Families for a Livable Climate is working with statewide partners to expand our Montana Climate Stories project with an open call for submissions now through February 27. Beginning this spring, we will bring live climate storytelling events to five Montana communities to provide the space and tools for Montanans to connect in community, break climate silence, and take action on climate.

On Tuesday, February 14, at 3 p.m., the House Local Government Committee will hear HB 413. HB 413 will repeal HB 407, restoring local power to regulate plastics in Montana. Here's what you can do!

Want to make sure the kids at your child’s school are breathing clean air? Up for an easy, low-commitment volunteer project that will have a big impact? Join our Clean Air for Montana Kids network!

Missoula Current’s Martin Kidston writes (Feb. 6, 2023): “With overwhelming public support, members of the Missoula City Council on Monday gave final approval to a resolution urging the state Legislature to hand back local control on a number of issues, including a community's authority to regulate plastic.

The primary interest lies around single-uses plastics such as straws, stirrers, polystyrene containers and bags. Other states have regulated such plastics but under House Bill 407, adopted by the Legislature two years ago, Missoula and other interested Montana cities cannot.”

Jessica Abell writes in the Ravalli Republic on February 5, 2023: “In a world where both our temperatures and our politics are continually growing more heated, how do we cut through the culture wars to talk about our changing environment in a meaningful way?

A group of concerned Montanans is working to address just that through a series of live storytelling events across the state focused on people’s personal experiences related to our changing climate and how it has affected them, their businesses, agriculture or people and places they love.”

On January 20, a coalition of 17 organizations across Montana convened in Helena, centering climate stories and action at the Capitol’s very first Climate Advocacy Day. The rally drew over 300 attendees from throughout the state, including Billings, Livingston, the Flathead, Butte, Bozeman, and Missoula. Singing songs and welcoming speakers from around the state, we gathered to have a public conversation about climate change in one of our most important public spaces–our state government. 

I was super-excited to hear that Montana's Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) is offering free HEPA air purifiers for all K-12 schools in the state--what an excellent way to ensure clean air for our kids during wildfire season and beyond! But when I asked the principal at my son't school to order them, it quickly became clear to me that school administrators are swamped, and that ordering these air purifiers might fall through the cracks. No problem: I offered to order them myself.

In 2021, the MT Legislature took the power to regulate single-use plastics away from cities and towns. It’s time to get it back. Contact Missoula City Council members in support of a resolution submitted by our Plastic Working Group declaring Missoula’s support for statewide legislation restoring power to local governments to regulate single-use plastics.

From the Missoulian, Jan. 20: “Under banners saying “Protect Our Home,” climate change advocates rallied at the state Capitol Friday, blasting inaction on climate and demanding politicians move on solutions.

“The Climate Advocacy Day featured a panel discussion with legislators, a climate fair and roundtable with activists, but it was a noon rally attended by nearly 300 people that anchored the event as attendees pushed their message of urgently needed action.” Read the full story.