This editorial by steering committee member Dr. Bob Merchant was published in papers across Montana, in print and online.
It’s 103 outside today! Weather extremes are a lose-lose dilemma for NorthWestern Energy customers. Do we suffer in the heat, or add to our problematic electricity bills by running air conditioning? Worse yet, what about the whopping costs of adding AC to try to keep up with our hotter summers?
Brian Bird, the CEO of NorthWesten Energy, earns $4.8 million per year. He never faces the choice between staying comfortable and balancing a household budget. In his recent Gazette piece, Bird argued that today’s increase in extreme weather is hurting their business: “…The last decade has seen a focus on grid resiliency, a priority that grows ever more important as weather events like wildfires, storms and cold snaps become more frequent and severe.”
But Bird intentionally left out the reasons this is happening. Climate change is making Montana’s weather more extreme and hotter. Last year, 20% of the increase in global energy demand was due to extreme weather.
It’s a terrible irony that this problem is directly caused by burning fossil fuels. So Bird’s solution is to… burn even more fossil fuels? I thought CEOs were supposed to be good at solving problems?
As companies continue to burn fossil fuels, the atmosphere continues to heat up, which spawns all sorts of awful weather. This makes NWE’s job harder. Bird’s solution to our increase in extreme weather is simply to pour more gasoline on the fire. Instead of acknowledging their own role in causing this problem, NWE has opted to use it as an excuse to raise our rates, repeatedly. Meanwhile they’re adding more and more fossil fuels to their portfolio, which makes the problem even worse, and adds to everyone’s suffering.
The Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center found “that 4 billion people – about 49% of the global population – experienced at least 30 additional days of extreme heat due to human-caused climate change” in the past year. But being hot isn’t just about being uncomfortable or inconvenienced, it’s deadly and expensive. In the U.S., health problems and deaths from hot weather are far more common than from cold weather. Globally, 489,000 people die yearly from heat, and 37% of these are attributed to human-caused climate change. Heat-related health care costs run $1B each summer, in the US alone.
The irony only gets deeper when you start looking at the economics of NWE’s allegiance to fossil fuels. These are far more expensive than cleaner energy sources like wind, solar, and battery storage. Coal is particularly expensive, and yet NWE is adding even more coal to our energy portfolio, which simply drives our bills up ever higher.
But the true costs are much higher than the number on our monthly energy bills. NWE’s rates don’t include the actual costs of burning coal and methane gas. Air pollution damages our lungs, hearts, brains, and our children. Health care costs go up. Climate change increases housing costs, worsens productivity, increases lost workdays, and increases insurance costs. Consumer Reports estimates the harm will cost each child born in the US in 2024 a whopping $500,000. NWE is working hard to avoid installing needed air pollution controls and air quality monitors on their plants. NWE’s refusal to clean up their portfolio means that they are imposing costs of asthma, COPD, heart attacks, strokes, developmental delay, etc on the public.
This means we are paying twice for NWE’s short sighted vision. Their reckless loyalty to fossil fuels is causing climate change, and we’re stuck with the consequences and the bills. Meanwhile, NWE reaps the benefits of bigger profits.
We can hope that the recently announced merger of NWE with the larger Black Hills Corporation leads our energy monopoly into a new era of responsibility and accountability. We all deserve skilled, visionary leadership, sharing our Montana values of truly affordable energy, allowing us to work and play in a clean and healthy environment!
Dr. Robert Merchant is a pulmonary physician in Billings Montana and sits on the steering committee of Montanans for Affordable Energy.