Nobel Peace Prize recipient Steven Running brought a slide-show full of "inconvenient truths" about the anticipated future of Montana and the world to the Helena Middle School Wednesday evening.

Backed by decades of scientific research, Running told a capacity crowd in the school auditorium that unless changes in carbon emissions and fossil fuel consumptions are made, the record-high temperatures seen in Montana last July could be the norm in 50 years.

Those hotter temperatures have a ripple effect, too.

"How many streams are closed to fishing in July and August due to low flows, high temperatures and limited dissolved oxygen?" Running asked rhetorically. "I think that whole issue starts with our snow melting earlier, and I think we're in for more of it."

And "snow" might end up as just a memory in some communities. Based on the consistent drop in the amount of snowfall, coupled with warmer winter temperatures, Running predicted that by the year 2060, Missoula -- and possibly other sites in Montana -- will not see snow any more.

In addition, the lack of sustained, below-zero temperatures the Treasure State already is experiencing means that fewer mountain pine beetles are freezing to death in the winter, Running said, which allows the populations to explode and attack more trees.

"We've had pine beetle attacks before, but what we see differently now is those are continuing for longer periods of time in larger areas, and in areas that never had beetle kill before," Running said.

"... We used to have at least a few nights of 10 or 20 below, now it's maybe just one or two nights and it's just a few degrees below zero. I know it's kind of odd to complain it's not 20 below zero, and I'm not trying to make a value judgment of how nice 40 below zero is, but my point is those extreme low temperatures have important ecological impacts."

Running is a University of Montana ecology professor who was brought to Helena as part of a lecture series sponsored by the Helena National Forest and the Montana Discovery Foundation. He's one of 600 members of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change n which includes former Vice President Al Gore n that was awarded the prestigious peace prize in 2007 for its work on analyzing the effects of global warming on the world.

Gore used that information to produce his Academy Award-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth."

Running's lecture, which lasted almost two hours, included many of the facts documented in Gore's movie, and he ended with a plea for people to take just one easy step -- driving 65 mph instead of faster -- to start cutting back on fuel emissions and consumption that contribute to global warming.

He also urged the many students in the crowd to be the trendsetters of the future by revolutionizing energy use. Running pointed to an image of the I-phone, noting that it's a technological wonder the best minds of his era 40 years ago couldn't even imagine, and it's that kind of innovative thinking that could change the course on which the world is headed.

"I think the next 10 years are quite pivotal. We can't take 10, 20 or 30 years thinking about it. The time is now," Running said. "It's an incredible burden, but an incredible opportunity for students."

Helena High School Senior Eric Poole took that challenge to heart.

"I thought he was really inspirational," Poole said after the lecture. "He showed us that kids our age really have to step up and take up the burden that's been left to us."

Reporter Eve Byron: 447-4076 or eve.byron@helenair.com