Held case underscores importance of scientific debate

Some conservatives may be upset with the Helena district court judge, for recently ruling in favor of the 16 school-age plaintiffs in the Held climate change case, but I am not. Some might see the length of her 103-page order as excessive, but this also does not surprise or upset me.  It was the natural outcome of a trial where the defendants — the state of Montana — might just as well have stayed home. Attorney General Austin Knudsen and the Gov. Greg Gianforte administration had decided to disarm themselves before the battle had begun. 

When the entire premise and evidentiary foundation of the lawsuit — the scientific claims of projected climatic disaster — are left unchallenged and unrefuted, what exactly is a judge supposed to do but rule based on the record the parties have provided? In a trial that was supposed to last two weeks, the plaintiffs, Our Children’s Trust, spent six full days presenting expert witnesses to build their case. The state took just one day and offered not a single expert witness to rebuff the false assertions of “scientific consensus,” and show that the incredibly complex field of climate change is anything but settled science. Instead, they threw in the towel from the start, formally stipulating to the court that they fully accepted the plaintiffs’ scientific positions: 

“For the purpose of this trial, there is a scientific consensus that earth is warming as a direct result of human GHG emissions, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels.” 

I called this the “capitulation stipulation,” and at a subsequent public meeting, I asked the attorney general to explain this strategic blunder. He admitted that he didn’t believe any of the climate alarmist arguments, but he didn’t favor the presiding judge and wished former Attorney General Tim Fox had allowed for a jury trial, so far better to fight it out on appeal before the Montana Supreme Court, he reasoned. 

Not only was this unprincipled, but it didn’t make legal sense. By making no argument on the trial court level to refute the flimsy scientific foundations and faulty data in Held, lawyers for the state had effectively tied their own hands before the high court, unable to make science-based arguments with the expert witnesses they had already excluded.  

I find myself asking, why do we bother electing Republicans when we end up with outcomes like this, where Our Children’s Trust has advanced its climate cause more through the Held case than with its 49 other state lawsuits combined. No wonder Michael Gerrand of Sabin Center for Climate Change Law said he was “smiling ear to ear,” calling it “the strongest decision on climate change issued by any court.”  

UM Law School professor Michelle Bryan added that “this decision… will be read by judges all over.” 

Republican timidity and political game playing when faced with challenging the science of the climate doomsayers is not new to me. A few years back, while serving on the Public Service Commission, I proposed the commission conduct a two-day public forum on climate change to build an extensive scientific record that informs current and future commissions. Experts from all sides of the question would be brought in. The all-GOP commission instantly turned me down. Had they shown the confidence to proceed, the petition they now face from the Held activists — and the Held suit itself — may well have been rendered moot. 

Most politicians, like most judges, are woefully uninformed on climatology and the competing sides of the climate change debate. Even more reason why the state should have jumped all over the opportunity to bring to light the widely censored other side of this important debate. 

Climatologist Dr. David Legates points out that CO2 is beneficially greening the planet, that hurricanes, tornados and heat waves are not increasing in intensity or frequency, and that floods and droughts increase due to land use changes, not climate.  

But in the courtroom, unchallenged scientific arguments are taken as truth.

“If a lawyer allows a judge to believe that anthropogenic climate change is an existential threat to the planet, we should not be surprised when the judge rules in favor of ‘saving the planet.’ We must always argue the science … Until we continue to argue the science, absurdities will rule the day,” he said. 

Montana blew it, and absurdities ruled the day.   

Roger Koopman is president of Montana Conservative Alliance. He served four years in the Montana House of Representatives and eight years as a Montana Public Service commissioner. He lives in Bozeman.