out a climate change policy by next year, attracted hundreds. What they heard from experts was, finally, that global climate change is already having a huge impact on Montana. Average March temperatures at weather stations from Kalispell to Billings have risen five to seven degrees since 1950. This translates into longer and more intense wildfire seasons and lower late-summer river flows, which prompt fishing restrictions. More precipitation falls in the form of rain, which runs off, instead of snow, which is stored in the mountains. Spring thaw is coming two to four weeks earlier. The big unknown is whether warmer temperatures will bring drier or wetter weather, but wildfires will increase in either case. Rain increases grasses and other fine fuels, while dry weather saps moisture from fuels. And fighting fires has a direct impact on state budgets.
Richard Opper, who heads Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality, accused the Bush administration of inaction on the issue and noted other states already are taking the initiative.
Western governors, Republican and Democrat, have tired of waiting for federal standards on greenhouse gas emissions, and are taking steps on their own to regulate vehicle and small engine emissions, and to encourage development of alternative energy sources and carbon storage. Possibly because Montana wildfires this season have been as costly as California’s, the state seems poised to follow our Governator’s lead.
Even companies like BP, whose primary business is fossil fuel production, are beginning to see the light. At the conference, Bill Gerwing, BP’s director of environmental policy, noted the international oil and gas giant has renamed itself “Beyond Petroleum.” He said there’s little doubt that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and methane are adding to global warming. “I think the debate about the science is over. It’s now about, how do we go from here? How do we slow, stop or reverse emissions?”
To hear this at a state-sponsored conference in Montana was a revelation to me. I no longer see Montana as a Fox News culture, a red state bent on extraction at whatever cost to the environment.
Montana may even have earned the right to call itself the “Last Best Place.”