According to new studies in paleoclimatology, as well as international historical records, the earth this summer reached its hottest global temperatures since before the last ice age, or in about 125,000 years. This included a week with at least four successive days with the hottest global temperatures ever recorded, which considers over 40 years of data. The wildfires burning in Canada are the largest that nation has ever seen in its history.
In other places, what were until just recently considered as “1,000 year flood events” are happening with increasing frequency in our heated, still heating, world. Ocean temperatures have likewise hit record temperatures as the extent of ice cover across the planet, in polar regions and at high elevations, has been shrinking at an alarming rate.
Closer to home we have so far ducked the extreme high temperatures many other places are facing this year, and the choking wildfire smoke, but we should not always expect to be this fortunate. In fact this region, the Gunnison River watershed, is heating more quickly than most places, with much of the region already breaching the 2.0°C temperature increase since pre-industrial times, that climate science tells us we should strive to avoid.
Within this decade, according to information compiled for the Colorado Farm & Food Alliance’s report: Gunnison Basin-Ground Zero in the Climate Emergency, the City of Montrose is predicted to experience more than one week of additional extreme heat days (temperatures above 95°F) each summer. The City of Delta: 10 additional days.
And as temperatures rise, certain types of human diseases also increase - particularly those spread by insects such as mosquitos and ticks. Our region is already at elevated risk of West Nile Virus, and that is only expected to grow worse.
Many observers fear we are entering not only a period of significant climate disruption, but reaching tipping points that might push vital ecological systems to a new, and more hostile-to-human-flourishing, “normal.” But although the situation is dire and in need of urgent, “all-hands” action, there is still time to shift this apocalyptic trajectory.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is the largest-ever federal contribution to addressing climate change. Through the IRA, western Colorado can begin to transform itself into an American climate leader. Western Slope cities like Montrose, Grand Junction and Gunnison can provide the research, professional services and economic support to help move innovative, results-driven solutions forward.
And our towns and rural areas, like the North Fork Valley, Olathe, Ridgway and Delta, can showcase climate leadership too — such as by encouraging more community-based renewables that integrate with rural economies, like agrivoltaics. Or by developing more programs to help farmers shift toward increased regenerative practices and by prioritizing the conservation of natural places and the rehabilitation of degraded lands, habitats and watersheds.
But to make the most of these opportunities, to prepare for a heated future, and to avoid even worse consequences that will come with failure to act, we need to rise to this moment.
Instead of looking to the past, in the rear-view mirror, western Colorado needs leadership that will seize this once-in-generations opportunity and lean fully into climate action.
For sure, there are organizations, businesses and elected officials in our region who are already doing some of this work. But it's time for all the region’s governments to get off the side-lines. In partnerships, we can prepare our communities for what is to come, caused by record levels (in human time) of greenhouse gasses that our activities have already pumped into earth’s thin atmosphere.
And through regional collaborations we can build for a more sustainable, post-carbon-energy economy to align with the realities of this century. Most importantly, if we neglect to do that work now it will only result in a future that is more costly, more damaged, and more deadly for ourselves and for our children, in the near decades to come. And that will indeed be on us.
(Pete Kolbenschlag is a rural advocate, long-time climate activist and director of the Colorado Farm & Food Alliance which works to provide a platform for rural leadership to support secure, equitable and resilient food systems, conservation, and climate action. He lives outside of Paonia.)
(Publisher’s note: The views in this commentary are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of the Times.)
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