As the effects of climate change emerge in Southwest Colorado, two experts are addressing how to adapt to future challenges.
Marcie Demmy Bidwell, executive director of Mountain Studies Institute, and Renee Rondeau, a conservation biologist with Colorado Natural Heritage Program at Colorado State University, are scheduled to speak at the Green Business Roundtable this week. They will address future scenarios and the ability of businesses to adapt to the economics and ecological conditions.
“We’re not trying to predict the future,” Bidwell said Wednesday. “We’re working with data to devise strategies to adapt to new conditions and be flexible.”
Thirty research institutions worldwide are working with climate models involving greenhouse gas emissions, Bidwell said. There are hundreds of possibilities of what our future will look like, she said.
Higher than normal temperatures in January and February in Southwest Colorado brought a lot of speculation about climate change and its effects.
In the San Juan Basin, annual temperatures reportedly have risen 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1980 resulting in drought, earlier snow melt, large wildfires and beetle outbreaks. Temperatures could increase 3 to 6 degrees in the next 30 years.
That range is on the low end, Bidwell said. Some models see a rise of 12 degrees in the next 70 years.
Temperature is key to two major activities in the Four Corners – agriculture and tourism, Bidwell said. Water availability is critical to both.
In the end, the ability to adapt to climate change will determine their viability.
Bidwell and Rondeau will talk about the latest research about how to meet change.