Left: Montana Supreme Court (KGW/YouTube). Right: Fossil fuels factory (KGW/YouTube). The Montana Supreme Court has ruled that the state has a “fundamental constitutional right” to provide a “clean and healthful” environment — upholding a landmark 2023 climate ruling that said residents were having their rights violated on account of the state not having a “stable climate system that sustains human lives and liberties.” The original case stemmed from a federal lawsuit filed in 2020 by 16 young Montanans between the ages of 7 and 23 who sued the state, local officials and a collection of agencies for not protecting them from “climate change” and all that comes with it. At the trial last year, the youths successfully argued that climate change had drastically altered their lives and that Montana officials were doing nothing to “assess the greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts of all future fossil fuel permits” in the state, according to Melissa Hornbein, attorney for the plaintiffs, who spoke to The Associated Press . Related Coverage: ‘I’m supposed to be at a viewing’: Funeral home cremates mom before loved ones could say goodbye, then waits a week to tell them, family says ‘Not being sold for culinary purposes’: Head shop sued after driver high on Galaxy Gas allegedly plows into elderly cyclist on sidewalk in fatal crash ‘Unable to have a fully open-casket’: Hospital leaves dead mother to decompose in ‘inadequately refrigerated room’ before giving her to funeral home, lawsuit says “Montana has already seen (and will increasingly see) adverse impacts to its economy, including to recreation, agriculture, and tourism caused by a variety of factors including decreased snowpack and water levels in summer and fall, extreme spring flooding events, accelerating forest mortality, and increased drought, wildfire, water temperatures, and heat waves,” wrote Chief Justice Mike McGrath […]