The Colorado River, lifeblood of the West, is out of time.
Seven U.S. states, plus two in Mexico, use water from the river, irrigating more than 5 million acres of crops and supporting more than 35 million people. We now take much more water out of the river every year than Mother Nature delivers, an imbalance resulting from political and legal decisions made a century ago and the increasing consequences of human-caused climate change, enabled by reservoirs that have provided a false sense of abundance and security.
Yesterday (Jan. 30), six of the seven U.S. states submitted a proposal to reduce annual Colorado River water use. The short-term goal is to halt the reservoirs’ precipitous decline, protect hydropower generation, and buy time to draft a long-term plan.
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When the Supreme Court released its decision overturning Roe v. Wade on June 24, Alexis McGill Johnson was ready. As president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, she had been warning of this outcome long before a leaked draft of the Court’s opinion was published in May. The reproductive rights movement had been working to prevent this moment for years. And yet, McGill Johnson still found it devastating.
Access to abortion quickly changed in about half the country, as providers, patients, lawyers, activists, and state officials scrambled to interpret confusing, overlapping laws–some of which hadn’t been in effect for de…