NorthWestern Energy fails to respond to the climate crisis

Colstrip 4(updated 22 Nov 2025) Outgoing NorthWestern CEO Bob Rowe gave farewell comments in his December 28, 2022, Missoulian opinion column. Rowe lauded the company’s success in building a company culture focused on providing safe and reliable service. We couldn’t agree more. NorthWestern’s people deliver high quality services. Rowe also points out that the utility’s generation resources have been 60% carbon free. This is understood to be due largely to its hydropower resources and has been better than the national average for utilities of 40% carbon free, as stated by Rowe. That’s all good. Unfortunately, growth of the utility’s generation resources will be increasingly carbon intensive. It recently completed construction of its gas-fired, 175 MW Yellowstone Generating Station at Laurel, Montana. As noted by the Montana Environmental Information center, the Laurel plant will emit about 25 million tons of climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions during its lifetime. The Montana Department of Environmental Quality turned its back on our Montana Constitution and our right to a clean and healthful environment. It completely failed to address the climate impact of greenhouse gas emissions when it released its environmental assessment of the Laurel plant. NorthWestern Energy’s climate impact will continue to increase even more. Effective Jan. 1, 2026, NorthWestern will acquire, at no cost, Puget Sound Energy’s 370-megawatt share and Avista's 222-megawatt share of the Colstrip Plant. Colstrip emits about 11 million tons of CO2 annually, making it one of the largest CO2 polluters in the U.S.

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The Fifth National Climate Assessment

(updated 22 Nov 2025)

National  climate assessments have been authored by the scientists of 15 federal agencies including Commerce, Defense, Agriculture, NOAA, NASA, DHS, NSF, and 8 others.

From the Union of Concerned Scientists:
Authors for Forthcoming Sixth National Climate Assessment Disbanded by Trump Administration
Statement by Dr. Rachel Cleetus, NCA6 Report Author and a UCS Expert, April 28, 2025
WASHINGTON—Authors of the Sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA6)—a quadrennial report mandated by Congress since 1990—were disbanded today by the Trump administration with a notice that the assessment is being “reevaluated.” This follows the mass firing of staff at the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) earlier this month. Such a move at this point in the process of drafting a compressive scientific report, often exceeding 1,000 pages and developed by 13 federal agencies and hundreds of external scientists and experts, puts the report in jeopardy. It indicates the threat of a compromised scientific process and could even place the report at risk of being illegally cancelled altogether.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment Report, issued in November, 2023 incudes this warning:

Future climate change impacts depend on choices made today

The more the planet warms, the greater the impacts. Without rapid and deep reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, the risks of accelerating sea level rise, intensifying extreme weather, and other harmful climate impacts will continue to grow. Each additional increment of warming is expected to lead to more damage and greater economic losses compared to previous increments of warming, while the risk of catastrophic or unforeseen consequences also increases.

The fundamental causes of climate change

Do you ever want resources to refute the climate science doubters? Here are some of the best:

1. NASA – Excellent reviews of the fundamental causes of climate change and the sources that comprise the “97% consensus” among the world’s climate scientists that man’s activities are the cause. http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
2. Scientific paper by Goddard Institute for Space Studies scientists stating 350ppm CO2 as the concentration above which catastrophic climate change is likely. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00410c.html

Where are we going? Atmospheric CO2 measured at Muana Loa Observatory, Hawaii, is steadily increasing.
March, 1958 – 315.7ppm
December, 1975 – 330.8
December, 1995 – 360.7 (29.9ppm increase in 20 yr)
December, 2015 – 401.9 (41.2ppm increase in 20 yr)
November, 2022: (44.6ppm increase in 20 yr)
November, 2023 – 422.36 (46.4ppm increase in 20 yr)
October, 2024 – 422.38
October, 2025 – 424.87