KNOW THE WEST 20 signs that the climate crisis has come ...20 signs that the climate crisis has come...

11/26/20, 3:06 PM20 signs that the climate crisis has come home to roost - High Country News

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20 signs that the climate crisis has come hometo roostFrom Alaska to Wyoming, evidence shows the climate is off-kilter in the West.

Jonathan Thompson | Nov. 26, 2020 | From the print edition

n September, President Donald Trump visited fire-ravaged Californiaand declared that the wildfires that had already burned across

millions of acres were the result of forest mismanagement, not awarming climate. “When trees fall down after a short period of time,they become very dry — really like a matchstick. No more water pouringthrough, and they can explode,” he said. “Also leaves. When you havedried leaves on the ground, it’s just fuel for the fires.”

Trump is right about one thing: Global warming isn’t the only reasonthe West is burning. The growing number of people in the woods hasincreased the likelihood of human-caused ignitions, while more than acentury of aggressive fire suppression has contributed to the fires’severity. In addition, unchecked development in fire-prone areas hasresulted in greater loss of life and property.

Yet, much as California Gov. Gavin Newsom told Trump, it’s impossible to deny therole a warming planet plays in today’s blazes. “Something’s happening to theplumbing of the world,” Newsom said. “And we come from a perspective, humbly,where we submit the science is in and observed evidence is self-evident that climatechange is real, and that is exacerbating this.”

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The accompanying graphic includes a few examples of the evidence Newsommentioned. But then, you only have to step outside for a moment and feel thescorching heat, witness the dwindling streams, and choke on the omnipresentsmoke to know that something’s way off-kilter, climate-wise.

But during his September stop outside Sacramento, California, under a blanket ofsmoke, Trump merely grinned and shrugged it off, again asserting that scientistsdon’t know what’s happening with the climate. And, anyway, he said: “It’ll startgetting cooler. You just watch.”

1. Lewistown, Montana, (70 degrees Fahrenheit) andKlamath Falls, Oregon, (65 degrees) set high-temperature records for the month of February.

2. California had its driest February on record.

3. In April, parts of southern Arizona and Californiasaw the mercury climb past 100 degrees Fahrenheitfor multiple days in a row, shattering records.

4. Nome, Alaska, experienced its warmest May sincerecord-keeping began in the early 1900s.

5. Seven large fires burned across more than 75,000acres in Arizona during May, and in early June,lightning ignited the Bighorn Fire in the SantaCatalina Mountains near Tucson, ultimately torching120,000 acres. A week later, the Bush Fire broke out inMaricopa County and became the fifth largest in thestate’s history.

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6. On July 10, Alamosa, Colorado, set a temperaturerecord for a monthly low (37 degrees Fahrenheit).Later that day, it set another record for the monthlyhigh (92 degrees).

7. Phoenix, Arizona, set an all-time record for monthlymean temperature in July (98.3 degrees), only to seethat record fall in August (99.1 degrees Fahrenheit).The temperature in the burgeoning city exceeded 100degrees on 145 days in 2020 — another record.

8. Westwide in August, 214 monthly and 18 all-timehigh-temperature records were tied or broken,including in Porthill, Idaho (103 degrees), Mazama,Washington (103 degrees) and Goodwin Peak, Oregon(101 degrees).

9. By the end of October, Phoenix had experienced 197heat-associated deaths — about five times the yearlyaverage during the early 2000s.

10. In Death Valley National Park, the mercury hit 130on Aug. 16, breaking the previous all-time record set in2013.

11. Across the Western U.S., hundreds of monthly andall-time high-temperature records were broken inAugust, including in several places in Idaho andWashington, where the mercury climbed above 100degrees.

12. Warm temperatures in Alaska caused ice on theChukchi Sea to melt, leaving record-tying amounts ofopen sea.

13. During monsoon season (June through August),Phoenix received just 1 inch of rain, or about 37% ofaverage, and then received no precipitation at all inSeptember or October.

14. Grand Junction, Colorado, experienced its driestJuly and August on record. On July 31, lightningignited the nearby Pine Gulch Fire, which grew to139,000 acres, making it (briefly) the largest in statehistory, only to be eclipsed by the 207,000-acreCameron Peak Fire in the northern part of the state.

15. Colorado’s wildfire season was not only its mostsevere on record, but most of the fires also burned farlater in the year than normal. In mid-October, whenColorado’s mountains would normally be covered withsnow, the East Troublesome Fire west of Boulder tore

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through high-elevation forests and homes to becomethe state’s second-largest fire ever. Shortly thereafter,the Ice Fire broke out at nearly 10,000 feet above sealevel in what was once known as the “asbestos forest”near Silverton, burning over 500 acres.

16. A dry thunderstorm that generated more than8,000 recorded lightning strikes hit Central andNorthern California in late July, igniting multiplemegafires. The resulting August Complex became thelargest fire in state history, and together with the SCULightning Complex, the LNU Lightning Complex andthe North Complex fires, it burned across more than 2million acres, destroyed 5,000 structures and killed 22people.

17. Smoke from California’s fires spread across theregion, causing particulate matter to build up to levels that were hazardous to health and significantly diminishingsolar energy output.

18. In September, several fires were sparked in Oregon’s tinder-dry forests. Fueled by high winds, they went on to burnmore than 1 million acres and 4,000 homes.

19. In August the Rio Grande in New Mexico shrank to the lowest mean monthly flow since 1973. Other rivers in theregion, including the Colorado, Green and San Juan, ran at far-below-average levels throughout the summer.

20. As of early November, Lake Powell’s surface elevation had declined by 35 feet since the same date in 2019, andsummer hydroelectric output from Glen Canyon Dam’s turbines was 13% below the previous summer’s.

Sources: National Interagency Fire Center; CalFire; Maricopa County; NationalWeather Service; National Centers for Environmental Information; National WaterInformation System (USGS); Energy Information Administration; Oregon Departmentof Forestry; Environmental Protection Agency; Western Regional Climate Center;United States Drought Monitor

Jonathan Thompson is a contributing editor at High Country News. He is the authorof River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics and Greed Behind the Gold King MineDisaster. Email him at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or submit

a letter to the editor. (https://www.hcn.org/feedback/contact-us) Follow @jonnypeace

Copyright © High Country News

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11/26/20, 2:57 PMPublic lands top Rep. Debra Haaland’s agenda - High Country News

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Public lands top Rep. Debra Haaland’s agendaOne of the first Native American women elected to Congress is fighting fossil fueldevelopment on ‘the most pristine and beautiful places in our country.’

Jimmy Tobias | May 24, 2019

This article was originally published by the Guardian(https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/15/deb-haaland-public-lands-fighting-trump-drilling) and is republished here by permission.

While she was campaigning for a seat in the U.S. Congress last year, Deb Haalandwent camping for four days. It was less a surprisingly timed vacation and more areturn home.

Her destination was notable: Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, whichPresident Donald Trump controversially downsized in 2017 as part of a bid toencourage resource extraction. She wanted to experience “a living landscape” wherethe art and artifacts of her people, the Indigenous Pueblo, are still abundant. Shespent the trip hiking in and out of steep canyons and marveled at the area’s famedMoon House, a cliff dwelling and storage facility that dates back 800 years.

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The New Mexico congresswoman Debra Haaland at herdesk inside of her office at the Longworth office building

in Washington, D.C.

Jason Andrew

“There are some pretty amazing ruins there, and you know, I don’t even like to callthem ruins,” Haaland says, “because in our culture, in Pueblo culture, if youacknowledge our ancestors, they are there. The spirit of the people never leaves.”

Haaland has now become a powerful advocate for U.S. public lands in the face of theTrump administration. In November, Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblotribe, won her New Mexico seat, becoming one of the first two Native Americanwomen ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. (The other, Sharice Davids,is a Kansas congresswoman(https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/aug/06/sharice-evans-us-congress-mixed-martial-arts) who belongs to the Ho-Chunk nation.)

“My ancestors migrated to what is now New Mexico, where the Pueblo Indians live,back in the late 1200s,” Haaland told the Guardian in a recent interview. “No oneelse can claim that they have been there any longer than our people, than the Pueblopeople. I feel like perhaps my voice is important right now to testify to ourlongstanding care for the land.”

With Haaland in office, “we now have a Native American right there in thedecisionmakers’ room,” said Shaun Chapoose, the co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and a member of the governing body of the Ute Indian tribe. “She is

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a Native American and she understands our traditions and she is in a place whereshe can educate lawmakers.”

She understands, for instance, that almost every parcel of public land in the U.S. island that Native peoples have inhabited or used for material and spiritual purposes.When the United States government used violence and coercion to force Indigenoustribes on to reservations, Native people did not suddenly lose their connection to it.

“Our sacred sites are all over the public lands,” said Haaland.

[RELATED:https://www.hcn.org/articles/bears-ears-national-monument-trump-and-zinke-ignored-everyone-but-industry]

Bears Ears, home to thousands of Indigenous ancestral sites, is a prime example. InDecember 2017, in response to the desires of conservative pressure groups and oil,gas and mining interests, the Trump administration announced that it woulddrastically shrink the boundaries of the monument, which the Obamaadministration established in late 2016. The move was an affront to the many NativeAmerican tribes, including the Navajo, Ute and Hopi people, who had advocated foryears for the monument’s creation in order to protect their heritage.

“Trump turned around and basically told the tribes, ‘hey, you ain’t got no say, just sitthere and take what I give you,’” said Chapoose.

Representative Haaland’s office is full of familyphotographs and Native American pottery.

Jason Andrew

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After joining Congress, Haaland was made the vice president of the House NaturalResources Committee, a key legislative body that crafts environmental laws and hasjurisdiction over critical issues like climate change. It was a plum position forsomeone in office only a few weeks.

Haaland dove almost immediately into the fight over Bears Ears, denouncing themonument downsizing during hearings on Capitol Hill and co-sponsoring bills thatwould restore protections to Bears Ears and prevent the executive branch fromshrinking or abolishing national monuments in the future.

Given Republican control of the Senate and the White House, these bills have amurky future.

Bears Ears and the broader southwest, Haaland says, are “my homeland. It is properfor me to want to protect it.” She feels similarly about New Mexico’s Chaco Canyonnational historic park, the site of a high-desert Indigenous settlement that was amajor center of Pueblo culture dating back to 850 A.D.

[RELATED:https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.4/latest-a-dangerous-game-of-chicken-on-drilling-near-chaco-canyon]

Today, the park is threatened with a rash of proposed oil and gas development onnearby lands, and Haaland isn’t happy about it. In April, she helped lead acongressional delegation to the site to build support for a bill she is co-sponsoringthat would ban all oil and gas drilling within a 10-mile radius of the park. Haalandand her colleagues toured the park’s abundant ancient dwellings and used infraredcameras to observe the plumes of methane that adjacent oil and gas drillingconstantly leaks into the air.

“I just feel like our priorities are so messed up right now,” she said. “We need toprotect every single open space that we possibly can,” including Chaco, Bears Earsand more.

Haaland’s work on behalf of the public lands is not solely about protectingIndigenous sacred sites. She is also deeply concerned about the climate crisis.



email address

Tom Solomon, a co-coordinator for the climate group 350 New Mexico, said thatHaaland “has been a pretty fierce climate advocate for a long time”. Before she wentto Washington, D.C., Solomon says Haaland was “instrumental” in building bridgesbetween the environmental movement and Indigenous communities in New Mexicoin support of legislation that commits public utilities in the state to stringent cleanand renewable energy standards by 2045. That legislation, called the EnergyTransition Act, was signed into law in New Mexico in March 2019.

Haaland says she would ultimately like to see fossil fuel development phased outcompletely on the federal domain. “I am wholeheartedly against fracking anddrilling on public lands,” she said. She is also a staunch supporter of the Green NewDeal, a nascent plan to rapidly end America’s reliance on fossil fuels, restore itsecosystems and rebuild its infrastructure.

“Public lands are a statement about who we are as Americans,” Haaland said. “Themost pristine and beautiful places in our country should never belong to oneperson.”

Jimmy Tobias is a contributing writer for the Guardian. Email High Country News [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or submit a letter to the editor(https://www.hcn.org/feedback/contact-us).


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11/26/20, 2:56 PMTom Udall: It’s past time we confront the climate and nature crises - High Country News

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Tom Udall: It’s past time we confront the climateand nature crisesFor our survival, we can look to my father’s vision as an alternative to our currentpath.

Tom Udall | OPINION | Jan. 31, 2020

A wild female bobcat sits near Bosque del Apache, NewMexico.

Pat Gaines/CC via Flickr

In his 1963 book The Quiet Crisis, my father, former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall,sounded the alarm about the creeping destruction of nature. “Each generation hasits own rendezvous with the land, for despite our fee titles and claims of ownership,we are all brief tenants on this planet,” he wrote. “By choice, or by default, we willcarve out a land legacy for our heirs.”

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Stewart Udall stands at Rainbow bridge, one of theworld’s largest known natural bridges, in Utah.

Courtesy of the Udall family

Today would have been Stewart Udall’s 100th birthday. And 57 years after he wrotethe The Quiet Crisis, it is more urgent than ever that we heed his words — and followhis example — in order to save the natural world.

As Interior secretary under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, my father was thevisionary leader of a burgeoning conservation and environmental movement.During his first year as secretary, then-Bureau of Reclamation Chief Floyd Dominytook him on a flight over southern Utah to show him the “next” big dam. My dadtook one look at the red-rock spires below and saw not a dam, but the next nationalpark. He carried this vision back to Washington, D.C., and worked to establish whatis today Canyonlands National Park.

Canyonlands is one of four nationalparks, six national monuments, ninerecreation areas, 20 historic sites and56 wildlife refuges that Stewart Udallhelped create as secretary of theInterior. In the face of environmentaldamage and species loss, he workedwith Congress and the president toenact some of our country’s mostsuccessful conservation programs,including the Land and WaterConservation Fund, the Clean Air Act,and the national wilderness system. Inthe process, he protected millions ofacres of public lands.

In the span of a few years, StewartUdall and other conservation leaderssignificantly deepened our nationalcommitment to the lands and watersthat sustain us. In addition to

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providing our generation and future ones with cleaner air and water, the lands theypreserved and the protections they put in place created the bedrock of a strongeconomy today.

But now, the quiet crises that my father warned us about have risen to a crescendothat is impossible to ignore. Climate change is widely acknowledged as an existentialthreat to our planet. Meanwhile, the nature crisis has accelerated close to the pointof no return. We lose a football-field’s-worth of nature every 30 seconds. Andaccording to a United Nations report, 1 million species are at risk of extinctionbecause of human activity.

The Trump administration has helped inflame these crises, eviscerating landmarkprotections like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Power Plan. PresidentDonald Trump has already created the worst environmental record of any presidentin history as his administration hacks away at the nation’s proud conservationtradition.

But merely reversing Trump’s environmental attacks would be like putting a Band-Aid on a life-threatening wound. These crises were already worsening before he tookoffice, and the trajectory will continue after he leaves unless we drastically rethinkour approach to conservation.

If we fail to enact the kind of boldconservation framework my father

envisioned, we will forever lose millions ofplant and animal species...

If we fail to enact the kind of bold conservation framework my father envisioned, wewill forever lose millions of plant and animal species — the biodiversity critical toour rich natural inheritance and fundamental to our own survival. We will lose notjust our way of life, but the planet as we know it.



Today, just as we did 50 years ago under Stewart Udall’s leadership, we must write anaggressive new playbook to confront the climate and nature crises head-on. And weneed to act fast.

That’s why I’ve introduced the Thirty by Thirty Resolution to Save Nature — aresolution to set a national goal of protecting 30% of our lands and waters by 2030,with half protected by mid-century. The resolution reflects the will of the scientificcommunity, including and scientists like E.O. Wilson, who say that we need toprotect half the planet to save the whole.

We must also face down climate change with the urgency it requires. To do so, weshould make our public lands pollution-free. Emissions from fossil fuels extractedon public lands account for nearly one-quarter of the nation’s carbon dioxideemissions. Instead of being a source of pollution, public lands can and should bepart of the solution. Knowing that we must transition away from fossil fuels, we needan inclusive approach that gets us to net zero carbon pollution.

And as we transition, we must support and protect the communities, tribes andstates that have long relied on fossil fuels. No one should be left behind in ourtransition to a clean energy economy.

Indeed, equity, inclusion and environmental justice must be our guiding lights —our true North Star — just like they were for my father. After a long career in publicoffice — during which he fought segregation and discrimination at every turn — mydad spent his final chapter fighting alongside the widows of Navajo uranium miners.His mission was to ensure that families hurt by the federal government’s nuclearweapons activities were justly compensated, because he understood that low-income communities, communities of color and Native communities often bear theworst consequences of the environmental desecration and destruction too oftencaused by the rich and powerful.

Our conservation work must provide equitable access to nature and a justdistribution of its benefits. We must ensure environmental justice for all. The futureof our planet — and of humanity itself — depends on it.



Today, on what would be my father’s 100th birthday, let us remember a man whosaw a national park where others saw a gigantic dam — a man who clearly saw theperil in mortgaging the land for short-term economic incentives.

[RELATED:https://www.hcn.org/issues/367/17613/]

Just a few years before his passing, my father and my mother, Lee, published a letterto their grandchildren in High Country News. This was their call: “Go well, do well,my children. Cherish sunsets, wild creatures and wild places. Have a love affair withthe wonder and beauty of the earth.”

Now, with the wonder and beauty of the earth under threat, we must listen toStewart Udall’s plea: that we do well — by the planet, and by future generations.

Tom Udall is a United States Senator representing New Mexico. A member of theDemocratic party, he has also served as a U.S. Representative and New Mexico's StateAttorney General. Email High Country News at [email protected](mailto:[email protected]) or submit a letter to the editor(https://www.hcn.org/feedback/contact-us).

Thumbnail image via Senator Tom Udall’s office.


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