In Conversation With: Rikki Held ’23

Rikki Held ’23 was the named plaintiff in Held v. Montana, the first-ever constitutional climate trial in United States history, led by a group of Montana youth. After the trial, and while they awaited the ruling from the judge, Held sat down with CC’s Megan Clancy ’07 to discuss the case and Held’s experience at CC while also participating in such an historic event.

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The following interview has been edited and condensed for space and clarity.

Clancy:

Tell me a bit about how you got involved in this trial.

Held:

At the end of 2019, I heard about Our Children’s Trust. They were founded in 2011 and they’ve had different global cases and national cases, like Juliana versus the U.S. and then different state cases. They were starting up this Montana case and getting youth plaintiffs. So, I reached out and got in touch with them about being involved in the Montana case. It just made sense. I had to join. We filed in March of 2020. There’s sixteen of us and we’re all involved to tell our stories and show how we’ve been impacted. We want to make a change.

Clancy:

That’s awesome. I’ve been so fascinated by you, this group of youth, taking on the government. I don’t want to ask ‘what gave you the courage or belief that you could do this,’ but it’s really impressive that you decided, yeah, this is something I can do. I have just as much of a say as anyone else here. What encouraged you to do that? 

Held:

As soon as I heard about the case and what it was, it just made perfect sense to me. The Montana Constitution guarantees us civil rights, including the right to a clean and healthful environment. That’s in the Constitution and so we can bring this constitutional lawsuit and let youth voices, along with expert testimony, speak out and tell all the story. We need to hold governments accountable because we need that structural change in our systems. We’ve known about this for so long, so I guess. Me joining? I don’t know. It didn’t really seem like there was any option. It just like seemed like the right thing to do. It was the little part that I could do to try to help.

Clancy:

Absolutely. So, what drew you to this particular cause. Were you interested in environmental issues from an early age?

Held:

Growing up on my ranch and then also working with hydrologists who have studied the Power River along my ranch. I saw those connections with my home and I got an understanding of how the environment and the Earth systems work. Learning about that in high school, I found that being able to understand the world through science was really interesting to me and then also learning about climate change. It just seems like such an important issue that affects all aspects of life. Having a stable climate system is important for our societies to exist. These issues lead to problems with inequalities, like water and food insecurity. And then they also drive things like movements of people. Everyone is impacted by it. And we have control over it because it’s human caused climate change. I was just really interested in the science. This was a way to act on that. 

Clancy:

Connecting to that interest in science, and your degree in Environmental Science, how do you feel your time at CC contributed to this experience? 

Held:

Yeah, I was a first-year student at CC when this started. So, I hadn’t taken any environmental courses at college at that time, but I did get involved with some clubs and environmental groups and was working with them. Through the course of three years being with the trial, I’ve kind of grown with it and then also learned a lot from being at CC and taking a wide variety of classes in a liberal arts education. I was able to grow as a person, kind of growing with the case.

Clancy:

And it all led up to this June. Tell me about the trial. What was that experience like for you?

Held:

First of all, just getting to meet everyone in person was great, because I had hardly met anyone, especially with COVID and we’re so spread out across the state. But yeah, it was great to meet everyone. I was really impressed by the other youth involved in the case. We’re all just young kids so it was fun to hang out. But then also you see this kind of worry and vulnerability when we were speaking out about our own stories. And then getting meeting everyone involved, like lawyers and our communications team. That was great. They were all standing up for us and doing all this work for us. Some of the lawyers only got like two hours of sleep a night for that whole week and two days.

Clancy:

Brutal.

Held:

Yeah, but we all went to meals together and hung out. And then we walked to court every morning together. I didn’t really know what to expect. I thought it might be boring sitting in the courtroom all day, but it was really interesting. This whole curriculum put into our week of telling these stories with emotional parts and then also getting the science into the court record. That was really important. It was one of the first times that climate science has been presented to the court in the U.S. and put in the record. So that was really exciting for me. The judge was listening to all of it and we got a lot admitted into record. The experts were amazing and went over everything from climate change, specifically in Montana, and its impacts with physical and mental health to the glaciers melting and how our ecosystems and water is impacted.

Clancy:

That’s really powerful, pretty significant, to get that kind of science on the record.

Held:

I think so. And then we went through the history of Montana. Our first expert was Mae Nan Ellingson. She was the youngest delegate in the Montana Constitutional Convention in 1972. She was twenty-four at the time, and she helped write our constitution, particularly the clean, healthful environment statement. She testified about being part of that and said that our environment is no longer healthful.

Then there were people talking about the feasibility of transitioning to water and solar [power] and how that’s absolutely possible. And going over Montana’s responsibility and saying that every town matters. We contribute a huge amount to the problem for our population. There’s consumption within our own state, but then we’re also transporting coal and oil and fossil fuels out of state. Hearing all the statistics on that was really interesting but also kind of stressful and frustrating. We’ve known about this for half a century. We just haven’t done anything about it.

I testified on that first day. I was the first plaintiff to go. I just wanted, after three years of thinking about this, I wanted to get to say everything I wanted to in the forty minutes or whatever I had. And I felt like I got to say what I wanted to. I got emotional being on the stand. Sometimes I ignore climate change and what’s happening, like when I see an event like a wildfire and it’s just one other thing that’s happening. I have to keep going in life. But then sometimes you let it sink in and you think of all these things that happened, like with my family’s ranch, that has been affected by wildfires. And ourselves, physically and mentally. All these things. I was on the stand and all that began to sink in. And then also feeling the frustration about the fact that we have control over this and our state government isn’t paying attention or caring. We need the courts to protect our rights and hold the our government accountable. Yeah, so, it was a great week in court and it went really well.

Clancy: 

When you were on the stand, did you get cross examined by the State at all or? Were you just saying? 

Held:

No, they objected once, but they didn’t ask me any questions.

Clancy:

What did they object to?

Held:

My attorney asked me about my mental health and they objected because I’m not an expert on my mental health so I couldn’t talk about it. 

Clancy:

You’re not an expert on your own mental health?

Held:

Yeah, something like that. That it was just because of the way the lawyer worded it, because I could talk about my feelings, but I couldn’t talk about mental health because I’m not a psychologist or other type of expert. 

Clancy:

Got it. But, still.

Held:

Yeah, but I still got to say a few things. [The defense’s] strategy was really not to cross examine plaintiffs because that wouldn’t look good.

Clancy:

Probably smart. The optics wouldn’t be great. 

Held:

Right. We did have depositions, though. Mine was last fall, in the middle of the semester. And so that was a couple hours of just being asked questions. I was really stressed. 

Clancy:

Definitely a different experience than most people have their senior year of college.

Held:

Yeah. A bit.

Clancy:

So, you said their defense was basically just it is what it is and it’s not all our fault. The problem is bigger than us so we shouldn’t have to change. Was that kind of the gist of it? 

Held:

Yeah, just saying that we’re stuck with what we’ve got. We’re one state. It’s a global issue. They tried to make the point that we have a big state, land wise. We were talking population wise sometimes and they were trying to get our experts to say that the percentage that Montana contributes globally was hardly anything. We were originally challenging specifically two statutes, one was Montana Environmental Policy Act, and there’s a provision in that that doesn’t allow the state, when doing fossil fuel permits, to look at things like climate change or greenhouse gases. 

Clancy:

Right, yeah. 

Held:

And so, we’re challenging that. And then also the state Energy Policy Act, which was repealed right before the case so that they can say. Like this case shouldn’t happen because we’re challenging something that doesn’t exist except the actions are still happening, even though that law isn’t in place. UM. So just kind of trying to avoid responsibility. 

Clancy:

And what was it that your group was asking for? What is the outcome that you’re hoping for? 

Held:

It will kind of depend on how broadly the judge rules, but basically we want her to say that Montana’s actions permitting and promoting fossil fuels are unconstitutional because they contribute to climate change and to violate our, like the plaintiffs rights. Making the point that we have a right to a stable climate system that that’s part of the provision. And she might rule more specifically on specific policies and not make it very broad. We’ll just have to see.

Clancy:

And the ruling hasn’t come out yet. Do you have any idea of when that will happen? 

Held:

No, I have no idea. I mean, it could be any day or not for another month, I don’t know. 

Clancy:

Well, best of luck, I hope it comes out in your favor. And to finish off our conversation, what is your advice for other youth wanting to take on their government or their state, or work to make a change? What would be your advice for others in your position going forward?

Held:

Follow what you’re passionate about, whether it’s the science or being an attorney or being a writer or artist or educator. You can make a difference in your own way. Continue following what you’re passionate about and just stick with your values. Even if it’s hard sometimes, like with this, just know it’s the right thing to do.

Clancy:

You’re on campus now and you’re working with Christine Siddoway, doing some research. Aside from that, and waiting to hear about the trial, what are your next steps? What are you doing now that you’re not a student anymore? 

Held:

I’m going to Kenya for two years with the Peace Corps starting next month to teach science. 

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