Longtime Montanans who are concerned about the direction in which our much-loved state is headed got a blunt reason from our governor last week when he said: “Montana is an easy product to sell.” …One only need look at what’s been going on at the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation where apparently the “conservation” part of the agency’s title has been sidelined for maximizing revenue from “natural resources.”…Despite the fact that northwest Montana had so little precipitation last year, apparently the very real effects of the climate crisis mean nothing when it comes to “getting out the cut.” In fact, in spite of last year’s landmark court ruling that Montana has to take climate change into account when issuing permits, Gianforte and the Republican-dominated Legislature ignored that when calculating the “annual sustainable yield” from state forests.