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In 2020 climate change ran rampant over the Western landscape: the year brought unprecedented wildfires, deadly heatwaves, and withering drought. From California to Washington and Arizona to Colorado, 2020 broke records for temperatures and racked up massive costs such as damage to property, crop losses, and spending on wildfires.
All reports seem to suggest that 2021 could bring more of the same climate extremes, whether dry or wet. Snowpack is low across the West, with drought expected to persist into spring. At the same time, extreme precipitation events will likely drive catastrophe. Just last week a surge from an atmospheric river triggered widespread downpours in California, washing out a section of Highway 1 in the Big Sur area.
Westerners are aware of the devastating effects that climate change has on the region. A new Conservation in the West poll released by Colorado College's State of the Rockies Project shows that 74 percent of Westerners, with majorities across all political party lines, agree that climate change is a serious problem. The number of Westerners who think that climate change is an extremely serious problem in their state has increased by 27 percentage points in the past decade.
As a result, majorities of Westerners of all political stripes support bold proposals to confront climate change, such as making public lands a net-zero source of carbon pollution (72 percent support overall) and protecting 30 percent of America's lands and waters by 2030 (77 percent support overall). Additionally, 66 percent of Westerners support requiring their state to gradually transition to 100 percent renewable energy over the next ten to fifteen years, while a whopping 91 percent of Westerners support requiring oil and gas companies to use updated equipment to prevent methane leaks.
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The antiquated federal oil and gas program has shortchanged our state for decades, leaving billions of dollars in revenues on the table, exacerbating climate change, while also creating an ever-growing liability of unplugged and abandoned oil and gas wells, which could cost the state billions of dollars to clean up."
