Happy New Year to all of our subscribers! We hope you stayed warm over the holiday season and enjoyed time with people and the food you love.

• Climate Change is taking the stage in Montana, the Bitterroot, and the world THIS WEEK:
  • Climate Advocacy Day on Jan 20th at the Montana State Capitol.
  • The explicit protections in our Constitution to ensure a healthy environment are at risk. Find out how this affects you and your family at the Montana Constitution Forum on Jan 21st in Hamilton.
  • Climate Change agendas at DAVOS (The World Economic Forum).  We give you info and a place to register for climate updates.

• We are excited to announce an event and exhibit in Hamilton later this year. “Montana Climate Stories”. There is a call for submissions: A $100 stipend is offered for selected stories - read on!

• $5,000 NOAA Grant Propels BCAG into Climate Change Planning with Resilience MT.

Climate risks are included this week as the world leaders convene for the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos Kloster, Switzerland (commonly known as “Davos”). This quote stood out from the Davos Agenda Articles webpage:

The climate change social media site and app “We Don’t Have Time” has organized a Davos Hub. You’ll get climate-related news and be able to participate in giving a voice to climate change concerns.

Montana’s State Constitution declares, “All persons… have certain unalienable rights.” The right to a “clean and healthful environment” is included. There are those who wish to threaten that right, which will heavily impact meaningful climate advocacy in Montana.

Mae Nan Ellingson was the youngest delegate when our Constitution was approved. Today, she is the Chair of the nonpartisan Friends of Montana Constitution.

At this event, Ms. Ellingson will walk us through how our Constitution, regarded as one of the best in the nation, is under attack, the effects of losing it and what we can do about it.

Cheyenna Burrows, BCAG Board Member & Intern for Resilience MT

$5,000 NOAA Grant
Propels BCAG into Climate Change Planning

BCAG, in 2023, plunges into work to create a forum process to address climate planning in the Bitterroot Valley.  BCAG is the community partner for ResilienceMT, a program of the University of Montana Environmental Studies department and spectrUM discovery center. The $450,000 total grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is to present environmental education and climate resilience planning in Ravalli County and on the Fort Belknap and Blackfeet Indian reservations.

The NOAA grant funds spectrUM to design and present climate science exhibits in the Hamilton and Corvallis schools later in 2023. BCAG’s role will be to facilitate the community portion of the project, which is aimed at developing resource material and a community planning process for climate resilience in water use, wildfire mitigation, and sustainable agriculture. We expect the forums to take place in autumn 2023 in Hamilton. BCAG’s $5,000 portion of the grant helps pay for coordination, planning, venue expenses, logistical and promotional expenses.

Heading up BCAG’s ResilienceMT efforts is Cheyenna Burrows, a recent graduate of Humboldt State University, now Cal Poly Humboldt, with a degree in Environmental Science with an emphasis in Energy and Climate. Cheyenna serves on the BCAG board and currently heads up our monthly book club with Chapter One Bookstore. She will help BCAG recruit participants for the forum process, organize logistics and promotion for the event(s) and coordinate with our partners, including other local nonprofit organizations with a stake in climate change. Welcome, Cheyenna, to this process! We are so happy to have you working on this.

Watch for more in this newsletter as this project develops!