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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Worsening climate outlooks raise the stakes for an agreement on the Colorado River
BOULDER, CO — Everyone who's haggling or agonizing over how to split up the drying Colorado River in coming decades is painfully aware that the river's flow has dipped below what previous generations thought would water an ever-growing West. That's now the good news. A leading Colorado River Basin climate scientist told hundreds gathered for a conference about how to stretch, share and save the river that the current warming trajectory will seriously strain their efforts at balancing supply and demand. The world is on track to exceed 3 degrees Celsius of global warming by 2100 — 5 degrees Celsius (or 9 Fahrenheit) over land — according to Colorado State University water and climate researcher Brad Udall. 'That's a world unlike anything we currently know,' Udall said June 5 at a University of Colorado Law School conference examining the river's woes, 'and it's going to challenge us on every front.' On the Colorado River front, warming equals reduced flows as the atmosphere, desiccated soils, thirsty forests and human irrigation demands all take their share to deplete water that could otherwise be stored in the nation's two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. This year's snowmelt runoff outlook, projected to reach just over half of the 30-year average by the time it effectively ends in July, is complicating efforts to reach consensus on interstate cutbacks. Any future reductions in flow will only add to the pain. Climate change is speeding faster than expected, with the likely effect of further tanking the river's bounty until it provides just two-thirds of the water that the negotiators of a century ago thought would support the growing region, according to Udall's worst-case scenario for the end of the century. And that doesn't account for water that the United States must provide to Mexico by treaty. In the language of water managers, it means a river that the interstate negotiators of a century ago asserted could provide 15 million acre-feet to the seven states that use it could instead average just 10 million acre-feet a year. Already, the megadrought that started in 2000 has dropped the average below 13 million. Mexico's share is 1.5 million. (An acre-foot is roughly 321,000 gallons, enough to support several households for a year, though more river water is consumed on farms.) Measuring flows: How much water flows down the Colorado River? The right answer is more important than ever Against today's startling water losses and tomorrow's even more frightening projections, the states are struggling to reach consensus on how to spread the pain among themselves after guidelines for navigating shortages expire next year. The Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada fully developed their half of the 15 million acre-feet that the 1922 Colorado River Compact granted them and have had to cut back. The four states upstream of them now face the prospect of never getting their full half even as the southwestern states ask them to consider cutting back from their existing uses in the driest of years. The Trump administration's Interior Department will likely need to step up as a moderator in a debate that to date has been left largely to the states, said Mike Connor, who led the department's Bureau of Reclamation in the Obama administration. The new administration is showing signs that it may begin to work on bringing the states together, Connor said, and it should help that it still has more than $1 billion in funds from the last administration's infrastructure allocation to help tackle drought. 'The federal government is the key mediator and facilitator,' he said. So far, though, the states at least publicly are far apart. The Upper Basin States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming have said their cuts come in the form of dry winters that limit what farms and ranches can divert, and that it's up to the Lower Basin to cut more from what it takes out of the big desert reservoirs before they drain below useful levels. The Lower Basin states say they are willing to give up more in future years, but that trying to fill the gap all on their own could lead to unacceptable results such as a dry Central Arizona Project Canal cutting off Phoenix and Tucson. The rift has proved deep enough that most of the lead negotiators who normally appear together for panel discussions at this and similar annual conferences did not even show up. Preparing for a fight: Hobbs says Arizona will defend its Colorado River water, wants other states to accept cuts Conference attendees — the experts and advocates who work to protect the river and its various uses — must help give political cover to those negotiators who are responsible for protecting their own states' interests, said Anne Castle, a former Interior Department official and Upper Basin Commission chair who is now a fellow at the University of Colorado Law School. Their jobs are difficult, she said, and experts could help by making clear to their constituents that there's not enough water to go around, and all must use less of it. 'Some of what we thought were our legal entitlements and what we had expectations about using in the future … have to be moderated,' Castle said. Other speakers detailed how cities have adapted by growing while using less water, and how some, such as Phoenix, are able to essentially save water by growing because homes will use less water than the farms that they displace. But others pointed to a challenging future in which farms will likely have to cut back further to keep supplies flowing to cities. In all, according to water researcher Brian Richter of the global scarcity solutions organization Sustainable Waters, current rates of reservoir and groundwater drawdowns suggest that 15% of current use within the Colorado River Basin is unsustainable and will have to go. And that's at today's average rate of flow. If warming and drought continue to shrink the river, more cutbacks will be needed just to balance the annual supply, let alone the roughly two-thirds of storage capacity now unfilled in Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Want more stories about water? Sign up for AZ Climate, The Republic's free weekly environment newsletter To Udall, the water and climate researcher, the new 'anti-knowledge' Trump administration seems bent on worsening the problem by eliminating the science that the states and federal dam managers rely on to make informed decisions. The administration is crippling agencies that are critical to climate adaptation by 'going after anything and everything that has the word climate in it,' he said. 'It's insanity, what they're doing,' Udall said, especially given that warming is accelerating. 'There is no way this makes for a better world in which we live, a better world in which the Colorado River flows.' A Trump administration official, Acting Assistant Interior Secretary for Water and Science Scott Cameron, was scheduled to appear on the conference's second day, June 6. Brandon Loomis covers environmental and climate issues for The Arizona Republic and Reach him at Environmental coverage on and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust. Follow The Republic environmental reporting team at and @azcenvironment on Facebook and Instagram. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: A warming, drying Colorado River increasingly vexes water negotiators
Business Mayor
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Mayor
Does the Trump administration really want US families to flourish – or only the ‘right' ones?
Some of the children were too young to stand on their own. Instead, they sat on their parents' knees or in their parents' arms, waving American flags. Many of them seemed confused about what, exactly, was even happening. But these kids were in the midst of making history: their families were among the first to take advantage of Donald Trump's February executive order granting white South Africans refugee status in the United States, on the grounds that Afrikaner landowners – who make up just 7% of South Africa's population yet, decades after the end of apartheid, control about half of its land – are facing persecution. While the doors to the US refugee program have been slammed shut to virtually everyone else, these Afrikaners showed up in the US earlier this week, their refugee status promising a path to US citizenship. Days later, the Trump administration took a far narrower view of who deserves access to the American polity. On Thursday morning, a lawyer for the Trump administration argued in front of the US supreme court that the 14th amendment does not guarantee citizenship to the American-born children of 'illegal aliens' – a view contradicted by more than a century of legal precedent. This split screen raises a vital question: is the Trump administration really interested in helping children and families flourish – or only the 'right' families? Over the last several months, the Trump administration's policies on immigration, families, and children have been pockmarked by all kinds of contradictions. The administration is reportedly considering numerous policies to convince people to have more children, such as 'baby bonuses' of $5,000 or medals for mothers who have six or more kids. The Department of Transportation has issued a memo directing the agency to 'give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average'. And JD Vance has proclaimed: 'I want more babies in the United States of America.' These moves are, in part, fueled by the growing power of the pronatalism movement, which believes that the declining birthrate in the US is an existential threat to its workforce and its future. Why, then, does the government want to exclude an estimated 150,000 babies born every year? 'It's hard to look at any of these policies and not believe that they're created for the purpose of satisfying a political base that was promised some sort of notions of recreating a nostalgia for a white Christian nationalist nation,' said P Deep Gulasekaram, a professor of immigration law at the University of Colorado Law School. If the fate of the US workforce is really of concern, experts say immigration could help grow it – but the Trump administration has taken a hardline stance against immigrants from the Global South and their children. The administration has not only reportedly turned the refugee agency responsible for caring for children who arrive in the US alone into an arm of Ice, but also slashed funding for legal representation of children in immigration proceedings. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are trying to block parents who lack Social Security Numbers – such as undocumented people – from benefiting from the child tax credit, even in cases where their children are US citizens. The Trump administration has also unveiled new screening protocols that make it far more difficult for undocumented people to 'sponsor', or take custody of, children who enter the US alone. Just last week, the National Center for Youth Law and the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward sued the Trump administration over the changes, which they say have forced kids to languish in government custody. Between December 2024 and March 2025, kids went from spending an average of two months in government custody to spending an average of six. 'This administration has compromised the basic health and safety of immigrant children in egregious ways,' Neha Desai, managing director of children's human rights and dignity at the National Center for Youth Law, said in an email. In March, KFF, a charity that conducts health policy research, conducted focus groups of Hispanic adults who are undocumented or likely living with someone who is undocumented. Many spoke of the effect that the Trump administration's policies are having on their families and kids. 'I have a six-year-old child. Honestly, I'm afraid to take him to the park, and he asks me, 'Mom, why don't we go to the park?'' one 49-year-old Costa Rican immigrant woman told KFF. 'How do I tell him? I'm scared.' 'Even the children worry. 'Mom, did you get home safely?' They're already thinking that something is going to happen to us on the street,' added a 54-year-old Colombian immigrant woman. 'So that also makes me very nervous, knowing that there might come a time when they could be left here alone.' The supreme court arguments on Thursday centered not on the constitutionality of birthright citizenship, but on the legality of lower court orders in the case. Still, some of the justices expressed concerns about what the case could mean for children. Eliminating birthright citizenship, Justice Elena Kagan suggested, could render children stateless. The high court needed a way to act fast, she said. If the justices believe that a court order is wrong, she asked, 'why should we permit those countless others to be subject to what we think is an unlawful executive action?' Both the historical and legal record make clear that the 14th Amendment encapsulates birthright citizenship, Gulasekaram said. But, he said, predicting the supreme court's moves is a 'fool's errand'. 'There's really no way of getting around the the conclusion that this is a call to some form of racial threat and racial solidarity as a way of shoring up support from a particular part of the of the of the Trump base,' Gulasekaram said. 'Citizenship and the acquisition of citizenship has always been racially motivated in the United States.'
Axios
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Colorado returns to national spotlight over LGBTQ+ rights
The U.S. Supreme Court is taking up a challenge to a Colorado law banning conversion therapy for minors in the latest instance of the state's pro-LGBTQ+ measures facing national scrutiny. The big picture: The high court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to a 2019 law aimed at protecting young people. The measure was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, the first openly gay man elected governor in the U.S. Why it matters: The high court's eventual decision could deal a major setback to the LGBTQ+ community, which the executive branch has already targeted with an executive order blitz that undermines protections and quality of life for transgender people. State of play: This case represents a broader legal movement that's using First Amendment rights to reduce government oversight, University of Colorado Law School associate professor Scott Skinner-Thompson tells us. The intrigue: Skinner-Thompson, who has filed an amicus brief in support of Colorado's law, says "weaponizing" the First Amendment has been used to target laws supporting LGBTQ+ rights. "From my perspective ... this law is not targeted at speech, it's targeted at conduct," Skinner-Thompson says. Flashback: Colorado has played a key role in cases involving LGTBQ+ rights decided by the Supreme Court over the past several years. Two years ago, the high court said businesses can refuse to serve same-sex couples if doing so violates religious beliefs after a Colorado web designer declined to make a website for LGBTQ+ couples. SCOTUS sided with a Christian baker from Lakewood in 2018 over his refusal to make a cake for a same-sex couple due to his beliefs. Catch up quick: In the latest case, the high court agreed to take up a challenge from Kaley Chiles, a Christian counselor at Deeper Stories Counseling in Colorado Springs. Chiles alleges Colorado's restriction against licensed mental health professionals engaging in conversion therapy for minors violates her free speech rights. Between the lines: Conversion therapy attempts to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ+ advocates and major medical organizations have condemned the practice as harmful, discriminatory and ineffective. Zoom in: Chiles' attorneys argued that clients seek her "Christian-based counseling" on questions about their sexuality that conflict with their faith, noting she works only with "voluntary clients." Conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom, which has argued other high-profile cases, said in the petition: "Colorado disagrees with Chiles's beliefs on gender and sexuality." Chiles' lawyers pointed to a 5-4 decision from 2018 when the U.S. Supreme Court justices ruled that California could not force anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to provide information about abortion. The other side: Casey Pick, director of law and policy at The Trevor Project, in a statement to Axios said the challenge "has nothing to do with free speech, and everything to do with pushing dangerous, debunked practices." What's next: The court will hear the latest case in its term beginning in October, meaning a decision likely won't come until summer 2026.
