Column | Wockner: Is the Colorado River in a climate doom loop?

First and foremost, in a new report from the University of Colorado Boulder, the best scientists in the business predict that flows in the Colorado River could drop 30% more by 2050 due to climate change, and that preclimate flow levels are not coming back. Second, a new scientific study by the group Tell The Dam Truth describes how the massive damming of the Colorado River is a source of greenhouse gas emissions. I call this a “climate doom loop,” where the damming and diversion of the Colorado River causes GHG emissions that dries out the Southwest, causing decision-makers to try to accelerate the damming and diversion that accelerates the GHG emissions and the drying. Further, hydroelectricity that uses dams and reservoirs to generate power causes GHG emissions, and those emissions increase as climate change intensifies. The inconvenient truth of the climate doom loop on the Colorado River will force us to look forward, not backward, for solutions to address it.