Save The Colorado by joining the People’s Climate March!

Hello Friends of the Colorado River!

The Colorado River ecosystem, which includes southern California, has been hard hit by long-term drought and is expected to get even more pummeled by climate change in the coming decades. The federal government predicts that climate change could decrease flows in the river by 10% – 30% by the year 2060. And so climate change is a huge issue facing the Colorado River and a huge issue that our organization is tackling. We are joining the People’s Climate March in New York City on Sept. 21st, and we encourage you to come along! March organizers predict that over 500,000 people will be at the march, which will coincide with the United Nations’ “Climate Summit” on Sept. 23rd. Over 950 groups have already committed to reaching out to their supporters encouraging attendance, and Save The Colorado is proud to join this effort. You can click here to sign up. There’s a whole webpage dedicated to transportation options — trains, planes, and automoblies! — so you can more easily attend. Why should you come? I wrote this article on EcoWatch to help convince you — “4 Reasons Water Advocates Should Join The People’s Climate March.” Take a read! We’ll see you in New York City on the 21st!

MEGADROUGHT! As the drought deepens in California, a new scientific study and a batch of newspaper articles have started predicting a “MEGADROUGHT” could impact the Colorado River ecosystem in the coming decades. For several decades scientists have known and studied historic “megadroughts” in the Southwest U.S. and Colorado River basin, but not until last week did a scientific paper directly connect potential future megadroughts to climate change. The scientific paper, published in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate, puts the chance of a climate-change caused megadrought between 20 percent and 50 percent over the next century. Toby Ault, who is a Cornell University assistant professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences and lead author of the paper, directly ties this risk to human-caused climate change when he says: “As we add greenhouse gases into the atmosphere—and we haven’t put the brakes on stopping this—we are weighting the dice for megadrought conditions.” Take a look at the LA Times story here or the USA Today story here.

The last few weeks have seen a flurry of news reports that included quotes and input from the Save The Colorado River Campaign. Here’s a story about the Colorado Water Plan in the Summit Daily that includes comments from me, here’s another in Palm Springs’ Desert Sun with a quote about California’s groundwater crisis, and here’s a great 40-minute interview with me by Derrick Jensen on the Progressive Radio Network all about the Colorado River! Take a look and listen to all!

Finally, we had an amazing trip last week in Cataract Canyon on the Colorado River! A wonderful 6-day trip with the Glen Canyon Institute and Holiday River Expeditions. Two great photos below. Summer’s almost gone — get out there and have fun!