Clean Energy and the Politicization of Language

Help support our future in Montana

I have a background in ministry and served in the USAFR Chaplain Candidate program. I spent a summer in Botswana researching wildlife and tourism, and this summer I will spend two months in Pakistan assisting women and children negatively impacted by environmental disasters. Defending the Earth is a form of ministry.

I was selected to be the 2025 Fair Coordinator for Montana Renewable Energy. It is my first time event planning and fundraising, and while it is not my primary job, it is a vision I hope to realize here in Montana.

The MREA Clean Energy Fair will be held August 22, 2025 in Great Falls. It is the first time the 13-year annual event will take place in GF. This is an opportunity for all who desire to breathe, drink, and live a more thoughtful lifestyle to learn and participate in the downtown fair, which will be next door to the Farmers Market.

Speaking of farmers markets, shopping local produce and goods is one great step towards clean energy living. It keeps money local, reduces the costs and nasty side effects of long distance shipping from China or other international countries, and ensures that whatever you bring into your home or body is sourced from our neighbors’ hands and lands.

It has been evident in the last several decades that terminology such has “clean energy” has been politicized. Certain phrases serve as code words that, while have a meaning and purpose, also distract and divide us — Montanans, Americans, people — from engaging in shared goals despite having different motivations and approaches.

A shared goal all of us should have, as human beings, is living in a world that allows our families and neighbors, animals, and lands to flourish.

By making phrases such as “clean” or “sustainable” into politicized terms, we fail to come together to adequately monitor and address concerns to our water and air, which leads to egregious health issues such as lung cancer, menstrual and fertility issues, Alzheimer’s, kidney failure, and cancer. It affects our cattle and livestock, even our beloved pets. Not to mention, if you enjoy fishing and hunting, any contamination to the water table and air quality will directly impact the fish and wildlife, restricting your favorite hobbies.

Is that what we want in Montana, to end up like the citizens in Appalachia or the southern gulf coast who can’t access the same waters and lands as they did twenty years ago? We don’t need Butte to remind us what happens when we look the other way, but it sure helps to have them nearby as an example.

We can change our future by investing in a variety of different energy sources to ensure the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the lands of which we recreate on remain clean and healthy for ourselves and generations to come.

I encourage you, listener, to consider supporting the investment in finding expanded methods to fuel our world. It is not black and white; coal and oil and natural gas will be our primary sources of fuel (and labor, for many) until they are not. They play a massive role in our economy, workforce, and the functioning of our world that to denounce these sources as wholesale is failing to see the complexity of the larger picture.

But in the meantime, we can also strive towards investing and building the infrastructure necessary to alleviate our dependency on these energy sources, to increase jobs and income opportunities for our labor force so that they, too, can benefit from expanded energy sources.

It does not have to be one or the other, we can work together. And we should.

Whether you’re a secular progressive who uses language like “climate change”, a spiritualist who leans toward names like “gaia” or “mother earth”, or a christian conservative who views it as “tending to God’s creation as a responsible steward”, whatever your approach or wording is that we may not all share, what we do collectively share, is Montana as a home.

Maybe you’re a tree-hugging hippie democrat or a christian farmer republican, our political arguments collapse when the air becomes full of toxic smoke and the water goes foggy with metals. Our people need to work, too, and they deserve to work for companies that recognize and invest in diverse energy sources.

Perhaps you’re an environmental non-profit crusader, or maybe you’re employed at any of our local industrial factories and refineries. Whatever your income and mission is, we are all neighbors in Montana.

National parks would not exist without the investment of railroad titans and automotive kings. Without copper and mining, entire towns wouldn’t be here today, nor would many philanthropic investments in parks and schools.

Historically, public and private partnerships and initiatives toward our environment and lands have crossed political and economic lines for centuries.

While the politics of 2025 may attempt to constantly dehumanize us from one another, we can not afford to stand in our political party purity and antagonism. We must work together, despite having differences in other areas, and find some common ground. And that common ground, is Montana.

If you are a citizen or an employer in Montana, there are tax breaks available to you for starting to make modifications to your home or business with expanded sources of energy. You do not have to commit to going fully green, but small changes to your home and business not only help our local region’s lands, water, and air, but put money in your pockets. MREA has worked hard this legislative session to do so. Come learn what those incentives and tax breaks are at our fair. We will have a workshop available.

If you are a student in any of our schools and want to display your ideas within the realm of sustainable agriculture and livestock, please come and table your project. We can’t wait to uplift the minds and ideas of our next leaders.

It is morally ethical, and scripturally commanded, to be in connection with our fellow humanity and tend to what is so divinely loaned to us. How precious it is to walk the same lands that the indigenous roamed for a thousand years, how prayerfully thoughtful of us to see our own backyard as a form of protecting our own slice of heaven.

I care little what your political allyship is when I call forth you, my listener, to help me on my mission. I seek to raise money for this fair, to move the needle just a tiny bit, to elevate local businesses and leaders to lead educational workshops on the activities of our local and state industries towards a more breathable and drinkable and powerful tomorrow.

Please consider putting your dollars where your values are by donating or sponsoring the MREA Fair. The amount is tax-deductible, meaning you can stave off the hand of Uncle Sam, too, while you’re at it.

Go to montanarenewables.org and click on the Clean Energy Fair tab. We made it fast, secure and easy for you to support a more enjoyable Montana future through a few taps on your phone. Easy breezy, clean and easy.

Montanans, you’re good people. You live on good lands. Let us be reminded of that. Let’s drop the political divisions and distractions and remember the soil beneath our feet, the refreshing chill of a stream on a warm day, and the sunset’s masterful painting on those mountains.

Support the Great Falls Clean Energy Fair today.