Blunt honesty matters here: Any candidate who refuses to grapple with the climate crisis does not have the best interests of your or your family at heart.
The climate is changing. It is burning our forests, choking our towns in smoke, melting our snowpack, heating our trout streams, and changing the yields on our farms and ranches. It is already affecting the most vulnerable: Pregnant women cannot afford to medically evacuate during fire season. Seniors cannot be quarantined near a HEPA filter all summer. Farmers hit hard by the trade war cannot afford to retool their entire operations for new crops. This is not normal, and it is not right.
There is no compromise in keeping the Gallatin’s waters flowing cold - you either do or you don’t.
There is no compromise in offering voluntary medical evacuations to the town of Seeley Lake during the next Rice Ridge fire - you either do or you don’t.
There is no compromise in saving working families in Colstrip from an economy that treats them as disposable - you either will or you won’t.
I will fight for climate justice and a just transition to a clean energy economy. That is why I support the Green New Deal.
+ Champion the Issue
I am tired of cowardly politicians refusing to acknowledge the threat of climate change. My generation - my family, my friends, my children - will have to live with the effects of our current leaders’ inaction. More than other citizens, Montanans recognize the threats posed by climate change. Wildfires are burning hotter and longer, croplands flood regularly, invasive species stand at our doorstep ready to destroy ecosystems in the Flathead, and our glaciers are receding at a rapid pace. We owe it to the generations beyond us to do everything we can to address climate change.
During the 2018 legislative session, I sponsored innovative, first-in-the-nation legislation to improve air quality during Montana’s wildfire seasons in order to better protect vulnerable populations like the elderly, young and sick. We need laws to not only address the most dire threats posed by climate change, but laws to ameliorate its current effects on the health and wellbeing of our society.
I support Governor Jay Inslee's climate action plan to get us to 100 percent clean energy that provides for investments in jobs and for a just transition to a clean economy.
+ Speak The Truth
The truth is that farmland will become ranchland, plantings will need to shift, and hunters and anglers will face changing herds and diminished fisheries. But the most vulnerable populations, as always, will feel the effects first. All climate-focused legislation must address the needs of people who have felt environmental injustices most keenly in the past - low income, rural, Native American communities foremost among them.
+ Don’t Take Dirty Money
To tackle the causes and effects of climate change we need cooperation and acknowledgment of the facts. In DC I will work tirelessly for Montanans’ rights to breathe clean air and drink clean water. I will use my experiences in the State Legislature and serving Montana to protect our climate for the betterment of our health and environment for now and many years in the future. This campaign will not accept money from Big Oil. I will fight to keep the “Last Best Place” our best place.
+ Climate Job Corps
We should be taking a page from our highly successful Rural Job Corps in Montana and national service programs like AmeriCorps. We can put young Montanans to work ameliorating the effects of climate change.
