Wildfires. Droughts. Extreme heat. Coloradoans know how devastating these climate disasters can be to our lives and our livelihoods. Perhaps that’s why 72% of Colorado residents believe in climate change, and 60% believe the President and Congress should do more about it.

Instead, thanks to Donald Trump, Cory Gardner, and their allies in Congress, we’re going backward — denying the reality of the climate crisis, ignoring experts, and putting our health and our jobs at risk.

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THE CRISIS

The facts are clear: Donald Trump has failed to act on climate change. His inaction puts the health, safety, and livelihoods of Coloradans at risk. And with every day, the costs — aided and abetted by allies like Cory Gardner — become less and less possible to ignore.

As temperatures rise due to climate change, wildfires flare across the Southwest — including in Colorado, where hundreds of thousands of acres burned in recent years.

The outdoor economy that is so important to so many across the state is at risk.

And across the state, communities of color bear an enormous and disproportionate burden from pollution — which is why Northeast Denver is home to the nation’s most polluted ZIP code.

There is hope. Colorado has the opportunity to build a more just, less polluted, and economically prosperous future. But it requires bold action on climate change — not the anti-science agenda of Donald Trump.

It’s time to take action on climate.

THE COSTS

Dirty air and dirty water. Extreme heat. Threats to our outdoors and our economy. Environmental injustice. The costs of Donald Trump’s war on science grow every single day:

• By 2050, the average number of extreme heat days in Colorado is expected to grow eight times — from 10 per year to 80. Today, more than 100,000 Coloradoans are especially vulnerable to extreme heat. What will that number look like 30 years from now?

• Colorado’s outdoor recreation economy supports 229,000 jobs. But Trump’s inaction puts it all at risk: Ski season is shortening as April snowpack declines. A rise in water temperatures is expected to reduce trout habitat by half. And already, analysis shows that Trump’s war on science has cost Coloradoans 6,000 good-paying clean energy jobs.

• Already, more than 3.5 million Colorodoans live in counties that experience unhealthy air. In 2019, 10 Colorado counties received an F grade for their number of days of unhealthy ozone levels – and La Plata County received an F grade for particle pollution.

• And the cost of anti-science policies on communities of color in Colorado is staggering. Globeville and Elyria-Swansea in Northeast Denver is the single most polluted ZIP code in the entire country — with one report finding that young people there visited the emergency room for asthma 120 to 140 percent more often than in Denver as a whole. And in 2016, a Colorado natural gas company moved the site of 24 proposed fracking wells from nearby a predominantly white school to nearby a predominantly Latinx middle school after the community complained.

FROM OUR RESEARCH TEAM

• Climate Disasters in Colorado
• What Do Trump’s Attacks On Science Mean For Colorado?
• Siding With Special Interests: Cory Gardner
• State of Play: Colorado