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Bill Stanley is the science lead for the Conservancy's Climate Change Team. A forest scientist, he has worked on climate change at the Conservancy for over eight years, including research and studies on forests in the U.S., Belize, Brazil, Peru and Bolivia. He has also worked extensively on climate change policy, drafting proposed climate-change legislation and engaging in policy discussions internationally.   Go Deeper WRFI Blog Find out more about the Wild Rockies Field Institute, and the Cycle Montana: Energy Alternatives for a New Century course led by Nicky Phear and Dave Morris through the trip blog, hosted by New West. See a Photo Essay of the Montana Bike Trip See photos of a wind farm, “home-brewed bio diesel” and Glacier National Park during the search for climate change solutions. Get Involved Join the Conservancy's online community and you can explore new places, receive email you want and build your own personalized nature page! "We will have to put the brakes on the momentum of inefficient development patterns and wasteful habits and push against the gravity of our current infrastructure toward renewable alternatives." — Bill Stanley, Director of the Conservancy's Climate Change Initiative We Want to Hear from You Tell us what you think about our climate change work. What are you doing to lessen your impact on the climate?

Montana's landscapes show the contemporary effects of climate change readily — receding glaciers, drought, reduced snowpack melt, more frequent fires, and altered life cycles.

So for five days in mid-June, Bill Stanley, science lead of The Nature Conservancy’s Climate Change Team, peddled a bicycle across Montana’s Big Sky Country with a group of students from the Wild Rockies Field Institute to look at these effects first-hand. The group was also searching for solutions that can help put the country on the road to energy sustainability — and that will ultimately roll back climate change.

The group visited the Conservancy’s Pine Butte Guest Ranch to see on-the-ground energy solutions at work and Glacier National Park to witness the area’s glaciers, which are melting because of climate change. The excerpt below is from his field journal.

Browning to West Glacier

We left Browning early, biking in a convoy snaking along the road with 65 miles to ride. The Rockies were still in the distance, beckoning us with their rugged beauty that is simultaneously alluring and intimidating.

With this long ride there was plenty of time to get lost in our thoughts. Mine drifted from here to there…to my wife and four-year-old…a song incessantly stuck in my head…the pain in my thighs and butt (65 miles in a day with 75 pounds of gear will do that to you)…the beauty…and to avoiding that occasional broken bottle or gravel pile. I also frequently thought back to the people, places, and ideas that we had encountered along the way.

On my first day, we met Eric Bergman at the Pine Butte Guest Ranch, a Conservancy-owned-and-operated lodge in the stunningly beautiful Montana region known as the Rocky Mountain Front.

Eric is an expert naturalist and extremely concerned about climate change. As we walked with other guests, scrambling up a trail toward a spectacular butte, Eric explained that the region had been suffering a 10-year drought, that snow pack was melting earlier and that moisture near the end of summer was consistently low.

Another thing that he had noticed over the years is that plants are flowering earlier, and that their reproductive life cycles have been condensed. His theory is that these changes are being driven by warmer temperatures from climate change — and more specifically, by the earlier peak in moisture.

Forest fires and outbreaks of pine bark beetles are also becoming more common in the region, and have the potential of transforming the landscape.

Homegrown Solutions

But Eric is not one to sit by and let others solve his problems for him. He and Lee Barhaugh, the ranch’s guest manager, have done a number of things to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

For their part, the Pine Butte managers have installed small-scale wind power to provide a portion of the power for the ranch. On the afternoon we left the ranch, they were expecting a shipment of solar panels that will be used to heat the modest swimming pool that is popular with some of the guests.

But what may be most impressive is that Eric is brewing his own biofuel. He collects waste cooking oil from two restaurants in Choteau and, through an elaborate but low-tech operation in a shed behind his house, cleans and heats the oil in a converted hot water heater. Then he chemically treats the oil until it can be used to power his own car and help fuel the diesel vehicles needed to operate the guest ranch. Pine Butte's net carbon emissions are reduced by burning an organic source of fuel rather than a petroleum-based one.

Others who live in the area are also doing their parts. Peggy Beltrone is the Cascade County commissioner and is working to bring in large-scale wind power to take advantage of the consistent and powerful winds that are ready to be harnessed in Montana. The wind siting should be done in places where there will be negligible direct impacts to habitats and biodiversity, and some in Montana see great opportunities for wind energy production on ranches and farm lands.

And one of the students biking with us is also organizing a conference this fall at George Washington University that he hopes will feature presidential candidates and ensure that climate change is a major issue in the next presidential election. All of the students on the trip have told me they're mindful of their own emissions and are doing what they can to be sustainable.

Over the Divide

Time gets condensed when your mind is full of thoughts—so it seemed that we reached East Glacier quickly and began our climb up the Rocky Mountains. As we hit the continental divide at Marias Pass above Glacier National Park, we celebrated briefly and then began the long glide toward park headquarters.

We traveled along the blue, profoundly beautiful Middle Fork of the Flathead River, passing by deep green forests, wildflowers, wildlife (including an enormous moose) and some of the retreating glaciers. Like these sights, energy independence, conservation, clean energy and a stable climate would be incredible things to behold.

Riding amongst a pack of optimists ready to change, with these visions of the future in my head, the pain in my thighs and rear were all but forgotten.

Applying the Brakes

It strikes me now that the overall ride was analogous to how we must address climate change. We have to set a goal that we can reach for, even if it takes effort. We will have to put the brakes on the momentum of inefficient development patterns and wasteful habits and push against the gravity of our current infrastructure toward renewable alternatives.

To do this, we will need an ongoing dialogue among energy producers, climate politicians, natural-resource managers, ranchers and others. But if we have a clear end in mind, make good decisions, are persistent, and do our parts and work together, we can achieve the goal.

And after reaching your goal (as I now know)…it feels good to coast.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Dave Morris (bikers); Photo © Erika Nortemann (Bill Stanley).