Soren's insightful and elegantly written article about water usage in Colorado and beyond will surely persuade you to think twice before wasting this precious resource. Soren also submitted a wonderful piece of art, which is featured below.
I am 16 years old, I was born and raised in Fort Collins, Colorado, and I care about climate change and the health of our planet because it impacts absolutely everyone.
--Soren Gage
Colorado supplies water to over 14 states as well as Mexico through the Colorado River and the Poudre River. This water comes from snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains, supplying water for agriculture, consumption, sanitation, and more across the Midwest. With climate change affecting the water cycle and therefore precipitation rates, there has been lessening snowpack in the mountains. This leads to drought not only for Colorado but also for the surrounding states that it sustains. Droughts and lack of water access have greatly affected humans for centuries. They impact our agricultural, recreational, sanitational, and economic habits. The shifts in agricultural resources caused by droughts greatly affect the livelihood of farmers and the people that they feed. Historically, droughts in Colorado have led to the loss of many crops. This affects the economy and the lives of those that rely on that produce.
There are currently 250.5 Million acres of farmland suffering from drought in the US. It is expected that these conditions will only worsen by 2050 with increased temperatures as well as drought frequency and severity. These severe conditions negatively impact the economic welfare of my community as well as the access to essential produce. Although our current status is unsustainable, all hope is not lost. Techniques to reduce agricultural water use include practices like leveling fields to make it easier to distribute water efficiently and shifting to multi-crop systems that reduce irrigation needs in the summer. Things like this should reduce our water usage, helping to conserve our resources for the betterment of the community. The negative side effects of climate change are all around us, impacting every aspect of life on Earth.
If we don’t take action to fight the shifting temperatures, disrupted water cycle, rising oceans, melting ice, and everything else caused by our negligence toward the health of our planet, the damage will become irreversible. With the current status and rate of decline of our ecosystem, time is running out. We must improve the conditions of our world for the life of every creature on Earth.
Comments