This week we are starting a new “Fact-Check” column, which will serve to keep tabs on the BS too often thrown around #mtpol. Featuring controversial recent claims on twitter, our Fact-Check will not just serve to debunk the myths, but also to clarify the truth. So without further ado, here is our first feature’s big claim.

1. Montana’s economy stands to lose 11,000 jobs from climate change

Recent news articles have featured a study commissioned by The Montana Wildlife Federation, a liberal dark money group, that claims that Montana’s average temperatures will rise 4-5 degrees by 2050 and the climate change will cost our outdoor economy 11,000 jobs and $281 million in labor earnings.

There are some fundamental problems with this claim. First, we need to consider the source. The company that ran the study, Power Consulting, consists of two long time liberal environmentalists. Both have a deep interest in backing up the Obama agenda, like opposing US energy independence and supporting the EPA’s disastrous CPP plan, because they get paid by left-wing dark money groups like MWF to do these studies.

Second, their base assumption that the climate will inevitably warm 4-5 degrees by 2055 is quite the stretch. The climate assessment this study is based on shows a 4-5 degree change as only a maximum, absolute worst case scenario of increased carbon emissions. However, there is no evidence to suggest that scenario would ever actually happen. In fact, US emissions have already dropped sharply over the past few years, and are projected to continue dropping well into the 21^st century! So what this study actually does is use doomsday projections and carefully concealed timelines to fool Montanans into their false premise for alarmism.

But let’s say we take this questionable study and its dark money backers at their word, that Montana faces a huge economic decline to the tune of 11,000 jobs if climate change rises 5 degrees. Can our economy be saved if we adopt their radical agenda?

Not surprisingly, the answer is no. In fact, anti-use policies supported by influential left wing environmental groups have already put Montana’s outdoor economy in a stranglehold. Montana’s forest industry has lost already lost 4,000 jobs just since 1990. Liberal policies like the CPP, proposed by president Obama and lobbied for by organizations like the ones who commissioned this study, will cost even more with studies showing a potential 7,000 jobs lost if it is implemented. That’s a total of 11,000 jobs, as much as this study projected would be lost from climate change in the first place!

So not only has this radical environmental agenda hurt thousands of hard working Montanans already economically, these liberal policies actually contribute to global warming and threaten Montana’s climate future. Numerous studies show that economically prosperous countries have cleaner environments. The more our economy is damaged the less capable we will be at addressing climate change.

Additionally, current forest management, influenced for decades by powerful environmental interests, has failed. Between the ever increasing forest fires, massive beetle infestations and continued decline of forest health, our forests are dying because of liberal policies. Dead and dying forests release carbon gases into our atmosphere, contributing further to greenhouse gases.

Verdict: Here at Copper Commando we don’t buy into the right-wing climate “denier” rhetoric. We think that it’s fairly clear that the climate may be changing and human activity may even have influenced the change. We just take a rational approach to making our environment better instead of getting pulled into the scare-tactics of radical liberal climate activists. Sure, theoretically severe climate change could negatively affect Montana’s economy. But the facts show that the radical climate alarmists pushing this narrative of inevitable doom have twisted the numbers to fit their agenda, not tell the truth. Powerful special interests who oppose economic prosperity and effective environmental policy, like the Montana Wildlife Federation, are more of a real threat to Montana than climate change will ever be.